Since the US election, Facebook has come under a barrage of criticism for its role in being used as a tool by certain parties to influence voters, either by paid posts or advertisement. There is also an on going investigation of Russian involvement using Facebook to have their agenda carried out.
Mark Zuckerberg must be sweating a lot from then and has instructed his team make buyers of advertisements and paid posts to be more transparent for public viewing. Making amends for earlier mistakes. Introducing the service next month, advertisements on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger will have the buyers information accessible for all even whether or not the person viewing is in the intended target audience for the ad. All pages will be part of this effort, and will require that all ads be associated with a page as part of the ad creation process. Facebook will start this test in Canada and roll it out to the US as well as broadly to all other countries by November.
List of information can be retrieved include:
- Include the ad in a searchable archive that, once full, will cover a rolling four-year period – starting from when we launch the archive.
- Provide details on the total amounts spent.
- Provide the number of impressions that delivered.
- Provide demographics information (e.g. age, location, gender) about the audience that the ads reached.
Political ads will also have to declare themselves, as part of the documentation process advertisers may be required to identify that they are running election-related advertising and verify both their entity and location. Once verified, these advertisers will have to include a disclosure in their election-related ads, which reads: “Paid for by.” When clicked on the disclosure, details about the advertiser can be viewed.