Meta, the owner of Facebook, is barring political campaigns and advertisers in regulated industries from using its new generative AI advertising products.

The move is aimed at preventing the potential spread of election misinformation.

As reported by The Hindu, Meta said that its advertising standards prohibit ads with content debunked by fact-checking partners, however there were no specific rules regarding AI-generated content.

“As we continue to test new Generative AI ads creation tools in Ads Manager, advertisers running campaigns that qualify as ads for Housing, Employment or Credit or Social Issues, Elections, or Politics, or related to Health, Pharmaceuticals or Financial Services aren’t currently permitted to use these Generative AI features,” the company said in a note appended to several pages explaining how the tools work.

This decision comes as Meta expands access to AI-powered advertising tools that create ad content based on text prompts.

The tools were initially offered to a limited group of advertisers but are set to be available to all advertisers globally next year.

Alphabet’s Google also announced the launch of similar tools last week, and they plan to exclude political keywords from being used as prompts to prevent political content.

Meta’s top policy executive, Nick Clegg, had acknowledged the need to update rules regarding the use of generative AI in political advertising.

He warned of the potential for AI technology to interfere in upcoming elections and emphasised the importance of addressing election-related content that moves across platforms.

As India approaches elections, concerns have arisen regarding the behaviour of tech giants like Meta and YouTube.

The INDI Alliance parties have expressed worries about their impact on elections.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge earlier wrote to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, and Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, citing concerns about The Washington Post‘s investigations.

These investigations suggested that these platforms may have fuelled social tensions and communal hatred in India.

In his letter to Zuckerberg, Kharge referred to The Washington Post‘s findings, accusing Meta of showing bias in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The INDI coalition had urged Meta to remain neutral in the run-up to the crucial 2024 national elections, emphasising the importance of not contributing to social unrest or undermining India’s democratic principles.