New laws will make Google ‘arbiter’ of political speech

Google will be the "arbiter of political speech in Ireland" if proposed new laws on online advertising are passed as currently drafted, the Internet giant has warned.

Lee Carosi Dunn, a senior executive at the company, said the Online Advertising and Social Media (Transparency) Bill threatens "uncertainty and unintended consequences" if enacted without a number of changes.

“We are concerned that [a section] of the bill has the unintended consequence of putting online platforms in the position of being arbiters of political speech in Ireland by placing the onus on the platforms for identifying whether an ad is directed toward a political end,” she told the Oireachtas communications committee.

Ms Dunn said the Bill should also avoid “imposing undue restrictions on the fundamental rights of freedom of expression, freedom of opinion, and we believe certain provisions in the bill go further than necessary to achieve this desired objective.”

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Furthermore, precise definitions rather than broad terms were needed as well as clarification around the policing of “bots” and who was liable for their use and misuse.

Bots are automated social media accounts controlled by anonymous individuals or groups, but claiming to be a real person.

They can be used to try and influence popular opinion by giving the impression a political belief is more widespread than it is. There is evidence they were used in the Brexit referendum and the US presidential election

Under the Fianna Fail-proposed bill being examined by the joint committee on communications, using bots to manipulate online political debates and influence campaigns would become a crime.

Ms Dunn confirmed Google banned all adverts relating to the abortion referendum last month because of a surge in foreign spending targeting voters - effectively a loophole for foreign political donations to help sway the outcome.

“The fact that led us to make the decision was an increase in foreign spend,” she told the committee.

Ms Dunn said it was a “difficult decision” for the company as they were “obviously very aware of the sensitivities” around the referendum.

“We did not see any illegal activity on our platforms but we did see an increase in foreign spend closer to polling day,” she told TDs and senators.

“We concluded this increase gave rise to genuine public concern and [BECAUSE OF]the gap between the law and public expectations, that’s why we decided to pause ads around the referendum.”

Ms Dunn, the company’s senior head of international elections outreach, did not quantify the rise in spending or identify if it benefited one side over the other.

Google is currently looking at what actions it will take in future political campaigns.

Ms Dunn said it was starting to use “transparency tools” in the US and looking at how to “scale them internationally”.

These include include advertiser verification, ads stating “paid for by..” as well as a “transparency report” that shows the spend of an advertiser and the dates of the advertisements.

Ms Dunn said the measures will bring transparency to political advertising online “which would be good not only for [Google] users but for democracy”.

Seamus Dooley, Irish secretary of the National Union of Journalists, said the union was "gravely concerned" about "political micro-targeting" through online advertising and broadly welcomed the bill.

However, what was really needed was a permanent electoral commission to oversee all matters in relation to political advertising and donations, rather than “addressing it in pieces” in a “peculiarly Irish way”, he told the committee.