Facebook said Wednesday it will require those buying political advertisements for candidates or issues to disclose who is paying for the spots.
The social media company already requires that political advertisers verify identities, according to a Washington Post report, but starting in September, they'll also be required to include information about who is paying for the ads. Campaigns will be able to meet the requirement by sharing registration data from the Federal Election Commission, and businesses can submit tax identification numbers.
After that, Facebook will label the organization as confirmed in its archives. The move is being made after several incidents in which misleading or inaccurate disclaimers were used in advertising. This resulted in undermining the company's system for transparency put in place after Russian agents had used the social media site to spread disinformation during the 2016 presidential election.
Advocacy organizations won't be required to submit detailed donor information, however. Katie Harbath, a Facebook public policy director, said the company does not have the power under the penalty of law to seek that type of information.
Facebook also will change its policy about ads on controversial issues like immigration, climate change, and gun control, and will remove ads that seek to restrict voting.
The company took action against ads restricting voting during the 2018 midterm elections, but did not have a specific policy against such ads, Harbath said.
Facebook's ad archive, put in place two years ago, has been criticized for being incomplete or full of problems.
"We know we still have a lot of work to do and we're working with researchers to understand the uses we have," Harbath said.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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