Meta, which also owns Instagram, has announced that it will begin disclosing information about the demographics and interests of people targeted by ads on its two core social networks in July.
Just months before the US midterm elections, Facebook parent Meta said that it will begin disclosing more information about how marketers target people with political ads.
Years of criticism have been levelled against social media companies for withholding too much information on how campaigns, special interest groups, and politicians utilise the platforms to target small groups of people with polarising, divisive, or deceptive messages.
Meta, which also owns Instagram, has announced that it will begin disclosing information about the demographics and interests of people targeted by ads on its two core social networks in July.
The company will also reveal how much money advertising spent to target consumers in specific states.
“We intend to assist people better understand the tactics used to reach potential voters on our technology by making advertiser targeting criteria available for analysis and reporting on ads placed concerning social issues, elections, and politics”, Jeff King wrote in a statement posted to Meta’s website.
The new information could throw additional light on how politicians transmit false or divisive political messages to specific groups of individuals.
For years, advocacy groups and Democrats have complained that deceptive political ads are flooding the Facebook feeds of Spanish-speaking people.
The data will be displayed in the Facebook ad library, a public database that currently displays how much money businesses, governments, and campaigns spend on each ad they run on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Anyone may currently view how much a page has spent running an ad, as well as a breakdown of the ages, genders, and states or countries in which the ad is displayed.
When a social issue, political, or election ad is run, the data will be available in 242 nations, according to Meta.
Thanks to its detailed ad targeting system, Meta made $86 billion in income in 2020, the last big U.S. election year.
Advertisers may target a single individual out of billions on Facebook because to the platform’s highly adjustable ad system.
In a statement released Monday, Meta said it will supply academics with fresh information about the interest categories advertisers chose when trying to target consumers on the platform.
