BlogLine

Facebook and Twitter: More Transparency for Political Ads

6/4/18

By: Amy Bender
In the wake of the alleged Russian interference with the U.S. presidential election through targeted Facebook ads, both Facebook and Twitter now have imposed conditions for political campaign advertisements. Since there currently are no legal requirements for posting political content on private social media platforms, the platforms have the freedom – and, some say, the responsibility – to create their own policies in order to regulate the content delivered to their users. Facebook and Instagram (which Facebook owns) now require that political ads be labeled with information such as who funded the ad, the campaign budget, the number of viewers, and their demographics. The information also will be stored in a searchable archive. Twitter will require advertisers of political campaigns for federal elections to identify themselves and prove they are located in the U.S. Further, it will not allow foreign nationals to target political ads to U.S. residents. Both platforms have cited increased transparency as the basis for these changes. Facebook also has been under scrutiny since the Cambridge Analytica/user data breach incident, as we reported here.
It remains to be seen if these measures will help regulate political content and if more social media platforms will follow suit.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Amy Bender at abender@fmglaw.com.