Facebook responds to criticism and publishes a statement about political ads in a blog post.

Facebook has repeatedly been criticized for checking political ads too little or not at all. This is done with reference to freedom of expression. Now Facebook is reacting and would like to make some changes here so that users are offered more control and transparency.

Transparency and control have high priority

Facebook's Ad Library already shows who is behind which advertisements. If the ads are political, it is also stated how much the relevant sites spent on advertising.
Just in time for the US elections, Facebook has reacted and is introducing new features. Probably also in order not to come under criticism again for the spread of misinformation.

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New features in Facebook's Ad Library

View Audience Size: Here, users can find out how large the target group is that a political ad should reach.
Better search and filtering: This optimized search for voters and journalists will be introduced by the end of the first quarter. In the future, it will also be possible to search for ads using exact phrases.
Control over Custom Audiences from a list: Previously, users had the option of hiding ads from a specific provider. It should now also be possible to hide ads that are issued via a specific custom audience. Furthermore, users are able to have ads displayed even though they were excluded from the Custom Audience.
See fewer political ads: Users have previously been able to set the topics on which they would like to see fewer advertisements in their ad preferences. It will soon be possible to set that fewer political ads are shown.

Facebook provides detailed explanation of its position on political ads

Facebook doesn't want to ban political ads like Twitter or limit their reach like Google. Instead, Facebook believes it makes more sense to increase transparency and control for users, writes Rob Leathern, Director of Product Management at Facebook, in his blog post. Many campaigns rely on Facebook’s reach. This resulted in collaboration with multiple stakeholders.

“Through extensive outreach and consultations we heard about the importance of these tools for reaching key audiences from a wide range of NGOs, non-profits, political groups, and campaigns, including both Republican and Democrat committees in the US”
(“In extensive consultations “We learned about the importance of these tools in reaching key audiences from a variety of NGOs, nonprofit organizations, political groups and campaigns, including Republican and Democratic committees in the United States.”)

Rob Leathern also wants to make it clear in his article that Facebook is convinced that such decisions should be regulated across the board and that Facebook now only has to make them itself due to the lack of rules:
“Ultimately, we don't think decisions about political ads should be made by private companies, which is why we are arguing for regulation that would apply across the industry.
regulation , Facebook and other companies are left to design their own policies would apply to the entire industry […] Without regulation, Facebook and other companies would have to draft their own guidelines.”)

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Leathern points out that all innovations are based on Facebook's Community Standards, which every user agrees to when creating an account. Hate speech and voter intimidation are expressly prohibited in these standards. The decision to continue running political ads on Facebook is based on the belief that this will promote public and open discussion.

Related to the topic: Politicians are allowed to ignore Facebook rules

Source: onlinemarketing.de
Article image: Shutterstock / By PixieMe


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