The social network announced on Monday at an event in Brussels tools to make political advertising more transparent.
Background: Facebook has been under fire from regulators due to the platform’s lack of transparency in key votes of recent years, such as the US Presidential election and the UK Brexit referendum of 2016. In the last year, the company has tried to ease the regulatory pressure by rolling out measures to improve clarity around political ads.
What was announced today? Facebook’s new VP for Global Affairs and Communications, Nick Clegg, held an event in Brussels in which he unveiled new instruments to help identify advertisers; they will need to be authorised before purchasing political ads, and users will be able to see more information about them. In this way, the company aims to reduce the risk of foreign influence on elections. An Ad Library, akin to the one recently set up in the US, will also be created and accessible to everyone for up to seven years. Clegg touched on other hot topics, admitting that the discussion is no longer whether social media should be regulated, but how; and conceded Facebook should pay more tax outside the US – something for which the company has already taken steps towards in the last year.
Next steps: The measures will be rolled out in late March 2019. Around that time, Facebook also plans to open new operations centres focused on election integrity, including one in its European headquarter in Dublin. It remains to be seen whether these actions will be sufficient to avoid more prescriptive regulation.
