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Facebook Ends 'Dark Posts' -- All Ads Will Be Visible To The Public (seattletimes.com)
"Under pressure in advance of hearings on Russian election interference, Facebook is moving to increase transparency for everyone who sees and buys political advertising on its site," reports the Associated Press. Here's the official announcement from Facebook's "VP of ads" :
Starting next month, people will be able to click "View Ads" on a Page and view ads a Page is running on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger -- whether or not the person viewing is in the intended target audience for the ad. All Pages will be part of this effort, and we will require that all ads be associated with a Page as part of the ad creation process... We know how important it is to our community that we get this feature just right -- and so we're first rolling it out in only one country. Testing in one market allows us to learn the various ways an entire population uses the feature at a scale that allows us to learn and iterate... We will start this test in Canada and roll it out to the U.S. by this summer, ahead of the U.S. midterm elections in November, as well as broadly to all other countries around the same time... During this initial test, we will only show active ads. However, when we expand to the U.S. we plan to begin building an archive of federal-election related ads so that we can show both current and historical federal-election related ads.
Facebook "will verify political ad buyers in federal elections, requiring them to reveal correct names and locations," adds the Associated Press, noting that the effort is "likely meant to head off bipartisan legislation in the Senate that would require social media companies to keep public files of election ads and try to ensure they are not purchased by foreigners."
In addition, Facebook insists that "For political advertisers that do not proactively disclose themselves, we are building machine learning tools that will help us find them and require them to verify their identity."
Facebook "will verify political ad buyers in federal elections, requiring them to reveal correct names and locations," adds the Associated Press, noting that the effort is "likely meant to head off bipartisan legislation in the Senate that would require social media companies to keep public files of election ads and try to ensure they are not purchased by foreigners."
In addition, Facebook insists that "For political advertisers that do not proactively disclose themselves, we are building machine learning tools that will help us find them and require them to verify their identity."
Nothing like closing the barn doors after the horses leave.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
How about allowing the NRA, gun accessories, sport fishing, Christian services, ACLJ, right-wing news, etc to sell advertising.
What exactly would be Christian services, and why would anyone want to buy any?
"Crucifixion? Good. Out of the door, line on the left, one cross each."
So while I think its nice Facebook is trying to have disclosure in advertising, I find it dubious with their history of promoting their social agendas.
This will develop into being most problematic when Zuckerberg announces his candidacy for the President of the United States of America.
Hmmm . . . will Facebook be counted as one big political advertisement . . . ?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!