In the wake of a massive scandal over the misuse of Facebook data by a private firm, the Mark Zuckerberg-owned company has announced drastic changes to the ad policies. As per the new rules, only authorized advertisers will be able to run electoral ads on Facebook or Instagram. This rule applies to all people who would like to show “issue-based ads” such as trending political topics.
Facebook is currently working with third parties to develop a comprehensive list of key issues the world is facing. The list will be updated regularly. As an advertiser, you need to confirm your location and identity to enable the Facebook team to authorize.
Ads will be tagged
If you are unauthorized, then you won’t be able to run electoral and issue-based advertisements on the social media platform. Moreover, the ads will be tagged as “Political Ad” in the top left corner alongside “paid for by” information. The company has already started the authorization process and you will be able to view the changes with label and additional information in the US around Spring. The new rules and norms will be extended globally based on the feedback.
Application of AI
The Zuckerberg-owned company also added that they have invested in artificial intelligence with a robust reporting mechanism. The users will be able to report an unlabeled political ad to the team for escalation in case the team is unable to catch the tricky ones. You can provide feedback by tapping the three dots located at the top right corner of the ad and selecting the option labeled “Report Ad.”
Compulsory verification
In a significant development, people who manage Pages with a large number of followers should undergo the verification process. The ability to post new content will be disabled until the pages are verified. The main aim of this mechanism is to disable people from administering a page using a fake account. The administrators will be able to extract profiles from the pages after few months.
According to Facebook, the new changes are necessary to prevent foreign interference in the upcoming elections. The intention is to bring in greater accountability for advertisers and also to enhance the services.
The Menlo Park-based company is currently beta testing a new feature named view ads with which you will be able to view the list of ads a page is running. You can see even if the ad is not in your news feed and is applicable to all advertiser pages. the press statement reveals that the company is hopeful of enabling this feature globally in June. The company is also slated to release a public searchable political ads archive in June with all the required information.