Facebook: Lies in political ads are allowed, but you can choose to see fewer of them

Date:

Lies are bad. But a little fewer lies are…a little less bad?

On Thursday, Facebook announced it would not change its controversial policy of allowing political ads to contain lies. Instead, the company will give its users the option to see fewer political ads, as well as give them a little more control over which ads they see, and which they don’t see.

The changes are coming via an update to Facebook’s Ad Library, a tool that lets anyone see all the ads that politicians run on Facebook and Instagram. Starting sometime in the first quarter of 2020, when the changes are scheduled to roll out, users will be able to:

  • See the estimated target size for each political, electoral, or social issue ad.
  • Search the Ad Library more precisely, for example by exact phrases or with filters that include audience size as well as dates and regions reached with a particular campaign.
  • Control which ads reach (or don’t reach) them based on Custom Audience lists. Custom Audiences are lists of user information that help advertisers target ads, and users will be able to fine-tune their ad-seeing experience by hiding ads based on an advertiser’s Custom Audience list, or make themselves eligible to see an ad that an advertiser otherwise wouldn’t show. This change is coming “later this month.”
  • Choose to see fewer political and social issue ads.

Read full article here.

Stan Schroeder – Mashable.com – January 9, 2020.

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