Social media platforms are constantly making changes. Last month, Facebook announced that it is continuing to clean up its platform by putting more focus on its ad policies. Within the last year, Facebook has continued to update its ad policies by creating new enforcement tools. These tools are designed to detect and remove any discriminatory advertising on the platform.
Discriminatory advertising has been a problem for Facebook in the past. That’s something a brand never wants to hear. Previously, Facebook has allowed advertisers to target audiences based on religious beliefs and race among other things. While these ad targeting options have been used in legitimate ways to reach audiences, Facebook feels that minimizing the risk of abuse is much more important. Because of this, they’ve made quite a few significant changes to their ad policies.
Here is a look at all of the updates Facebook has made thus far:
Removal of many advanced targeting options
Facebook has announced that it is removing 5,000 of its advanced ad targeting options. This is intended to delete discriminatory ad targeting from the platform. The options to be cut will be related to religious beliefs and racial profiling. While 5,000 seems like a very large number, Facebook will still have a wide range of targeting options available.
New advertiser certification process
In addition to removing many ad targeting options, Facebook is also introducing a new advertiser certification process. In order to prevent abuse of the platform, the certification process includes an anti-discrimination policy. All users must accept the policy order to continue advertising on Facebook. While Facebook’s non-discrimination policy hasn’t changed, it has added new examples of what it means for advertisers.
More ad reviewers
Facebook has also increased its amount of ad reviewers and introduced new machine learning techniques. This is intended to decrease the amount of potentially controversial ads and advertising tactics. With more people and advanced technology to catch these potentially discriminatory ads, fewer ads will fall through the cracks. This also means that your future ads will receive much more review than previous ones.
New ad prompts
As a reminder of its anti-discrimination policies, Facebook also introduced new ad prompts. They are intended to inform advertisers about the policy before they create new advertising campaigns. These informational messages are designed to be constant reminders of Facebook’s policy. They will pop up before or during an ad is created to keep advertisers informed and knowledgeable.
What do you think about Facebook’s new ad policy updates? Tell us in the comments below!
