Candidates in the general elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) who decided to run their campaign through paid ads on Facebook were stunned when Facebook started rejecting their ads. The reason given is that the content of the ad has a political character and that it is necessary for them to go through the verification process.
Namely, since this year, Facebook is asking political subjects/individuals to send their identity card or other identification document (passport, driver’s license…) in order to complete the process of verifying their profile.
Also, it is necessary for them to provide information about themselves or their company to the agency that will manage their ads. And the phone number needs to be verified, in a way that Facebook “calls” them and dictate a unique code that confirms its authenticity.
Information about the person or agency managing the profile, which refers to the name, phone number, city, will be publicly available to all Facebook users.
Admir Velic, an expert in social networks and political communication, told more about this topic.
“Facebook has started to introduce order in advertising. They did it much earlier with ads of a political nature in other countries. It’s our turn. The goal is to prevent the abuse of advertising for purposes for which it should not be done. Before you could to create a fake profile, post fake information and advertise it to millions of Facebook users. Now that is no longer possible, because no one will display that information through their profile and name,” Admir Velic said.
He added that only a few understood these changes in time.
“Only a few who understood these changes in time managed to place political ads on time. This refers primarily to political parties and candidates who seriously entered the election campaign and in most cases cooperated with marketing agencies,” added the interlocutor.
Hopefully this change will lead to better and fairer political campaigns at least on Facebook, Klix.ba reports.
E.Dz.
