Russian ads have been coming out of the shadows recently. Earlier this week, the social media network released over 3,000 ads to investigator. The social media giant outlined its plans to strengthen its system for advertisement by adding 1,000 new employees that will be monitoring and reviewing ads place on the platform. Facebook disclosed that 10 million people were exposed to ads that were linked to Russian efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Hundreds of fake accounts were created between 2015-2017 and spent over $100,000 to publish ads on politically divisive issues such as immigration and gun rights. And Facebook is not alone in this investigation. Their disclosure on the Russian ads prompted an investigation of both Twitter and Google as well. Facebook, Google and Twitter have been invited to testify to the Senate Intelligence Committee on November 1st about the Russian probe. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made the promise to take the necessary actions to stop foreign governments from using Facebook to manipulate elections in the future by providing a 9-point plan for the process.
Here are the points that will help Facebook implement their plan:
- Providing Russian-bought ads to Congress
- Continuing Facebook’s own investigation
- Enhancing Political ad transparency
- Implementing stronger political ad reviews
- Hiring 250 more election integrity workers
- Expanding partnerships with election commissions
- Collaborating with other tech companies
- Protecting political discourse from intimidation
- Monitoring the German election
Facebook deleted thousands of suspicious accounts on their platform and provided ways for politicians to share their stances. Over the next few months, political ads on Facebook will begin to include the disclosures on them. Political ads will show up on the Facebook page that paid for them so that there will no longer be the issue of “dark posts” which are ads that only the targeted user can see. Facebook is making these big changes to get ahead of the attempts by government agencies to increase oversight and the monitoring of political ads on the internet.
Cover Photo: https://www.ipglab.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Facebook-Mobile-iStock_000043350944_Medium-940×529.jpg