Kenya is heading towards its elections set for August this year where its citizens will vote in county-level, legislative and presidential elections.
To maintain election integrity on its platforms, Meta has shared tools and resources that will provide more information about political advertising on Facebook and Instagram ahead of the Kenya 2022 general elections.
Meta is aiming to enhance transparency in political advertising to help people know who is behind the political ads they see on Facebook and Instagram while equipping political advertisers with key resources to reach and engage their supporters and potential voters throughout the election period.
Meta will have to verify advertisers seeking to run political ads in Kenya. Political advertisers will have to prove who they are and that they live in the country. Meta will then run additional checks to ensure compliance with its policies. Political ads in Kenya will also be labelled with a “Paid for by” disclaimer to show who’s behind the ad.
To increase transparency especially for fact checkers and news media, Meta will store political ads that run in Kenya on its Ads Library so that everyone can see what ads are running, information about targeting, and how much was spent. This fully searchable archive will store these ads for seven years.
Users on Facebook and Instgaram will also have controls so that they can choose to see fewer social issue, electoral, and political ads. When people use these controls, they’ll no longer see ads that run with a “Paid for by” disclaimer.
“Meta has continued to invest in technology towards election integrity. We believe political discussion and debate should be transparent to every voter, which is why over the past few years we’ve introduced a number of tools that provide more information about political ads on Facebook and Instagram,” said Meta’s Public Policy Director, East & Horn of Africa Mercy Ndegwa.
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