Facebook really wants us to know election ads will be transparent

Facebook wants people to trust its efforts to protect elections this year in the U.S. and other countries.

It has already talked about its new requirements around political ad transparency, and today it doubled down on messaging how much information will be available about such advertising.

During his keynote address at F8, Facebook’s developers conference, chief security officer Alex Stamos reiterated the company’s plans to launch a portal in June that will aggregate and archive all political ads in a single place. The portal will also show the text for any such ad, and include metadata about each, such as the amount spent, who saw it, and demographic information about the audience.

The goal, Stamos suggested, was that by being as transparent as possible, Facebook hopes to catch bad actors perpetrating the kind of behavior that many say impacted the 2016 presidential election, and that many worry will similarly impact the U.S midterms and elections in other countries this year.

Facebook is surely trying to get out in front of Congress, which is considering legislation such as the Honest Ads Act. The company says its new policies require more transparency on political ads than is currently required in print, TV, or radio.

It remains to be seen, of course, how effective these efforts will be.