Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has expressed support for the Honest Ads Act. In a blog post, he wrote “Election interference is a problem that’s bigger than any one platform, and that’s why we support the Honest Ads Act. This will help raise the bar for all political advertising online.”
The Honest Ads Act (full bill) would add transperancy to online advertising. It would require companies to disclose copies of political ads, their buyers and intended audiences as well as what the ads cost. This information would have to remain on file for at least four years. The Senate version of the bill was sponsored by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota, Mark Warner, D-Virginia, and John McCain, R-Arizona.
Zuckerberg also described steps Facebook has taken in the wake of the revelations of its platform being used by Russian actors to influence the election. He wrote:
After we identified Russian interference in the 2016 US elections, we successfully deployed new AI tools leading up to the 2017 French, German, and Alabama Senate special elections that removed tens of thousands of fake accounts.
Earlier this week, we took down a large network of Russian fake accounts that included a Russian news organization.
He also announced additional steps:
- From now on, every advertiser who wants to run political or issue ads will need to be verified. To get verified, advertisers will need to confirm their identity and location.
- We will also label them and advertisers will have to show you who paid for them. We’re starting this in the US and expanding to the rest of the world in the coming months.
- We have also built a tool that lets anyone see all of the ads a page is running.
- We’re also creating a searchable archive of past political ads.
- We will also require people who manage large pages to be verified as well.