Meta to mark AI-altered political, social ads from next year
Meta will require advertisers to voluntarily disclose if their political or social ads have been digitally manipulated, including through AI. The new policy will come into effect "globally," in 2024. Ads that have undergone digital alterations will be labeled accordingly on Meta's platforms, akin to how the "Paid for" disclaimer is seen on certain advertisements. Meta has also prohibited political advertisers from utilizing its own generative AI tools for ads, mirroring policies introduced by Google and YouTube in September.
Types of ads that have to be notified about
Advertisers are obligated to notify Meta during the ad submission process if they present a social issue, electoral, or political ad containing photorealistic visuals or videos. Realistic-sounding audio that has been manipulated to depict a real person saying or doing something they never actually did, is also included. Additionally, they must inform Meta if their ad features a convincingly real but non-existent person, a fabricated event that appears genuine, or doctored footage of an actual event that took place.
Details on ad authorization process are yet to be provided
Advertisers are not required to disclose if their ads have only been resized, cropped, color-corrected, or sharpened. However, Meta has cautioned that it will reject ads if it finds that advertisers either neglected to or intentionally refrained from revealing digital alterations in their submissions. Details regarding the authorization process and measures to prevent advertisers from exploiting the system are yet to be provided by the tech giant.
Repeated violations may lead to penalties
"Our independent fact-checking partners review and rate viral misinformation and we do not allow an ad to run if it's rated as False, Altered, Partly False, or Missing Context," Meta said. "For example, fact-checking partners can rate content as 'Altered' if they determine it was created or edited in ways that could mislead people, including through the use of AI or other digital tools." Repeated violations of the disclosure rule may lead to penalties, said Meta.
