On Tuesday, Meta provided further information on its promotional strategies with regard to the global electoral season and the utilization of AI in the making of adverts. In such circumstances, advertisers around the world will be expected to declare whether or not they have employed AI or any connected digital editing technology "for producing or revising a political or social issue advertisement," according to Nick Clegg, head of global affairs at Meta. Moreover, the social media giant will block any new political, electoral or social issue advertising during the last week of the U.S. elections.
On Tuesday, Meta divulged more information about their policies on political ads, including a requirement that advertisers who use AI to alter images & videos in said ads must disclose this. Nick Clegg, Meta's president of global affairs, discussed the new rules in a blog post, which he declared were "broadly consistent" with the way they had handled advertizing rules in the past. This time, however, AI technologies had become a more popular choice for creating visuals/text, which prompted Meta to announce that beginning next year, advertisers must inform Meta if they have used AI to edit a political/social issue ad. This applies if it is a photorealistic image/video/audio that was made or changed to show/hear a person say/do something that they did not actually do. It also applies if the video depicts a person that does not exist, alters footage of a real event or shows a realistic event that did not actually take place.Meta has taken flack in the past, especially during the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, over their failure to counteract the spread of false information on their apps (Facebook & Instagram). Last year, they left a digitally altered video of Nancy Pelosi that made it seem like she was slurring her words, but this was not an ad. The increased usage of AI to produce deceitful ads is a new issue that Meta must tackle, considering they let go of many of their trust-and-safety staff during budget cuts this year. In addition, they will prevent new political, electoral and social issue ads from going live during the last week of the U.S. elections, something which they have done in the past. These limits will be eliminated the day after the election ends.
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