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Meta is now moving to block political advertisers from accessing its AI ads tools for usage. The main reason for this move from the owners of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads is to curb the spread of misinformation during the coming elections. This move was made a few days ago and netizens are already reacting to it as it affects more than advertisers of political campaigns for the coming elections.
Aside from political advertisers, a bunch of other ads are going to feel the effect of this new improvement from Meta. Advertisers with content relating to housing, employment, credit or social issues, or health, or financial services will not have access to Meta’s AI ads tools. The reason for this move also relates to the fact that there are no specific AI rules for ads like this on Meta’s platforms.
Meta aims to use this move to “better understand potential risks and build the right safeguards for the use of Generative AI in ads.” All ads that the company lists as not having access to AI ad tools relate to sensitive issues. Letting ads like these access AI tools can spread misinformation among users of the platform, which could be damaging.
Some advertisers won’t have access to Meta’s AI ads tools to help reduce the spread of misinformation
A few months ago, Meta started preparing AI ad tools for its platforms to help advertisers. About a month ago, Meta started to grant advertisers access to these AI ad tools for usage on their platforms. And more recently access to these AI tools started rolling out to more advertisers on the platform.
By next year, Meta aims to make these tools available to all advertisers. These tools will help advertisers spice up their ads using various factors that Meta has put in place, such as image background generators and so much more. However, this access will be limited, and some advertisers will not get to use these tools.
With these limitations in place, Meta hopes to curb misinformation on certain sensitive topics. The advertisers that won’t have access to these AI tools are in the housing, employment, political, social, health, and financial industries. If granted access to these tools, Meta envisions a high chance of the rise in the spread of misinformation.
Considering how sensitive topics from these industries are, abuse of these AI tools can lead users to make poor choices. This decision on Meta’s part will not only help them better monitor the spread of misleading information on their platform but also protect users. Other big tech companies are also rolling out AI ad tools and limiting their access to political advertisers, just like Meta is doing.