Facebook to apply advertising reforms in Republic

FACEBOOK will launch transparency tools in Ireland later this month targeting “dark ads” ahead of the Republic’s abortion referendum.

The Republic will be only the second country after Canada to enjoy the reforms allowing users of the social media network to see advertisements. It precedes a global roll out expected in June, the tech giant said.

It is bidding to win back the trust of its billions of account-holders after Cambridge Analytica was involved in a dispute over the use of personal Facebook data and whether it was used to sway the outcome of the US presidential election and Brexit referendum.

Joel Kaplan, Facebook’s vice-president for global policy, said: “We are working hard to build out these transparency tools and roll them out globally but it takes time to do this.

“From April 25, we will add Ireland to our pilot programme.”

Facebook Ireland’s Niamh Sweeney said the programme was aimed at micro-targeting by dark ads, which target users because they are, for example, women living in urban areas or men living in rural regions.

Mr Kaplan said users in the Republic would be able to see all the adverts which advertisers are running on Facebook at the same time. They will be unable to see who has paid for certain adverts at this stage.

Voters will decide whether they want to change Ireland’s strict abortion laws in May.