Ahead of the upcoming European Union elections, Facebook has introduced new stringent measures in regards to political ads.
Only advertisers located and authorized in a given country will be able to run political ads or issue ads there.
Ads will also be archived for seven years in a publicly searchable archive.
Facebook will block ads that fail to comply from mid-April.
According to Richard Allan, Facebook’s vice president for global policy solutions; when polls in each of the 27 EU member states are governed by local election rules there would be little recourse for regulators in case of a breach of law.
This comes amid the social network’s battle with accusations of data scandal. Facebook last year was probed with the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. The fracas is reported to have influenced election outcomes from Trump’s election in 2017 to Uhuru Kenyatta’s win in the same year, as well as a previous EU election. Facebook allegedly shared its users data with the political consulting firm, which was used to manipulate the electorate.
The new ad transparency rules – already in place in the United States, Britain, Brazil, India, Ukraine and Israel – will be rolled out globally by late June, the company said. Issue categories differ by country.
In the same update, Facebook said it was adding new features and information to its ad archive, the Ad Library, and expanding access to its database so researchers can conduct more in-depth analysis of the data.
Other efforts by the company to safeguard a ballot in which 350 million adults can vote include working with independent fact-checkers to combat disinformation and a cyber security team working to foil bad actors and fake accounts.
As the polls approach, EU heads of state again sounded the alarm at a summit last week, urging private operators such as online platforms and social networks to “ensure higher standards of responsibility and transparency.”
“I don’t want anyone to be in any doubt that this is a top priority for the company,” Richard Allan said.