EU takes aim at political ads on social media

The EU wants to force the likes of Facebook and Google to reveal how they target people with political advertising, as it tries to shine a light on the murky world of online campaigning.

A draft of new legislation, seen by the Financial Times, suggests that tech companies should disclose the number of people targeted by a political ad, how long the ad runs for, and the methods they use to choose who sees it.

The document warned that the way in which large internet companies had used people’s data to target them with political ads had had “negative effects” on “their freedoms of opinion and of information, to make political decisions and exercise their voting rights”.

Facebook has earned almost $3 billion in the US since May 2018 from ads about social issues, elections or politics, while Google has earned $810 million.

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While political advertising is only a small fraction of the two companies’ overall revenues, there have been repeated complaints that the current system allows political parties to target voters without any transparency.

Vera Jourova, the European Commission vice-president for values and transparency, this month told an audience in Lisbon that digital advertising for political purposes “is the unchecked race of dirty and opaque methods”.

“We have to hit the ‘slow down’ button, because our democracy is too precious,” she said. “The right to speak does not mean the right to reach.”

The rules will make political parties label their ads and force companies working on so-called issues-based advertising to clearly identify which political party is funding an ad.

The regulation is expected to enter into force before the end of the current European parliament in 2024. The tougher rules will also force users on Twitter to identify anyone who is sponsoring their posts.

Companies that break the rules face a fine of up to 5 per cent of turnover in line with the privacy rules in place in the bloc, the draft proposals say. The enforcement will be handed to national authorities.

Once the draft legislation is published the text will be discussed between the member states, the parliament and the commission in a “trialogue” discussion.

A clampdown on the way large online platforms treat political advertising is part of a wider movement in Brussels to address the power of Big Tech.

Google and Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2021