Meta today announced it’s making changes to increase transparency around ads. The company says it’s updating a nearly decade-old Facebook feature “Why am I seeing this ad?” to better explain to consumers how an AI technique called machine learning may have played a role in the ad’s placement, among other factors. Specifically, it will now highlight how user activity both on and off Facebook may inform its machine learning models and it will detail how those models work to connect topics.
The company for years has fought off rumors that it’s listening to users’ conversations in order to target them with relevant ads. In reality, Facebook’s ability to precisely and eerily display ads about brands or businesses users had just been discussing offline is more likely the result of Meta’s highly developed ...
