Advertising policies of many social media platforms are under intense scrutiny after alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election using online political ads. In October, the Honest Ads Act was introduced in the House with a goal of enhancing transparency and accountability in online political advertising.
Social media giant Twitter recently announced on its blog new transparency measures for advertising, with specific implications for electioneering and issue-based ads. Under the new guidelines, all political ads will be clearly labeled as such and will have a different look and feel, and campaigns and funding organizations will be required to disclose who purchased the ad and how much they spent. A new "transparency center" is also being released. It will contain a database of information about all ads that run on the platform, with additional disclosures related to electioneering ads.
