Facebook’s New Terms of Service Explains How Ads get targeted


Facebook has been under a lot of criticism in the recent past. Allegations claiming that a person’s personal information is not safe with Facebook led the founder Mark Zuckerberg to testify before Congress in April 2018.

Before learning more about the new terms, let’s have a look at the scandal from last year.

The Facebook Scandal

The scandal that began in early 2018 was perhaps one of the biggest scandals any company faced in that year. It revolved around the personal information of around 87 million people. The political-strategic communication and consulting firm Cambridge Analytica was able to access personal information of these 87 million people. It’s like you share some personal information with your Cox business customer service, and it gets passed on to other companies. That’s violating your privacy.

This happened due to many factors. But the major one was the inadequate safeguard against companies that engage in data harvesting, abuse of Facebook’s API and users agreeing to very broad terms.

Things worsened to an extent that Zuckerberg has to appear before Congress and clarify himself. He had to answer rather silly questions that Congressmen asked him. And had to pay a fine as well when he was unable to defend himself. However, Facebook is set to introduce new terms of services on 31st July 2019. This means that users will get greater security. This is how.

What Do the New Terms of Service Include?

The new terms of service will pay more attention to content removals, users’ intellectual property rights and ad targeting. According to Facebook representatives, the new updates do not mean that the way the platform operates is changing. Instead, these changes imply that users will now get a clearer picture of the platform.

The question now arises that why Facebook is making these changes. Well, much of these updates are a result of specific work that Facebook carried out with European regulator (European Consumer Protection Cooperation Network). The work between Facebook and the European regulators was announced in April of this year. Following the announcement, Facebook agreed that it would amend its terms by the end of June.

Other updates in the terms are a result of the ongoing conversations held between Facebook and regulators as well as consumer protection experts and policymakers around the world.

Facebook’s New Review Process & Appeals

According to reports, the new version will amend the ‘removing’ content option to ‘removing or restricting access to’. Further explaining, a representative said that if your content gets removed by Facebook, the social media platform will inform you. Facebook will also explain to you any other alternative options you will have to choose to request another review.

However, if you keep on violating the terms, Facebook will remove your content forever. Apart from you habitually posting unreasonable content, if the content you post harms the community in any way, you will no longer see it on Facebook.

Content Violation on Facebook

Since the year it launched, Facebook has made many changes to its content reviewing policies. Until now, if you violated any of Facebook’s content policies, the platform deleted your post or content permanently. However, the new update means that Facebook not just removes your content but it also puts a restriction on the user to access it.

Users can also request for another review which means that their posts will not be deleted immediately. Moreover, the new updates imply that the people uploading their photos on Facebook have certain ownership over it.

Ad Targeting Strategies

The recent scandal that led the CEO and founder of Facebook to answer some rather silly questions before Congress stated that Facebook was selling the personal information of users. However, Zuckerberg denied all of this and said that Facebook does not sell any information or personal data.

Zuckerberg further explained that Facebook only allows the advertisers to set the goals when they upload an ad on the platform. Facebook only shows those ads to the desired audience.

With the new terms of service set to release on 31st July 2019, let’s see what great difference does it make. You will only be able to access Facebook and have a look at the new terms of services if you rush to the Cox bill pay service or the like. Clear your payments and enjoy surfing.