Facebook CTO Promises UK Lawmakers Overhaul for Political Ads

Chief Technical Officer of Facebook Mike Schroepfer leaves Portcullis House after giving evidence to a Parliamentary select committee on digital, culture, media and sport in London.

(Photo: AP)

Facebook will introduce new measures to improve transparency around advertising and politics in Britain, an executive said on Thursday, 26 April, as he faced criticism from British lawmakers over a data scandal.

Facebook has said the personal information of about 87 million users might have been improperly shared with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica, which worked on Donald Trump's 2016 presidential election campaign in the United States.

Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer faced a day of questioning from a panel of British lawmakers in London, where he apologised for the firm’s failings over data protection and sometimes looked uncomfortable as he was unable or unwilling to answer all their questions.

After the session concluded, the chairman of the committee said Schroepfer had failed to provide full answers on nearly 40 points, and reiterated a demand for Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to answer questions from lawmakers.

Mr Schroepfer, Mark Zuckerberg’s right hand man whom we were assured could represent his views, today failed to answer many specific and detailed questions about Facebook’s business practices

Damian Collins, Chair, Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee

In a written submission prior to the hearing before parliament's media committee, Schroepfer said those wanting to run political adverts would have to complete an authorisation process and the messages would also have to display who paid for them.

"I want to start by echoing our CEO, Mark Zuckerberg: what happened with Cambridge Analytica represents a breach of trust, and we are deeply sorry. We made mistakes and we are taking steps to make sure it doesn't happen again", Schroepfer wrote.

Earlier this month, Zuckerberg apologised to US senators for issues that have beset Facebook, including shortcomings with data protection.

But the 33-year-old internet mogul managed to deflect calls for any specific promises to support possible congressional regulation of the world's largest social media network and other US internet companies.

Schroepfer was filling in for Zuckerberg in front of the British lawmakers after the Facebook chief declined to appear himself, a decision the parliamentary committee chairman had described as astonishing.

Schroepfer said users would be able to view who runs adverts by June and that further measures, including labels for political ads and a searchable archive, would be rolled out before local elections in May 2019.

He denied that any shortcomings in Facebook approach to political adverts before now had been due to commercial reasons.

This is not an issue of revenue for us. Political advertising is a very small, low single-digit percentage of our overall advertising, so the decisions here have nothing to do with money or revenue.

Mike Schroepfer, CTO, Facebook

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