Facebook plans to roll out more ad transparency tools this year

In an effort to be more open with users, Facebook is expanding the level of transparency regarding advertising on its platform.

According to the company, new updates to its Ad Library will now allow users to gain more insight into why they are seeing a particular ad. The updates will also allow users to better control their ad experience.

“We are adding ranges for Potential Reach, which is the estimated target audience size for each political, electoral or social issue ad,” Facebook explained on its website.

This means that users will now be able to view how many people every ad intends to reach.

“Later this month we will begin rolling out a control to let people choose how an advertiser can reach them with a Custom Audience from a list,” the company further noted.

The control will allow Facebook users to prevent advertisers from targetting them even if they fall within the advertiser’s Custom Audience. It will also help users who do not fall under an advertiser’s Custom Audience to view preferred ads.

Additionally, the company will also roll out a tool to help curb the number of political ads seen on both Instagram and Facebook.

The new transparency updates to Facebook’s Ad Library, including more efficient search filtering when looking for ads, will roll out in the coming months. The politcal ad control, however, will roll out in the US in mid-2020.

Feature image: Facebook