Facebook Lets Advertisers Rewrite Headlines For News Articles

As the problem with fake news is still growing, the tools Facebook offers advertisers don’t seem to help much in combating the issue. The social giant lets advertisers on its platform change headlines for their news stories used in their ads, this could help worsen disinformation, CBC News said on Monday. Furthermore, political groups and companies can take advantage of this for their own sake.

Facebook says it acknowledges the matter.

A spokesperson from Facebook said:

When users create an advertisement on Facebook, they can add links redirecting to outside news stories. The story’s headline auto-populates in the ad but the advertiser can rewrite it. Once the ad is published on the platform, there will be a link of the original story along with the web address of the publisher, making it seem legitimate. However, the headline can be rewritten to say anything one wants even if it changes the story premise completely.

The CBC mentioned a case in the United Kindong, in which an ad run by the Conservative Party in early September contained a BBC article. However, in the ad published on Facebook, it was changed into “£14 billion pound cash boost for schools,” in contrast to the actual content of the article, the CBC reported.

Last month, the social giant said that it will tighten up ad policies on its platform in time for the US Presidential elections in 2020. The company has plans to raise the required identification for running political ads and include disclosures of who paid for the advertisement. The changes come after Facebook came under fire for social media ads being used by Russian agents to interfere in the elections in 2016.