The two social media platforms face US regulation threats for their failure in the past to disclose information on advertising on their platforms. Specifically, politically motivated ads. Twitter is the first to launch advertising tracker tools that allow users to have vital information about the ads. Including who paid for the ads. Available for users to see includes their billing information, the twitter impressions the ad receives and the demographic data of the ads.
Twitter launched its transparency center amid pressure by the US federal to create transparency surrounding election campaign ads. The Twitter tools follow a transparency policy by the company to secure confidence in the users and the state. Facebook followed suit by making a similar move. The company started a searchable archive for political campaign ads for users to gain access to. Users are also enabled to see listings of all active ad campaigns, regardless of whether it is politically inclined or not.
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Facebook also provides a log of all the name changes on a Facebook page. This will allow them to identify any misuse of Facebook. Twitter also posted on their blog regarding their new transparency policy, saying ‘We are making it clearer than ever, on who is advertising US Federal political campaign content on Twitter.’ Their transparency logs will include advertisers worldwide but will only provide US Federal political campaigns that fall under its new policy for now.
Alphabet has vowed to launch a similar campaign on transparency on its Google services but has not made it clear on the expected launch date.
Source: Reuters