If you want to advertise a political cause on Facebook in the UK, you have to obey new rules. The social media company will now show who buys British political ads in an effort to tackle election meddling following the fall out from America’s last election. Now, when you take out an advert, you will have to prove your identity and provide a verifiable location to the company, while each advert carries a message saying who paid for it in order to increase transparency in the company and the electoral process.
Additionally, there will be an online archive showing all of your previous ads, roughly how much you spent and who they have reached. This archive can be searched by anyone, whether or not they are a member of Facebook.
The new system has been enacted in the US and Brazil, following the controversy around the ads it displayed during the 2016 US Presidential election campaign and the UK’s European Union referendum.
In the United States, thousands of adverts from questionable sources popped up during the last presidential election and the social media company has been under pressure to make sure the same thing did not happen in the run-up to November’s midterm elections.
The new system allows users to report a political ad as fake news and, if Facebook determines that it does contain falsehoods, it can be taken down. Adverts that have broken the rules remain in the archive, so that you can check just how many people it reached while it was on the site.
However, the company’s Head of Public Policy, Richard Allan, and Product Management Director, Rob Leathern, have noted that the new tools will not be able to prevent all manipulation.
“While we are pleased with the progress we have seen in the countries where we have rolled out the tools, we understand that they will not prevent abuse entirely,” they said.
Furthermore, the accessible advert archive will serve as an essential tool, not just for the electorate, but for parties trying to work out what their opponents are up to as well.
In line with what Facebook hopes to achieve with these new rules, the British Government is currently considering new laws to force political adverts to state who paid for them online. Claire Bassett, Chief Executive of the Electoral Commission, said: “Extending the election and referendum imprint rules to digital campaign material is an urgent change that voters need.”
