In 2017 and 2018, Facebook also tested and rolled out a number of features
with the stated aim to improve transparency around political advertising
(especially in electoral periods). Following the discovery that Russian
operatives had purchased Facebook advertisements to target American voters
in the lead-up to the 2016 US election, Mark Zuckerberg issued an extended
public statement in which he announced Facebook’s goal to “create a new
standard for transparency in online political ads” (Zuckerberg 2017). These
efforts began in October 2017, when Facebook announced advertisers wishing
to run election-related advertisements in the United States would have to
register with Facebook and verify their identity and that these ads would be
accompanied by a clickable “paid for by” disclosure (Goldman 2017). In April
2018, Facebook announced that this veriﬁcation process would be expanded to
all political “issue ads” (Goldman and Himel 2018). Beginning in November
Social_Media_and_Democracy