The Impact of Meta’s Disclosure Requirements for Digitally Altered Ad Content

What are the Meta’s disclosure requirements for digitally altered ad content?

The new disclosure of Meta’s requirements for digitally altered political ads is now in effect, with all the advertisers looking to run ads about social issues, elections, and politics now required to indicate when their ad contains a photorealistic image or video or realistic-sounding audio that was digitally created or altered by AI or other methods.

When did Meta announce the new policy?

Meta announced the new policy last November to get ahead of an expected flood of generative AI ads in the upcoming U.S. Election campaign.

Give some examples of generative AI ads.

It has already begun. For example, a recent U.S. Presidential candidate, Ron DeSantis’s campaign, used an AI-generated image of Donald Trump hugging Anthony Fauci and a voice simulation of Trump in another push.

With AI tools improving at producing realistic depictions, Meta, and every other platform, is now looking to implement new rules to disincentivize users from seeking to deceive with digitally created or modified messaging.

YouTube and TikTok have also implemented tags for AI-generated content by providing more transparency and clarity for viewers in-stream.

When setting up ads within selected categories, Meta advertisers will now be presented with this checkbox:-

Is it a critical update?

It is a significant update and is only likely to become more relevant as AI tools evolve and eventually facilitate the creation of full video clips depicting unreal incidents.

However, there is still some risk that political advertisers may push misleading promotions ahead of the election blackout in the final days and run the risk of bans.

Because who cares if you get banned after the fact? And the right AI-generated message could still sway voters ahead of the polls.

It is the reason why the blackout period is essential. Based on previous elections, Meta will implement a political ad blackout a week before the poll, providing enough time to ensure any such claims or clips can be debunked before people vote.

But it will be an element to watch this year.

Meta says all ads must now tick the box to indicate when an ad has been digitally altered or risk ad removal and bans.

Meta also notes that advertisers can now update their previously launched campaigns with its new AI disclosure tag.

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