Facebook imposes more rules on advertisers in the wake of Russian ad revelations

Facebook is delivering on Mark Zuckerberg's promise to make its advertising more transparent.

The social network said Friday that it is introducing a way for people to easily see who is advertising to them and if they're part of a targeted audience.

Users will soon be able to see each of the ads that any given page is running. It's also placing stricter verification rules on any advertisers running election-related ads.

"These changes will make it easier to see what different groups are trying to communicate around elections and will make it harder for anyone to break the rules," Zuckerberg wrote in an accompanying Facebook post.

Zuckerberg first mentioned the changes in a mea culpa he gave earlier this month in which he reflected on the role Facebook played in Russia-aligned efforts to influence the U.S. presidential election. Facing the prospect of possible government regulation, the company is doing its best to police itself as it prepares to testify before Congress.

The new transparency test will start in Canada next month and expand to the United States by the summer, according to Facebook's announcement. Once the feature reaches the United States, all election ads will be stored in a searchable archive for four years, and information will be available for all ads on their spending, targeted demographics, and number of users reached.

Political ads will also carry a tag that indicates which advertiser paid for them along with verified background information about their identity. The company also says it is building "machine learning tools" to track down and identify political advertisers who aren't forthcoming with this information in the same way it does with other ads that violate its policies.

Facebook has been taking various steps to crack down on misinformation and hoaxes on its platform since the election, but these changes could be among the most significant. They follow the revelation last month that Kremlin-linked accounts bought 3,000 ads on the site designed and targeted to inflame political divisions.

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Facebook has also been gearing up its lobbying operation in Washington. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the company's been holding messaging focus groups centered around imparting the idea that Facebook can solve its problems through self-regulation.

The move follows a similar announcement this week from Twitter, which is also facing government scrutiny for its role in the election.