Meta rolls out long-sought tools to separate ads from harmful content

Washington, March 30 (BNA): Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) said Thursday that it is rolling out a long-promised system for advertisers to decide where their ads appear, in response to their demands to distance their marketing from the controversial. Posts on Facebook and Instagram.

The system provides advertisers with three risk levels they can select for their ad placements, with the more conservative option of excluding placements above or below posts with sensitive content such as depictions of weapons, sexual innuendo, and political discussions.

Meta will also provide a report via ad measurement firm Zefr that shows Facebook advertisers the exact content that appeared near their ads and how they were ranked.

Marketers have long called for more control over where their ads appear online, and have complained that the big social media companies do little to prevent ads from appearing alongside hate speech, fake news and other offensive content.

It came to a head in July 2020, when thousands of brands joined a boycott of Facebook amid anti-racism protests in the US.

Under an agreement reached several months later, the company, now called Meta, agreed to develop tools to “better manage ad adjacency,” among other perks.

Samantha Stetson, Meta’s vice president of the Customer Council and Industry Trade Relations, said she expects Meta to introduce more granular controls over time so advertisers can define their preferences around various social issues.

Stetson also said early tests showed no significant change in performance or price for ads placed with more restrictive settings, adding that test participants were “pleasantly surprised.”

However, she cautioned that the pricing dynamic could change, given the auction-based nature of the Meta ad system and low inventory associated with any restrictions.

The controls will initially be available in the English and Spanish-speaking markets, with plans to expand it to other regions — and to the company’s video ad formats, stories, and reels — later this year.

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