After Google recently took big steps towards making political ads more transparent for users, its now Facebook which is toughening its stance towards political ads.
In an official statement released by the company, Facebook says that it will now start showing ‘Published by’ and ‘Paid by’ details under every political ad that is being run. This is a part of Facebook’s continued toughening of political ad policies ahead of the world’s largest election exercise — the Indian General Elections 2019.
As a part of these fresh measures, users will now additionally get access to a library that allows them to search and find out more about political advertisements. These information includes details on how much is spent on these ads and the demographics of advertising views, Facebook said.
People will soon also be able to see country locations of users who manage Facebook pages that carry political ads.
Additional information provided to Reuters by the company, suggests that apart from India, Facebook will also extend some of its political advertising rules and tools for curbing election interference to Nigeria, Ukraine and the European Union before significant votes in these places in the next few months.
This however, isn’t the first time Facebook has announced something of this nature. Earlier in December last year, the social media giant had announced stricter scrutiny and checks before political parties are able to publish their ads. These measures are the company’s attempt of an image reversal post the big Cambridge Analytica blunder, and multiple other privacy and data breaches that have happened since.
