Yahoo Finance Facebook Boosts Security Measures Ahead of India Election
Facebook FB is strengthening initiatives related to transparency and security on its platform in view of assembly election and 2019 general election in India. In this regard, the social media giant is working with the Election Commission of India.
Facebook recently announced that advertisers who want to place political ads on its platform will need to confirm their identity and location.
Also, all ads related to election and other political issues will be labeled with the name of the payer in the disclaimer section from early next year. The respective label will redirect the user to a “searchable archive” that will provide information on the budget of the campaign, number of viewers as well as the demographic details of the audience.
These measures are aimed at preventing any foreign interference in the upcoming election, especially after the Cambridge Analytica scandal that impacted 87 million subscribers on Facebook’s platform.
Following the scandal, the government of India issued notices to Facebook to assess the impact on users in the country. In response, the company admitted that around 5.62 lakh users in India were affected.
To avoid similar circumstances, Facebook is allowing only authorized advertisers to post political ads. Also, the social media giant has put together a team of specialists to monitor the upcoming elections in India - Facebook’s largest user base with 294 million active users as of the end of third-quarter 2018. Prior to this, Facebook undertook similar security measures ahead of election in Brazil, the United States and UK.
We believe that these initiatives by this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company will boost its trustworthiness and re-establish its strong foothold in the social media market by limiting fake news and external interference on the platform.
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Google and Twitter Take a Strong Stance Too
Twitter TWTR and Alphabet’s GOOGL Google, offering digital advertising, have also come under scrutiny for failing to recognize external interference that impacted 2016 U.S. Presidential election results.
Twitter has taken initiatives to repair brand image and create a “safer environment” especially after Russian trolls related to 2016 U.S. Presidential election impacted at least 1.4 million users on its platform. Reportedly, the company is also working with Election Commission of India to provide users with more detailed information regarding political and issue-based advertisements.
Google, which is anticipated to reach $40 billion in its advertising business in 2018, per eMarketer, is also ramping up security measures and working in tandem with Election Commission of India to prevent any misuse of the platform.
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