CEO Mark Zuckerberg published a post announcing these changes today, along with news that he and the company support the proposed Honest Ads Act. Although Facebook had never explicitly said it didn’t support the legislation, which would regulate online political advertising, it was assumed it might not want regulation in the space. Zuckerberg writes, “Election interference is a problem that’s bigger than any one platform, and that’s why we support the Honest Ads Act. This will help raise the bar for all political advertising online.”
All these changes come as Facebook deals with global election interference launched from its platform. Russia’s Internet Research Agency, for example, managed to launch thousands of fake accounts that were used to promote divisive issues during the 2016 election. Though those were native posts — not ads — today’s changes speak to two ways Facebook is trying to combat similar interference. Allowing issue-based ads to be published by unconfirmed parties was a major loophole; and by starting to verify large groups, it’s possible that Facebook will be able to catch some malicious Pages, like those used by the IRA.
All these changes come as Facebook deals with global election interference launched from its platform. Russia’s Internet Research Agency, for example, managed to launch thousands of fake accounts that were used to promote divisive issues during the 2016 election. Though those were native posts — not ads — today’s changes speak to two ways Facebook is trying to combat similar interference. Allowing issue-based ads to be published by unconfirmed parties was a major loophole; and by starting to verify large groups, it’s possible that Facebook will be able to catch some malicious Pages, like those used by the IRA.
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