Facebook pushes ad overhaul before 2018 US election

SAN JOSE, Calif. – Facebook Inc has begun overhauling how it handles political ads on its platform and may put some changes in place before US elections next year, Facebook's chief technology officer said on Wednesday.

US congressional and state elections set for November 2018 present a deadline of sorts for Facebook and other social media companies to get better at halting the kind of election meddling that the United States accuses Russia of.

"We are working on all of this stuff actively now, so there is a big focus in the company to improve all of this on a regular basis," Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer said in an interview.