Facebook announces changes for advertising transparency

Technology companies, such as social networking platforms, have recently faced a host of critics for their privacy and advertising policies. Facebook, in particular, was in the news for several related situations, among them, the political announcements that allowed being published during the US presidential elections in 2016.

Many have accused the company of not doing a good enough job to review the ads, or providing users with accurate information about their content or provenance. And now, with the ongoing 2018 mid-term election campaign, it seems like Facebook is trying to fix these problems before they happen.

At a press conference, Facebook's chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, announced some important changes in the social network's position regarding transparency of advertising. With these new changes, users can access public pages to find a large amount of information about the content and advertisements that are found there, instead of visiting only those that belong to brands, parties or public or political figures.

This information and announcement board, appropriately named "Info and Advertisements", will include changes to the history and name of the page, as well as information about the ads presented. . For example, you can find information about each ad on the page, the source from where they came from, the site that the ads want you to visit and the text of the ad.

In terms of political announcements, Facebook will allow users to see how much political organizations have been advertising on the social network, as well as see what advertisements are being broadcast in certain countries. Facebook should expect these changes to protect them from accusations of foreign interference, which has plagued the company and social networks in general since the 2016 elections.

Speaking of Social media industry, Facebook does He is the only one to make this kind of changes. Similarly, Twitter's co-founder, Jack Dorsey, announced that he was going to launch his own advertising transparency center that will allow users to find out who is advertising on Twitter and how much money is available. spend money on the platform, and facilitate the reporting of suspicious advertisements.