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Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook will end untraceable political ads

Mark Zuckerberg says Facebook will end untraceable political ads

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Mark Zuckerberg

In an announcement on Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg said the company would make changes to ensure political ads on its platform are more transparent.

Zuckerberg said it was “maybe the most important step we’re taking”

Calling it “maybe the most important step we’re taking,” Zuckerberg pointed out that political ads online are not regulated to the same extent as ads on mediums like TV. The Facebook CEO said, in those cases, you still can’t be sure if you’re seeing the same ads as others.

“We’re going to bring Facebook to an even higher standard of transparency,” he said. “Not only will you have to disclose which page paid for an ad, but we will also make it so you can visit an advertiser’s page and see the ads that they are currently running to any audience on Facebook.” Zuckerberg said the company would roll out the changes in coming months, and added that they would work with others to set a “new standard” for online political ads.

The company has been criticized for enabling the use of so-called “dark posts,” which allow advertisers to target Facebook users without having the ads linked to the advertisers themselves. In one notable example from this week, a targeted ad about Donald Trump was used to walk back statements made earlier by the president. The new standards would seem to bring some transparency to that process.

The changes, announced as Zuckerberg also said the company would give Congress ads linked to Russian election interference, come as politicians have called for more regulations on online political ads. Just yesterday, a group of congressional Democrats wrote to the FEC asking for new rules to prevent foreign meddling in the use of such ads. The debate over how to regulate them, however, goes back much further. With the announcement, it seems Facebook will be willingly making some of those changes first.