Meta reveals new rules for ads on social issues, says it’s an effort to bring more transparency around elections

Advertisers will now need to authorise and include disclaimers in ads, or else they will be removed from Facebook and Instagram.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has announced that anyone running ads on social issues on its platform, will need to be authorised and include disclaimers. This will enable people to see the name of the person or organisation running these ads.

The move is a part of the global tech giant’s efforts to bring more transparency, and also enhance the integrity efforts, around elections.

The enforcement will be applicable on ads around nine social issues - environmental politics, crime, economy, health, political values & governance, civil & social rights, immigration, education, and security & foreign policy.

Ahead of the 2019 general elections in India, advertisers were required to go through the authorisation process using government-issued photo ID, and place "paid for by" disclaimers in their electoral and political ads.

This meant that anyone who wanted to run these types of ads in India, had to first confirm their identity and location, and give more details about who paid for or published the ad. This included any person creating, modifying, publishing or pausing ads that referenced political figures, parties or elections.

Starting December 2021, Meta is making the same authorisation process mandatory for advertisers, who choose to run social issue ads on Facebook and Instagram. Any political, electoral or social issue ads on Facebook that do not have the correct authorisation or disclaimers, will be removed from the platform and archived in a public ad library for seven years.

It must be noted that there will be assembly election in states like Goa, Odisha, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand in early 2022.

Elections and Facebook are not the best of friends. Facebook came under fire when it exposed millions of user data to Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm whose clients include political parties from across the world.

Facebook also came under fire when it was alleged that Russia used it, along with other social media networks, to influence the 2016 US presidential elections in favour of the eventual winner, Donald Trump of the Republican Party.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

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