Who paid for that political ad in your Facebook feed? It's not always easy to figure out
Who was trying to influence your vote in the midterm elections? On Facebook, it was not always easy to find out. Political advertisers are required to fill in a field that says who paid for the message in your news feed, but that does not necessarily tell you who they or their backers are. Entities can write whatever they want in that field as long as it's not deceptive or misleading. A growing number of Facebook ads in the run-up to the election took advantage of that loophole to obscure or conceal the identity and political motives of who paid for them – and Facebook did not catch it.