Facebook Delivers Russian-Linked Ads to Congress, Details Improvements to Vetting Ads

Facebook delivered more than 3,000 online political ads linked to the Russian Internet Research Agency to Congress, which is investigating the role that materials played in interfering with last year's U.S. elections, blogged Vice President-Global Public Policy Joel Kaplan Monday. "All of these ads violated our policies because they came from inauthentic accounts," said Kaplan, outlining steps the company is taking to prevent similar future problems, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg had announced (see 1709250058). Facebook is building new tools to provide more advertising transparency and will strengthen automated and manual review, such as adding 1,000 people to its global review teams over the next year and investing more in machine learning, said Kaplan. He added the company will tighten restrictions on ad content and will update policies for more documentation from advertisers that want to run federal election-related ads. "Potential advertisers will have to confirm the business or organization they represent before they can buy ads. As Mark said, we won’t catch everyone immediately, but we can make it harder to try to interfere," said Kaplan. Facebook also will try to establish industry standards and best practices with other companies and governments, he said.