Yes. It has a "Paid for by ____" header in addition to the sponsored designation
The reason it’s different with Facebook (even though it’s been going on in Magazines forever) is the scale of it. Magazines are ubiquitous but the average American does not spend 1-3 hours per day on reading magazines (minutes at most). But Facebook... it’s at a whole other level in terms of the magnitude of people reached and the magnitude of attention being captured.
What might not matter in Magazines May very well matter for Facebook based on the scale of the impact.
That is not true, product placement can be very subtle and even when it's not, it's not like the actors look at the camera and say "This show brought to you by X" even when it really is.
But there is more revenue than just that. FB allows advertisers to reach specific audiences, and even create lookalikes, so overall, there will be a %age of the users seeing more ads than me, potentially personalized for them, and average revenue per user would be higher.
[1] https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2019/q3...
Also, the numbers you posted include all the inventory - facebook news feed, ads on the side right on desktop, instagram, messenger ads, stories ads, instant articles, and even the ad network. According to facebook (read somewhere) 70% of their ads are on the ad network.
This is why you can’t pay to get a version of The NY Times that has no ads.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/02/facebooks-revenue-topped-5-p...
This is a classic isolated demand for rigor. “Sponsored” is exactly as prominent on Facebook as “op-ed” is on newspapers and “advertisement” is on whole sponsored segments of magazines. In all cases that word is there at the top in a normal font. What else are they supposed to do, make it flashing and rainbow colored? Why not complain about newspapers not doing that?
We often get sponsored articles that are labeled specifically as ads and are created to look exactly like any other article in our magazines. Most of the time they are extremely clear to the reader based simply on the content compared to other articles, but they are also marked directly as advertisements on the page... though not in a super obvious way.
The main issue I have with this is how Facebook strategically blends advertisements (which is often political during election cycles) together with organic non-sponsored content.
Anecdote: My 84 year old grandmother spends 1-2 hours per day scrolling through Facebook's news feed. When I watch her do it, she pays ZERO attention to why she's seeing a specific piece of content (to her, there's no difference between a post that's labeled "Sponsored" versus an organic post from a family member). In other words, for my grandmother, Facebook has not done an effective job at informing her when she's viewing a paid advertisement vs. organic non-sponsored content. This is a clear form of user manipulation that needs to stop.
Even when I scroll through Facebook, I often don't notice the "Sponsored" label on posts until after I've already read most of the post.
To me, the primary issue is that Facebook does not adequately differentiate organic content from sponsored content.
At least when watching television, it's absolutely clear when you're watching paid-for commercials - it's harder to manipulate someone's beliefs when they know they're watching a commercial. But with Facebook, a huge percentage of users don't know when they're interacting with an advertisement vs. organic content - this is the problem that I think needs solving.
> Zuck: "Instead, I believe the better approach is to work to increase transparency. Ads on Facebook are already more transparent than anywhere else."
In what way is Facebook transparent? Do they mean they simply disclose political ad spend? Or do they legitimately think they're doing a good job at properly labeling paid-for content?