Facebook to clamp down on who can cash in on ads
Facebook to clamp down on who can cash in on ads
By Douglas Busvine September 13, 2017
COLOGNE, Germany (Reuters) - Facebook has tightened its
rules on who can make money from advertising on its network, responding to
criticism that it is too simple for providers of fake news and sensational
headlines to cash in.
The world's largest social network implemented the new
standards with immediate effect to make it clearer which publishers can earn
money on Facebook and with what content.
The new standards coincided with an appearance by Chief
Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg in Germany, one of Facebook's toughest
critics on hate speech and safeguarding privacy.
Facebook, together with Alphabet's Google, accounts for
around two fifths of internet advertising, which is forecast by consultancy
Zenith to grow by 13 percent to $205 billion this year – overtaking television
as the biggest channel for companies to pitch their wares to consumers.
Marketing executives have criticized Facebook for failing
to ensure that the digital ads distributed to its more than 2 billion active
users reach their intended audience.
It has also drawn criticism from major advertisers for
inflating its audience figures and not adequately tracking ads, which were sometimes
placed alongside content detrimental to the brands being promoted.
On Wednesday, Facebook said it would seek accreditation
from the Media Ratings Council, a U.S. non-profit organization, for audience
measurement services.
"We take very seriously our responsibility to earn
and maintain the trust of people in businesses," Sandberg told dmexco, a
major digital marketing gathering in Cologne.
"We hear their concerns about safe environments,
about standards, about measurement, and this is critical to us," she said.
"We're working hard to roll things out that give you more control over
where your ads run, and more knowledge about where your ads run, before, during
and after campaign."
COMMUNITY STANDARDS
To make money on Facebook in future, content creators and
publishers will have to comply with its so-called community standards, which
seek to ensure that content is authentic, not offensive and adheres to its
guidelines.
Those publishing content flagged as misinformation or
false news may be ruled ineligible to profit from Facebook, as would creators
of clickbait and sensationalism, according to the rules seen by Reuters.
Facebook's guidelines for monetization give broad
definitions of content that would be disallowed – including “family
entertainment characters engaged in violent, sexualized, or otherwise
inappropriate behavior”.
Also covered are depictions of death, casualties and
physical injuries in tragedies such as natural disasters; and content that is
incendiary, inflammatory, demeaning or disparaging toward people or groups.
Facebook said it will provide post-campaign feedback to
advertisers that clearly identifies the publishers that ran their ads.
Facebook will also step up its monitoring of hate speech,
adding 3,000 content reviewers to nearly double the size of its existing team,
Senior Vice President for Global Marketing Solutions Carolyn Everson said in a
blog post.
"As soon as we determine that content has breached
our community standards, we remove it. With a community as large as Facebook,
however, zero tolerance cannot mean zero occurrence," she said.
Germany has led the way in demanding action on hate
speech. Its parliament passed a law in June to introduce fines of up to 50
million euros ($60 million) for social media networks if they fail to remove
hateful postings promptly.
(Reporting by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Emma Thomasson
and Keith Weir)
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