Elections loom, and we need a handle on social media
With Ontarians going to the polls in June and municipal elections in late October, the stage is being set for social media to play a role in our democracy like never before.
After controversies south of the border with the American presidential election and severe privacy breaches on Facebook, there are big questions to ask about controls. McMaster University professor and Research Chair in Communication Policy and Governance Sara Bannerman says regulations are definitely needed.
Q. Is social media becoming a greater topic of study for academics and what kinds of things are being looked at?
A. Social media is a huge topic of study. Social media changes the way politics is conducted, and the way political campaigns are run. It affects our emotional lives and how we communicate with each other. Platforms, and the artificial intelligence they build, have growing power over what can and can’t be said on their services, over what information can and can’t be easily found, over what content is affordable and who gets paid for content. Platforms change the scale of business, expanding globally while centralizing key business tools. They don’t always pay taxes. Platforms change labour and business practices, enabling outsourcing and surveillance. It’s important for us to ask, who benefits from these changes?
Q. Voters go to the polls provincially in June and will decide on their municipal representatives in late October. What do you think are the concerns about social media potentially affecting the outcome of these elections?
A. The American election was affected by divisive, sometimes false, social media ads that were micro-targeted at swing voters. We don’t know whether that is happening in Ontario and Canada. When ads are on TV, it is easy to get a handle on what is being said, and to monitor the health of our democratic discourse. But social media ads are seen mainly in private. I think we need a public archive of all social media election ads, like the one that would be required under the American Honest Ads Act. This would allow us to monitor the health of election advertising, to understand how electors are being targeted, and to challenge any false or misleading messages.
Q. What should be done from a regulatory point of view to deal with these concerns?
A. Strengthen privacy law, giving privacy commissioners the power to make orders and impose fines. Privacy law should require the opt-in of users to targeted ads, tracking, and profiling. It should give people the right to access, download, transfer, and delete personal information about them. Political parties keep detailed voter databases. Privacy law should apply to those databases.
Q. Do you think government will expand privacy laws and regulate platforms?
A. It depends, in part, on how deeply platforms, and personal data, are involved in political campaigns. We should monitor the relationships between government, politicians, and platforms.