Facebook introduces rules to make political ads more transparent

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Facebook is introducing additional rules to make political ads more transparent and more difficult to use for foreign interference. The company is doing this because of the European Parliament elections at the end of May.

The American social network wants to achieve this through three measures, it writes in a press release. Firstly, all organizations wishing to advertise in the European Union regarding the elections must first be authorized in their country. This requires them to send documents and Facebook uses technical checks to confirm the identity and location of the organization. Facebook does not write about what documents are requested and how those checks work. However, a ‘combination of automated systems and user reports’ is used to implement this policy.

Facebook acknowledges that “some people” will try to circumvent the system. Still, the company is confident it will present a real hurdle to parties seeking to misuse advertisements for foreign interference.

Facebook also states that this policy will assist authorities in their investigations into suspicious ads. According to the company, this is possible because the advertising parties must provide ‘detailed information’ about who they are. The company indicates that there are many issues that only the relevant authorities can decide. As an example, Facebook provides campaign finance rules. Political ad creators can start the new authorization process immediately. Advertisements that are not correctly registered through this process will be blocked as of mid-April.

The second policy change is also about transparency. All advertisements on politically and socially charged topics on Facebook and Instagram must be labeled in the European Union. Socially charged topics are also part of the policy change, as Facebook wants to tackle all advertisements that want to influence the outcome of the election. This means that this does not only include advertising for a party or person, but also advertisements that specifically focus on ‘politicized topics such as immigration’.

With this label, a Paid for by notification will appear at the top of the ad. It states who pays for the advertisement and, if it concerns a company or organisation, the contact information. When the label is clicked, visitors receive information such as the campaign budget, how many people have seen it, and their age, location and gender.

Finally, Facebook has developed an Ad Library. This library will contain all advertisements that deal with politically or socially charged subjects. These will remain in the library for seven years. When clicking See Ad Details, Facebook says visitors will see the same information as the Paid for by notification. The company is also increasing access to its api so that more people can control the advertisers and the company itself.

While news organizations can also run ads on politically and socially charged topics, Facebook notes that there is a difference between these ads. Advertisements from news media will therefore not be covered by the policy. Facebook says it does not yet have all systems in place in all countries to distinguish between advertisements from news media and political organizations. In some countries, this distinction is not yet made, the systems for recognizing the separation are being released in Europe in phases.

Facebook notes that this policy will not fully address violations. “We are dealing with smart, creative and well-funded adversaries who will change their tactics as soon as we see violations. But we do believe that the policy will prevent future election interference on our platform.” The company also asks users who see an unlabeled political ad to report it to the company. If the user’s suspicion is correct, the ad will be taken offline and added to the Ad Library.

Last month, the European Commission complained about Facebook over political ads. The Commission wants these advertisements to become more transparent, among other things, and at the time felt that the company did not work enough on this. This was part of a monthly report. This month, the committee finds the addition of the transparency tools a ‘substantial achievement’, but at the same time says that more action is needed to test measures against bots and fake accounts, among other things.

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