Facebook To Pull Ads From Pages With “Violent, Graphic Or Sexual Content”

A day after Google alerted Blogger users that they could keep publishing explicit content but they won’t be able to profit from it, Facebook has told advertisers that they will no longer need to worry about their ads showing up on pages with content that might get them into hot water by association.

In a blog post from earlier today, Facebook announced that, starting Monday, Facebook pages and groups that contain “any violent, graphic or sexual content (content that does not violate our community standards)” will no longer have ads on them.

“Our goal is to both preserve the freedoms of sharing on Facebook but also protect people and brands from certain types of content,” explains the company. “We know that marketers work hard to promote their brands, and we take their objectives seriously. While we already have rigorous review and removal policies for content against our terms, we recognize we need to do more to prevent situations where ads are displayed alongside controversial Pages and Groups. So we are taking action.”

We’ve certainly received any number of e-mails from readers who send in screengrabs of a controversial Facebook that includes an ad for a national brand. This process is essentially automated and the advertiser generally has no idea their ad is on such a page until after they hear complaints.

Some advertisers have reportedly pulled their ad dollars from Facebook after being associated with certain groups and pages, so today’s announcement is intended to calm ad-buyers’ worries and get them spending more confidently.

“While these changes won’t have a meaningful impact on Facebook’s business, they will result in benefits to people and marketers,” says the company.

The Facebook policy change comes only a day after Google began alerting users of its Blogger platform that they will no longer be able to make money with ads to adult websites in order to “strictly prohibit the monetization of Adult content on Blogger.”

“If your adult blog currently has advertisements which are adult in nature, you should remove them as soon as possible,” reads the notice sent to users with adult-themed Blogger pages.

So Blogger users will be able to continue posting adult content, but can’t make money. Meanwhile, Facebook users can continue posting envelope-pushing content (though Facebook’s decency standards are much more strict than Blogger’s), but Facebook’s advertisers won’t have to be concerned that they are being identified with these pages.

Facebook to pull ads from all Groups and Pages with violent, graphic, or sexual content [The Verge]

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