Facebook’s new regulations for political adds
Mark’s ears have been pulled by the Europeans and he does not want any more scolding because of politics, although the new regulations that he is implementing in his "modest" business make it very clear that he does not want to stop enjoying of the benefits that propaganda earnings represent. However, he does not want to get in trouble again and be called to the Senate to testify. The popular social network has established new requirements for propaganda in the United States, but especially that related to controversial issues such as gun control, pregnancy and other political announcements, related to candidates for any position.
From 2017 to the present, Mark has been called to account by governmental authorities from both the United States and Europe due to the numerous scandals in which he has been involved. The suspicion of having been his network the back door by which the Russians influenced the 2016 presidential campaign, has taken its toll. Around 20 topics, including immigration and foreign policy, will be labeled as political or not. Sources of the social network reported that they aim at causing public debate, promote an electoral measure or choose a candidate through these advertisements.
Among the novelties there will be the use of a new label so that the political announcements are from the United States or another country. Facebook also pointed out that to buy ads for political issues about the United States a confirmation of identity and location should be given. Recently, it has been shown that Russian companies were effectively involved in the propagation of political announcements and propaganda messages to collude in the 2016 elections.
Facebook joins other giants such as Twitter and Google that have created restrictions in order to prevent electoral manipulation. Among the coming rules are to label political announcements and ask advertisers state who their funders are.
Facebook will refer to another page with more information when a political label is clicked. Also, as it was announced days ago, that label will ask information of where the advertiser comes from, who he is and how many people have followed it. With this new measure they are avoiding the reiteration of what happened in the elections when Russian citizens created false identities and accounts to provoke a negative impact on the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Among the announcements that will be considered political will be the topics of emigration and education, something that is not surprising since in the current administration of Donald Trump, the issue of migration has been the cause of political divisions. Now in the current legislative elections remains one of the burning issues that can define the Democratic and Republican seats in Congress, although it was clarified that ads related to universities or immigration lawyers will not be considered as political.
However, such measures imply a double challenge for the company that after the Cambridge Analytics scandal was in the center of the spotlight on multiple occasions. The leak of profiles (more than 80 million) as well as the purchase of false identities by several Russian citizens has led Facebook to invest in more workers and technology for the recognition of potential violations of the new measures.
The Silicon Valley Company asked users to report abuses of ads that have a high political content and are not labeled.
It is disturbing that, although the directors of Facebook knew about the leak and privacy violations by Cambridge Analytics and the Russians, it was not until March that the information came to light.