Facebook Support: Political Ads to be Verified by Ads Regulation. Facebook will adjust the rules for political Ads. Anyone wishing to post messages with a strong political charge must confirm his or her identity and place of origin in the future.
In October, this measure was already introduced for unambiguous election advertising, but they are now also applicable to advertisements with potentially controversial subjects, such as immigration, for example.
Facebook wants to make transparent who pays for the ads. Also, the managers of pages with a lot of fans must be verifiable.
Save American Muslims
The company takes the measures in response to persistent reports that the Russian government effectively used Facebook to manipulate the US elections. For example, the Russian secret service was, among other things, behind a call to vote on Hillary ‘to save American Muslims’, which obviously should lead to votes for Donald Trump.
Sometimes even calls for demonstrations and the call for accompanying counter-demonstration were made from the same Russian troll factory and hundreds of Americans showed up at the protests. The confrontation and division that brought to the streets was also corn on the mill for the Russians.
Research showed that at least 126 million Americans could see one or more of these ads.
The adjustments, also to filter out fake news, are first made in the US and in the coming months in the rest of the world. To make these goals possible, Facebook will attract thousands of new employees.