Twitter and Facebook back bill for political ad transparency

Twitter is backing the Honest Ads Act introduced in the U.S. Congress last year to make social media platforms more transparent on political ads.  The act requires providers to maintain a public file of election ads purchased. The file would contain a copy of the ad, the target audience, the number of views and the contact information of the advertiser. (TechCrunch, April 10, 2018, by Taylor Hatmaker)

In interfering with the 2016 presidential election, the Russians were able to evade reporting regulations in the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act that only applies to ads on broadcast, cable and satellite. A Russian government interest spent $100,000 for 3000 political ads on Facebook from June 2015 to May 2017. (The San Diego Union-Tribune, October 31, 2018, by Luis Gomez)

For earlier FAC coverage on the issue, click here, here and here.