Setting a new standard of transparency for political and elections-based advertising, the social media giants ramps up their efforts ahead of the elections to add more transparency to Instagram & Facebook political ads in India.
The update will let its users know the people behind a particular political ad on the platform and also the cost and data of such ads.
The update will take place starting the 21st of February 2019 after which users will see political ads with “Published by” or “Paid for by” disclaimers.
Facebook will also roll out the linking up of ad accounts for authorised advertisers, along with two new disclaimer categories it is adding for political ads — a “paid for by” label, which will be on the Facebook Page they run. If the advertiser names another organization as the paymaster, Facebook will demand additional credentials (phone number, email, website or a “Media Certification & Monitoring Committee Certificate” from the Election Commission)
“This is to help make sure the organisation cited is authentic,” said Shivnath Thukral, Facebook’s Public Policy Director for India. source
Added Page Transparency
Facebook wants its users to know the pages running such ads. With the inclusion of ads transparency, Facebook will also start showing the primary country location of the people who are managing pages or are paying for political ads in India.
This information can be found in the “Info and Ads” section in a Facebook page, along with all the other active ads run by the page.
To sum it up, Facebook is working to scrutinize its work flow and add more transparency to ads and to add a level of authenticity to the accounts and people behind pages.
What are your thoughts on this change?
