Facebook has announced the expansion of two initiatives focused on increasing transparency and controls on social issues, electoral, and political ads.
The initiatives target countries around the world, including Ethiopia and Kenya who are facing elections this May and 2022 respectively.
The first one empowers people to have more control over the ads they see on their feeds. Facebook will create controls that give people the option of seeing fewer social issues, electoral, and political ads.
Read: Facebook Rolling Out Security Feature For Journalists in Kenya, Nigeria, and Other Countries
Facebook’s Policy Director, Africa Kojo Boakye said that When people use this control, they’ll no longer see ads that run with a “Paid for by” disclaimer”.
“Political ads play an important role in every election. The feedback received from Facebook users was that they wanted the option to see fewer of these on their Facebook and Instagram feeds.” he said
This expansion follows the rollout in the US and Brazil in 2020 and covers an additional 98 countries including Ethiopia and Kenya which will hold general elections this May and in 2022 respectively.
Read also: Facebook Announces Fact-Checking Partners In Kenya To Curb Fake News
Users can also enable the social issue, electoral, and political ads controls by adjusting their ad topic preferences: Visit Ad Preferences then click Ad Topics; under the list of Ad Topics, you’ll see a list of topics including Social Issues, Elections or Politics; across from Social Issues, Elections or Politics, click See Fewer.
In addition, Facebook is expanding the enforcement of social issues, electoral, and political ads to 20 additional countries. Previously, advertisers in these countries may have chosen to use these tools. Now, they will be required to go through an authorization process and place “Paid for by” disclaimers on their ads.
This includes any person creating, modifying, publishing or pausing ads that reference political figures, political parties or elections (including “get out the vote” campaigns). Ads will also be entered into Facebook’s Ad Library for seven years.
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