Assembly Elections 2018: Ahead of polls, Facebook set to verify political ads and increase transparency

As the Election Commission announced dates for the election in five states and the Lok Sabha polls approaching next year, the giant of social media Facebook has announced plans to implement a version of the political ads transparency portal in India.

In the US Presidential election of 2016, Facebook ads with political content came in sharp criticism after it was reported that political ads were bought by foreigners to create an impact and influence on the election. Since May 2018, political ads were viewable in the public advertisement archive and included information about funding. And the political advertisers will now have to go through an authorization process before there ads get displayed on the Facebook.

This transparency portal is currently active in USA and Brazil and is being rolled in the England in upcoming weeks.

“We will have to do the same work analysing for India what the risks are and then have a policy that tries to capture the risks,” said Facebook’s Richard Allen, who is vice president, Global Policy Solutions.

“(For) elections, there are general principles. Our principles are we want our platform for free and fair elections. But we don’t want people to abuse that,” Allen added.

The recent data breach happened in Facebook and how the 5 million Facebook accounts were compromised to influence certain elections brought the social media portal under question and a proper plan and regulations were asked to be maintained by the European Union, USA, India and other countries to ensure no such thing happens again.

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