Q&A WITH ALLY GLAVAS
New Facebook process may deter businesses from political ads, issues
Q: After the last election, Facebook faced accusations it allowed ads from fake groups to skew results and divide the country. The company recently issued new rules meant to clarify who posts political ads. Who does Facebook’s new political advertising policy affect?
A: Any advertiser running election-related or political issue ads must go through an authorization process to confirm their identity — this will weed out the alleged Russian bots. The process involves sharing Social Security or driver’s licenses numbers, receiving a letter in the mail and entering a custom URL into a personal Facebook account. These rules apply to candidate and ballot initiative campaigns, any association boosting a Facebook ad with a political endorsement and any business promoting a legislative policy position.
Q: What other efforts to increase transparency should advertisers be aware of?
A: All political Facebook ads will now appear with a “Paid for by ...” disclaimer, like television and print advertising. Additionally, Facebook is creating a public database for political ads. For each ad, it will include the budget, the number of people reached and the demographics of the people targeted such as age, gender, geography, etc. This specificity of reporting in advertising has never been available before to the public. It is likely to change advertisers’ behavior.
Q: Will the rules make it too difficult for many businesses to advertise on Facebook?
A: The authorization process is lengthy and may deter businesses from weighing in on political issues. But identity confirmation and disclaimers are not required to advertise goods and services. Facebook still allows for microtargeting, which provides a high return on investment for businesses and brands working to spread a message.