Facebook last week said it would support efforts to regulate political ads. Now US senators are urging Alphabet and Twitter to do the same.
The Honest Ads Act is a senate bill that would require tech companies to disclose how political ads were targeted and how much they cost. It's sponsored by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, and Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia. The act was drafted in response to Russian trolls abusing Facebook and other online platforms to sow discord among Americans during the 2016 US presidential election.
The two senators, in letters Monday to Alphabet, Google's parent company, and Twitter, urged those companies to also be more transparent and accountable when it comes to political ads. They want Alphabet and Twitter to implement the provisions in the Honest Ads Act, which would require online political advertisements to follow the same disclosure rules as television and radio ads.
"This lack of transparency has dangerous implications for our democracy," Warner and Klobuchar wrote in their letters to Alphabet CEO Larry Page and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. "As we saw in the 2016 presidential election, foreign actors can seek to influence the electorate without voters' knowledge through online political advertising."
By: Shara Tibken.
Photo: Wikipedia.
Review: Emerging Market Formulations & Research Unit, Flagship Records.