Facebook moves to make electoral ads transparent and accountable

CEO Mark Zuckerberg will appear before the US Congress next week to address queries relating to the harvesting of personal data of 87 million users by Cambridge Analytica, the British political consultancy, which worked for President Donald Trump's campaign.

The company announced important changes to the way it manages ads and pages on Facebook and Instagram, its photo and video-sharing social networking service. “These are designed to increase transparency and accountability, as well as prevent election interference,” said Facebook.

"Advertisers will be prohibited from running political ads electoral or issue-based until they are authorised, Facebook said, announcing plans to make advertisements on its platform more transparent.

Last October, FB had allowed only authorised advertisers to run electoral ads. It has now decided to extend the requirement “to anyone that wants to show ‘issue ads’ — like political topics that are being debated across the country.”

It is working with third parties to develop a list of key issues, which will be refine over time. Advertisers will be prohibited from running political ads — electoral or issue-based — until they are authorised. The ads will also be clearly labelled ‘political.’

The company said it is investing in artificial intelligence and adding more people to help find advertisers who should have gone through the authorisation process. “We realise we won’t catch every ad that should be labeled, and we encourage anyone who sees an unlabeled political ad to report it,” said an FB statement. 

“People can do this by tapping the three dots at the top right corner of the ad and selecting ‘Report Ad.’ ”