Updates to Ads About Social Issues, Elections or Politics

Facebook Business

June 10, 2019

Today, we're announcing a few updates on our efforts to help protect the integrity of elections.

• We’re introducing ad authorization and transparency tools, including the Ad Library and API, in Canada.
• We’re updating our global policy name to “Ads About Social Issues, Elections or Politics” to better reflect the topics it covers, and we’re rolling out a list of Canada-specific social issues. We’ll begin detecting ads under this policy in Canada later this month.
• We’re requiring news publishers running opinion-related ads to comply with our policy for ads about social issues, elections or politics.

Making ads about social issues, elections and politics more transparent in Canada

Now, anyone who wants to run ads about social issues, elections or politics in Canada will need to first confirm their identity and location, and disclose who paid for the ad. An advertiser can select themselves, a Page they run or another organization to appear in the “Paid for by” disclaimer. We require that the advertiser provide additional information, like a phone number, email and website, if they choose an organization to increase accountability on Facebook. An agent name, information required for some advertisers under Canada election law, is also information we’ll allow people to submit.

Authorized advertisers will have their ads placed in the Ad Library for seven years with the disclaimer and agent information. There, people can also learn more about the ad like its range of impressions and spend, as well as demographic information about the people who saw the ad such as age, gender and location.

The authorization process is also required for advertisers wanting to run ads related to civil and social rights, the economy, environmental politics, health, immigration, political values and governance, and security and foreign policy. These seven issues were identified by local experts as issues that Canadians may discuss, debate or advocate for or against, on Facebook and could influence elections. Authorizations may take a few weeks to complete so advertisers can start this process today to help avoid delays in running these types of ads later this month.

We know we can’t protect elections on our own, which is why we now also offer access to the Ad Library API, which we built expressly for researchers, academics, journalists and the public to study political advertising. We also plan to provide a tool specifically for regulators in Canada later this month.

Updating our policy name

The name of our policy, formerly “Ads Related to Politics or Issues of National Importance,” is now “Ads About Social Issues, Elections or Politics.” We’ll use the new policy name globally. This new name better describes the topics discussed at all levels of civic and public life, as well as the broad array of groups participating in these conversations and placing ads on Facebook. Many of those groups include community organizations, nonprofits, businesses, film studios and corporations—not just people running for office.

Requiring authorization for news publishers running opinion-related ads or endorsements

As shared previously with publishers, we are using the news Page index and additional criteria to identify news publishers who are exempt from authorization. These news publishers, however, will still be required to get authorized and add a “Paid for by” disclaimer to ads with opinion content, such as publisher endorsements or content about social issues, elections or politics. This change helps to ensure the Ad Library includes all content that aims to influence people’s views through ads about social issues, elections or politics.

We will continue to refine and improve our policies and tools as part of our commitment to help protect the integrity of elections.

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