As part of its efforts towards elections integrity, Meta has on Wednesday shared tools and resources that provide more information about political advertising on Facebook and Instagram ahead of the Kenya 2022 general elections.
The tools and resources are meant to enhance transparency in political advertising to help people know who is behind the political ads they see on Facebook and Instagram while equipping political advertisers with key resources to reach and engage their supporters and potential voters throughout the election period.
Advertisers seeking to run political ads in Kenya will undergo a verification process to prove who they are and that they live in the country.
Meta will then run additional checks to ensure compliance with its policies.
Political ads in Kenya will also be labelled with a “Paid for by” disclaimer to show who’s behind the ad.
Meta will at the same time put political ads that run in Kenya on its Ads Library so that everyone can see what ads are running, information about targeting, and how much was spent.
This fully searchable archive will store these ads for seven years.
In addition to providing more transparency, Meta last year announced that it was rolling out new controls so that people can choose to see the fewer social issue, electoral, and political ads.
When people use these controls, they’ll no longer see ads that run with a “Paid for by” disclaimer.
Commenting about the political ads tools, Meta’s Public Policy Director, East & Horn of Africa Mercy Ndegwa, said Meta has continued to invest in technology towards election integrity.
"We believe political discussion and debate should be transparent to every voter, which is why over the past few years we’ve introduced a number of tools that provide more information about political ads on Facebook and Instagram,” Ndegwa said.