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Facebook has decided to let political campaigns pay online influencers to spread their messages, a practice that had sidestepped many of the social network's rules governing political ads
Before the explosion of social media, it was clearer what's an ad and what isn't - and thus what's subject to disclosures and other rules. With social media, a campaign can pay celebrities and other influential users to spread a message on their behalf, without ever buying an ad and be subject to its rules.
"This is a new kind of activity that simply didn't exist when the rules for internet political communications were last updated," said Commissioner Ellen L. Weintraub of the Federal Election Commission. Friday's policy change involves what Facebook calls "branded content" - sponsored items posted by ordinary users who are typically paid by companies or organisations. Advertisers pay the influential users directly to post about their brand.AP Facebook doesn't make money directly from such posts and doesn't not consider them advertising. As a result, branded content wasn't governed by Facebook's advertising policies, which require candidates and campaigns to verify their identity with a US ID or mailing address and disclose how much they spent running each ad. Until Friday, Facebook tried to deter campaigns from using such branded content by barring them from using a tool designed to help advertisers run such posts on Facebook and Instagram, which is owned by Facebook. The rule change now allows campaigns in the US to use this tool, provided they've been authorised by Facebook to run political ads and disclose who paid for the sponsored posts. Campaigns that avoid using the tool, as Bloomberg had, risk having their accounts suspended. "After hearing from multiple campaigns, we agree that there's a place for branded content in political discussion on our platforms," Facebook said in an exclusive statement to The Associated Press. "We're allowing US-based political candidates to work with creators to run this content." Politicians still won't be required to disclose how much they paid the influencers to run the posts. And the posts won't appear in Facebook's ad library, which publicly catalogues political ads and allows other campaigns, journalists and watchdog groups to view the type of messages politicians are pushing in the election.
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