Facebook changes its digital marketing policy amid advertising concerns

Facebook has announced it will be changing its policy regarding which ads appear next to what online content.

As of today (July 1st) the social media giant will be introducing a new review process, as it explains below:

“This process will expand the scope of Pages and Groups that should be ad-restricted. By the end of the week, we will remove ads from all Pages and Groups that fall into this new, more expansive restricted list.

“For example, we will now seek to restrict ads from appearing next to Pages and Groups that contain any violent, graphic or sexual content (content that does not violate our community standards). Prior to this change, a Page selling adult products was eligible to have ads appear on its right-hand side; now there will not be ads displayed next to this type of content.”

The change comes after a massive internet campaign, which used the hashtag #FBRape, was headed by anti-domestic violence and anti-sexism groups to highlight to brands like Nissan that their promoted social media adverts were appearing next to less-than sanitary groups promoting violence.

The company concluded: ‘Like any digital platform, we’re not going to be perfect but we will be much better. We’ll continue to work aggressively on this issue with advertisers. We are confident the immediate steps we’re taking will result in a significantly improved approach to preventing these instances from occurring, and we are committed to making this process work for everyone who uses Facebook.’