Bringing Transparency and Controls to People

We believe people should understand where content they see across Meta Platforms comes from -- and who it comes from. We’ve introduced a number of tools over the last few years that enable government, political and advocacy organizations to be transparent with the people they care about.

These transparency and authenticity products include consumer tools, like the “Why am I seeing this ad?” tool and Off-Facebook Activity, and requirements for advertisers and Page admins, such as confirming your Page Owner and getting authorized to run ads about social issues, elections or politics.

We believe this level of transparency will enable government and political organizations to establish more trust with communities.

Tools for people

“Why am I seeing this ad?” tool

In 2019, we redesigned the “Why am I seeing this ad?” tool to provide people with more information about why they are seeing the ads they see and make it easier for them to access related controls. Learn more about this transparency product and how people can exercise certain controls.

Note: For agencies advertising on behalf of a client, please note that your Business Manager name may appear in “Why am I seeing this ad?” tool if you upload Custom Audiences from a customer list for your client. For more information, see “On Behalf Of (OBO) relationships” below.

Custom Audience from a customer list transparency and controls

Historically, people have been able to hide all ads from a specific advertiser in their Ad Preferences or directly in the ad. Now, people have even more control over how an advertiser can reach them with a Custom Audience from a customer list. They are able to stop seeing ads based on if they are included in an advertiser’s Custom Audience from a customer list. People can also make themselves eligible to see ads if an advertiser used a list to exclude them (a tactic sometimes used to avoid showing irrelevant or redundant ads to existing supporters or donors).

Off-Facebook Activity

Off-Facebook Activity allows people to view a summary of information Facebook receives about their activity on other apps and websites and allows them to take control of how this information is used by disconnecting it from their account if they wish. Learn about how people can control these settings.

Tools and requirements for advertisers

Authorizations

In order to run ads about social issues, elections or politics, you’ll first need to become authorized by confirming your identity. Review our list of enforced countries to see what exactly you need to do for your country or region. Before you get started, enable two-factor authentication.

Disclaimers and ad accounts

Ads about social issues, elections or politics must have a disclaimer -- which will need to be created by an admin on your Page who has completed individual authorization. This disclaimer will appear at the top of any ads you run and include information on the entity that paid for the ad.

You’ll need to link ad accounts and set your disclaimers before you can run ads about social issues, elections or politics. The process may vary depending on the market, so check your country-specific disclaimer process.

Note: depending on your country location, you’ll need to have Facebook Access on the page you want to run ads from, in order to create a disclaimer. Once you have a disclaimer set up, you won’t need to go through this process each time you want to run an ad for the Page.

Page Owner (US Only)

In an effort to increase accountability and transparency of Pages, Facebook is showing more information about Pages and the people who manage them in the Page Transparency section on Pages.

In order to run ads about social issues, elections or politics in the US, you’ll need to assign a Page Owner. You can choose to:

• Use your approved disclaimer
• Use a verified Business Manager

On Behalf Of (OBO) relationships (for agency partners)

On Behalf Of (OBO) relationships allow agencies and Meta Business Partners (MBP, formerly known as Facebook Marketing Partners, or FMPs) to specify which ad accounts they use on behalf of other businesses or organizations.

If you advertise on behalf of another organization and are uploading Custom Audiences from a customer list owned by that organization, we recommend you set up an OBO relationship to ensure the correct owner of the list is shown to people. If you, as an agency or MBP, do not specify and set up an OBO relationship, your Business Manager name may appear in transparency surfaces such as “Why Am I Seeing This Ad?” and Ad Preferences.

Ad Library

The Ad Library is our comprehensive ads transparency surface, providing a view of ads across Facebook Products. In addition to containing all active ads running across our products, it also offers additional information about ads about social issues, elections or politics -- such as spend, reach and funding entities. Ads about social issues, elections or politics will be stored in the Ad Library for seven years.

Visit the Ad Library and our Ad Library Report -- where you can explore, filter and download data for ads about social issues, elections or politics.