Meta Prohibits Use of its GenAI Tools for Political Campaigns

A company spokesperson said on Nov 6 that Facebook owner Meta is prohibiting political campaigns and advertisers in other regulated industries from using its new generative AI advertising products, denying access to tools that lawmakers have warned could accelerate the spread of election misinformation.

Following the publication of this story, Meta made the decision public in updates to its help centre on Nov 6 night. Its advertising standards forbid ads with content that has been debunked by the company's fact-checking partners, but there are no AI-specific rules.

"As we continue to test new Generative AI ads creation tools in Ads Manager, advertisers running campaigns that qualify as ads for Housing, Employment or Credit or Social Issues, Elections, or Politics, or related to Health, Pharmaceuticals or Financial Services aren't currently permitted to use these Generative AI features," the company said in a note appended to several pages explaining how the tools work.

"We believe this approach will allow us to better understand potential risks and build the right safeguards for the use of Generative AI in ads that relate to potentially sensitive topics in regulated industries," according to the statement.

The policy change comes a month after Meta, the world's second-largest digital advertising platform, announced that it would begin to expand advertisers' access to AI-powered advertising tools that can instantly create backgrounds, image adjustments, and ad copy variations in response to simple text prompts.