Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Friday his company is endorsing legislation that regulates political ads on social media platforms.
The legislation known as the Honest Ads Act was introduced by Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Mark Warner of Virginia in October. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., also endorsed the legislation.
“Election interference is a problem that’s bigger than any one platform, and that’s why we support the Honest Ads Act. This will help raise the bar for all political advertising online,” Zuckerberg said in a blog post.
This is the first time the social media giant has endorsed a specific bill that have a direct impact on it, and it comes ahead of Zuckerberg’s two planned testimonies Capitol Hill next week.
Facebook officials had been hedging on whether they might support the legislation, which puts transparency requirements on political advertising. The Honest Ads Act was introduced a response to the revelation that Russian entities were buying ads to influence the 2016 presidential election.
“Election interference is a problem that’s bigger than any one platform, and that’s why we support the Honest Ads Act. This will help raise the bar for all political advertising online,” said Zuckerberg.
Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Friday that Facebook announcement should prompt other social media platforms to do the same.
“Most of the paid ads the Internet Research Agency ran on Facebook prior to the 2016 election didn’t mention Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump – but they did mention divisive political issues like guns, LGBT rights, immigration, and racial issues,” he said in a statement. “That’s why today’s announcement by Facebook is so important, and I would encourage all of the platform companies to follow suit.”
But in addition to political advertising on its platform, Facebook has been facing scrutiny over the revelation that a data analytics firm improperly obtained data from 87 million Facebook users.
