Who is this ad belongs to? In terms of targeted native advertising, it can be quite difficult to know.
Facebook continues transparency efforts around Pages and how ads are shown on its platform. With an update, Facebook includes an 'Info & Ads' section at the top of a Page belonging to a business, nonprofit, or other organization.
Clicking on that will list all ads the Page has run across Facebook, Instagram and Messenger, as well as on Facebook’s partner networks.
What does it mean for users? Anyone can simply go to a Page and see its scope of advertising, whether or not all of those advertisements are targeted to that particular user.
What's more, users can also flag ads they find suspicious by clicking on the 'Report Ad' button.
Not only Facebook is showing all ads a Page has, Facebook also shares more detailed information on the Page. Added information include: creation date and if there have been any recent name changes.
"The vast majority of ads on Facebook are run by legitimate organizations — whether it’s a small business looking for new customers, an advocacy group raising money for their cause, or a politician running for office. But we’ve seen that bad actors can misuse our products, too," wrote Facebook’s director of product management, Rob Leathern, and its product marketing director, Emma Rodgers.
Facebook said that it has plans to improve the tool by adding more information about Pages.
At the same time, the social giant is also rolling out political ad labels and its searchable archive of ads. With this tool, Facebook is trying to combat election interference by using a public political database users can access.
This allows users to view ads from certain candidates or ads that deal with political topics, including immigration and health care
Initially available in the U.S. in May, the rollout of the database has been criticized by news organizations. They object after knowing that their ads promoting news articles on political topics being displayed alongside ads run by politicians. Other businesses as well as organization have also objected when they realize that their ads have been unfairly classified as political.
In response, Facebook said that it would separate ads from news organizations in a dedicated tab called 'Promoted News'.
COO Sheryl Sandberg also addresses this concern by saying that Facebook is doing more to review political ads, which is resulting in more delays before those ads appear.