Facebook tightens up rules for political advertising
April 7, 2018
The social media network says it will tighten the verification process for ad buyers after the Russia influence scandal. Moscow-sponsored groups used fake profiles to run divisive ads before the US presidential election.
Image: Reuters/D. Ruvic
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Facebook will require the buyers of political ads to notify the social media platform about who is paying for the messages, the company said on Friday.
Advertising that includes campaigns from specific candidates or public issues will have to go through a more detailed verification process to identify the buyer and their location.
Those who manage popular pages on the site will also face greater scrutiny.
The company said the measures are being introduced to prevent the interference of election campaigns worldwide, after Russian-sponsored groups manipulated social media platforms to swing the 2016 US presidential election.
A number of companies have said they are either abandoning Facebook or pressing pause of their use of the social network. But the company said it hasn't seen a meaningful number of people ready to #deletefacebook.
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Playboy
Playboy Enterprises said it is closing its Facebook pages as the scandal surrounding the social network grows. Playboy said the privacy scandal was the final straw after long having had difficulty posting to the site due to Facebook's strict rules to keep nudity off the platform. Some 25 million people interacted with Playboy's Facebook pages.
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SpaceX and Tesla
Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur behind electric car manufacturer Tesla and rocket producer SpaceX, wrote on Twitter he would delete both companies' Facebook accounts. The decision appeared to be spontaneous after Musk wrote he "didn't realize" a Facebook account for SpaceX even existed. The accounts of both companies each had around 2.6 million followers before they were deleted.
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Mozilla
The company behind popular web browser Firefox said in a statement that it was "pressing pause" on its Facebook advertising. But it said it would not delete its Facebook account. Instead, the company would stop posting regular updates on the account. "When Facebook takes stronger action in how it shares customer data ... we'll consider returning," it said.
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Commerzbank
Commerzbank, one of Germany's largest banks, said it was pausing its Facebook advertising. The head of the company's brand management told German business newspaper "Handelsblatt:" "We're taking a break with our advertising on Facebook. Data protection and maintaining a good brand are important to us." He added that the company would wait and see before it made any further decisions.
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WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton
The co-founder of messaging service WhatsApp, Brian Acton, wrote in a March 20 post on Twitter: "It is time. #deletefacebook." Acton became a billionaire after selling WhatsApp to Facebook in 2014. He recently invested in a rival messaging app, Signal, after leaving WhatsApp in 2017. Acton had a history with Facebook before 2014. He unsuccessfully interviewed for a job at the company in 2009.
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Sonos
The US-based speaker manufacturer said it was pulling its advertising from Facebook and other social media platforms, including Facebook-owned Instagram. Sonos said recent revelations "raised questions" about whether Facebook had done enough to safeguard user privacy. But it said it would not completely "abandon" Facebook because it was an "incredibly effective" service.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/Sonos
Dr. Oetker's out then back in
The German food corporation let its Twitter followers vote on whether it should delete its Facebook account. "We'll delete our Facebook page for 1,000 retweets," it wrote in a March 21 post. It was quickly retweeted over 1,000 times, leading the company to deactivate its Facebook page. But it reactivated the account a day later, writing on Twitter that it "couldn't be" without Facebook.
Image: Dr. Oetker
Facebook responds
Asked about the decision of some companies to leave the social network, Facebook said: "Most of the businesses we've spoken with this week are pleased with the steps we've outlined to better protect people's data, and they have confidence that we'll respond to these challenges and become a better partner and company as a result."
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/T. Camus
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US investigators accuse Moscow of using online information warfare to ensure Donald Trump’s campaign was seen in a more favorable light by voters, although neither White House candidate was ever mentioned in the ads. Thirteen Russians and three Russian companies have been charged in connection with the probe.
Political ads could be blocked
Facebook said the new rules will be introduced in the US first before being rolled out globally, and those that do not meet the criteria will have their ads blocked.
The new steps "by themselves won't stop all people trying to game the system," Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on his own platform.
"But they will make it a lot harder for anyone to do what the Russians did during the 2016 election and use fake accounts and pages to run ads."
He said Facebook will hire “thousands of more people” to put the new system in place before the US midterm elections in November.
Facebook continues to hit the headlines over concerns that its meteoric rise over the past decade has led to a media platform that is all too powerful.
The new measures were announced just a few days before Zuckerberg is due to appear before the US Congress to be questioned about how the company handles its users' data.
Specifically, US lawmakers will demand answers about why it was possible for the British political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, which is also implicated in the scandal, to harvest so much data.
Whistleblower Christopher Wylie told a British newspaper about the data breach by political firm Cambridge AnalyticaImage: picture-alliance/dpa/Uncredited/PA
Last month, a former contractor with the firm revealed details of the data misuse to Britain’s Observer newspaper. Channel 4 News later interviewed executives from Cambridge Analytica, who boasted about how they could use social media, honey traps and bribery to discredit political rivals.
Facebook’s chief operating office Sheryl Sandberg was asked by US network NBC if other data misuse could be expected.
More data misuse likely
"We're doing an investigation, we're going to do audits and yes, we think it's possible, that's why we're doing the audit," she said.
But she insisted in a separate interview with US public broadcaster NPR that the firm had learned lessons from the scandals.
The US Congress introduced the Honest Ads Act last October, seeking to counter attempts to influence the US electorate through social media. However, the legislation has not yet been passed.
Under the Act, digital platforms with at least 50 million monthly views would need to maintain a public file of all electioneering communications purchased by anyone spending more than $500.
The legislation would also require online platforms to make "all reasonable efforts" to ensure that foreign nationals and entities are not buying political ads to influence US voters.
