Facebook has announced that changes are being made to the way ads and pages are managed on its platform and on Instagram.
These changes are designed to increase transparency and accountability as well as prevent election interference.
In a statement released by Rob Goldman, VP, ads, and Alex Himel, VP, local & pages, the company said, “We believe that when you visit a page or see an ad on Facebook, it should be clear who it’s coming from. We also think it’s important for people to be able to see the other ads a page is running, even if they’re not directed at you.
“That’s why today we’re announcing important changes to the way we manage ads and pages on Facebook as well as Instagram. These are designed to increase transparency and accountability, as well as prevent election interference,” the company disclosed.
Last October, the platform announced that only authorized advertisers would be able to run electoral ads on Facebook or Instagram. “And, today, Facebook is extending that requirement to anyone that wants to show issue ads like political topics that are being debated across the country.”
Facebook said it is working with third parties to develop a list of key issues, which the company will refine over time. To get authorized by Facebook, advertisers will need to confirm their identity and location. “Advertisers will be prohibited from running political ads electoral or issue-based until they are authorized.
Facebook is also investing in artificial intelligence and adding more people to help find advertisers that should have gone through the authorization process but did not. “The company realized it won’t catch every ad that should be labeled, and it encourages anyone who sees an unlabeled political ad to report it. People can do this by tapping the three dots at the top right corner of the ad and selecting “Report Ad.”
In Canada, Facebook has been testing a new feature called view ads that lets the user see the ads a page is running even if they are not in news feed. This applies to all advertiser pages on Facebook not just pages running political ads. The company plans to launch view ads globally in June.
In June Facebook also plans to release a public, searchable political ads archive. This will contain all ads with the “Political Ad” label, and will show the image and text, as well as additional information like the amount spent and demographic audience information for each ad.
Facebook also announced that people who manage Pages with large numbers of followers will need to be verified.