Complete Story
11/06/2017
Facebook is giving just a peek behind its advertising curtain
On Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed himself "dead serious" about improving the safety and integrity of Facebook Inc., to avoid a repeat of foreign powers spreading misinformation across his digital hangouts.
Along with Twitter Inc. and Google, Facebook is trying to ward off legal oversight of advertisements related to political campaigns and perhaps hot-button issues such as immigration. But I'm surprised that Facebook and Twitter also plan to go further and reveal, for the first time, who's behind all ads that run on their social networks, whether it's your nextdoor neighbor or Red Bull.
It may be too difficult to draw the line between what is political advertising and what isn't. But the pledge to be more open about all kinds of ads also is part of a broader realization by technology companies that they can no longer completely defy the old rules. Yes, tech titans are slowly growing more like the television and newspaper dinosaurs they aim to replace.
