Facebook says will make ads more transparent

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(Reuters) – Facebook said on Friday it would make advertising on its network more transparent, amid increased scrutiny of political spending on social media.

Advertisers will be required to include a disclosure in election-related ads, which will read: “Paid for by,” Facebook said.

“When it comes to advertising on Facebook, people should be able to tell who the advertiser is and see the ads they’re running, especially for political ads,” Rob Goldman, vice president of ads at Facebook said in a blog post.

Facebook Inc (FB.O), Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) and Google have in recent weeks said Russian operatives bought ads and used fake names on their services to spread divisive messages in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

On Tuesday, Twitter said it would add labels to election-related ads and say who is behind each of them, after a threat of regulation from the U.S. over the lack of disclosure for political spending on social media.

Twitter also accused two Russian media outlets of interfering in the 2016 U.S. election and banned them from buying ads on its network, after criticism it had not done enough to deter international meddling.

Facebook said its users will be able to view the ads any Facebook page is running, whether or not they are the intended target audience for the ad. (bit.ly/2gILYld)

It will begin testing the feature in Canada, Facebook said.