Facebook to crack down on political ads on its platform

Facebook is cracking down on political advertising on the social media platform, tightening up how the ads are run.

The company said it would begin tagging political advertising, letting viewers know who paid for the ad on both its Facebook and Instagram platforms. And it will create a searchable archive of all such ads.

It also plans to add a feature that will reveal all the ads a page is carrying, even if they have not shown up in a user’s newsfeed because they were not specifically targeted at that user.

The changes will be rolled out initially in the United States, which is facing into mid-term congressional elections. It will not come in time for Ireland’s upcoming referendum on the Eighth Amendment.

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The move comes as Facebook admitted it had been slow to pick up foreign interference in the US presidential election in 2016.

Third parties

Any advertiser who wants to run a political ad, either electoral or on a list of issues that Facebook will develop with third parties, will need to seek authorisation by the social media platform, in a process confirming their identity and location.

If they don’t do that, they will not be allowed to run political ads until Facebook has cleared them.

The company introduced authorisation for electoral ads in changes announced back in October. But this is the first time that broader political issues rather than simply party political advertising will require prior authorisation.

In a blog post, Facebook's head of ads, Rob Goldman, and the vice-president of its local and pages division, said the move was designed to increase transparency and accountability, and to prevent interference in elections.

Authorised ads will carry a “political ad” label, and also show who is funding the advertising.

Artificial intelligence

Facebook said it would also use artificial intelligence to track down any ads that sidestepped the authorisation process. It also plans to increase the number of people tasked with tracking these ads down.

“We realise we won’t catch every ad that should be labelled, and we encourage anyone who sees an unlabelled political ad to report it,” the post said.

The searchable archive of ads will also show audience information and the demographic audience for each ad.

The company is also bringing in changes for pages, requiring those who manage pages with a large number of followers to verify their identity. This is an attempt to weed out fake accounts from controlling popular pages, something that goes against Facebook’s terms of service.

“Today’s updates are designed to prevent future abuse in elections and to help ensure you have the information you need to assess political and issue ads, as well as content on pages,” the post said.