Social media urged to suspend political advertising

Targeted political adverts on social media should be suspended until they are properly regulated, says an international group of lawmakers.

Testimony given to the International Committee on Disinformation and Fake News warned of "dire" consequences if action was delayed.

The committee met in Ireland as part of its work to scrutinise how online platforms handle political adverts.

But Facebook told members it should not be the world's "truth police".

The statement came as Facebook policy chief Nick Clegg said the social network was "considering" limiting the targeting political parties can do via its platform.

In an interview with Politico, Mr Clegg said it might rein in so-called "microtargeting" that aims ads at particular interest or age groups.

'Unrelenting' toxicity

The committee was formed in 2018 following an investigation by the UK parliament's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee into disinformation and fake news.

Politicians, lawyers, policy advisers, rights activists and data-protection regulators from 12 different nations are all represented on the committee.

They signed a declaration calling on countries to ban political ads temporarily after concerns were aired about misleading information already used in adverts for many different elections.

"The toxicity is unrelenting," said Jim Balsillie, founder of the Centre for International Governance Innovation, in a statement given to the committee hearing.

He said the business model adopted by social networks made "manipulation profitable" and led to attempts to influence people via many different means.

At the same time, UK academics, campaigners and non-profit groups sent a letter to Facebook and Google asking them voluntarily to suspend ads until after the general election on 12 December.

The letter said the " legislative blackspot" over the regulation of adverts was "concerning", as was a lack of transparency over how people are targeted.

A BBC investigation into political ads for next month's election suggested they were being targeted towards key constituencies and certain age groups.

Facebook's stance on adverts has been criticised by experts who said it gave politicians freedom to create deliberately misleading content.

Twitter has taken a different stance and decided in late October to ban all political advertising globally from 22 November.

"We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought," said Twitter boss Jack Dorsey.

Ben Reilly wrote:Probably would be a wise idea, but of course Facebook is going to balk and waffle at anything that threatens its profit margin.

I think in general, political advertising should be limited. In the U.S., every election season people are bombarded with political ad campaigns that cost into the millions of dollars (such a huge waste of money).

I think voters would be much more prepared to cast an informed ballot by paying attention to news coverage of the candidates and watching the debates, or at least coverage of the debates.

The nature of advertising is to have nobody saying you might be wrong. Not a good thing when it comes to the policies that will change people's lives.

Maddog wrote:

Ben Reilly wrote:Probably would be a wise idea, but of course Facebook is going to balk and waffle at anything that threatens its profit margin.

I think in general, political advertising should be limited. In the U.S., every election season people are bombarded with political ad campaigns that cost into the millions of dollars (such a huge waste of money).

I think voters would be much more prepared to cast an informed ballot by paying attention to news coverage of the candidates and watching the debates, or at least coverage of the debates.

The nature of advertising is to have nobody saying you might be wrong. Not a good thing when it comes to the policies that will change people's lives.

I would prefer that they stopped doing debates.  I've never learned anything from one, and debating isn't really a needed skill for being a good leader.

It's all show.

People would be better served by researching what candidates have done in the past.  That's a better indicator of future actions.  

Eilzel wrote:

Maddog wrote:

I would prefer that they stopped doing debates.  I've never learned anything from one, and debating isn't really a needed skill for being a good leader.

It's all show.

People would be better served by researching what candidates have done in the past.  That's a better indicator of future actions.  

I agree in principle with this, but how much of the general public actually research their candidates or look at party manifestos?

Maddog wrote:

Eilzel wrote:

Maddog wrote:

I would prefer that they stopped doing debates.  I've never learned anything from one, and debating isn't really a needed skill for being a good leader.

It's all show.

People would be better served by researching what candidates have done in the past.  That's a better indicator of future actions.  

I agree in principle with this, but how much of the general public actually research their candidates or look at party manifestos?

Ignorance, apathy and bias is a huge problem.  But it won't be overcome by watching a debate that is largely a circus where candidates avoid answering questions and conduct live campaign ads of questionable accuracy and veracity.  

Ben Reilly wrote:

Maddog wrote:

Ignorance, apathy and bias is a huge problem.  But it won't be overcome by watching a debate that is largely a circus where candidates avoid answering questions and conduct live campaign ads of questionable accuracy and veracity.  

If skillfully moderated, a debate between candidates can showcase their policy proposals and allow competitors to poke holes in said proposals. But there's a big problem, and that's the profit motive of the networks that broadcast the debates. When you make money off advertising during the debates, the motive is to turn them into a shit show.

The solution to this (and many other societal ills) is to remove the profit motive. Debates should be ad-free and government-funded, either by paying the networks to air them or only airing them on public broadcasting (my preferred solution).