SF lumped in with English far-right extremists by EC

THE European Commission grouped Sinn Féin in with extremist political parties such as the far-right English Defence League when deciding who not to target with ads on Twitter last year, the Irish Daily Mail can reveal.

In 2023, the EU Home Affairs Directorate – the department responsible for immigration – ran a series of ads on X, formerly Twitter.

The ad related to proposed EU child sexual abuse prevention legislation, which was targeted at Dutch users of the social media platform in a process known as microtargeting. This involves keywords to ensure the ads are directed at the correct audience. However, as a means of ensuring the ad targeted the correct people, the Commission was also able to say who it did not want the ad shown to. A complaint by the digital privacy group ‘None of Your Business (NoYB) shows the Commission targeted Dutch speakers who were from the Netherlands and were over 18 years of age.

It noted that among those ‘explicitly excluded’ were far-right political parties such as German outfit AfD, Spain’s Vox and the English Defence League, along with Sinn Féin. Also excluded were politicians such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban, French politician Marine Le Pen, and Italian leader Giorgia Meloni, as were ‘terms regarding Eurosceptic and/or nationalistic political opinions’.

Six ad segments referred to religious beliefs (such as Christian and anti-Christian).

The NoYB noted that microtargeting was reportedly used by Cambridge Analytica during the 2016 US presidential election, for example, and enabled Donald Trump’s narrow victory in several US states.

After the Brexit referendum, microtargeting was investigated by the UK Information Commissioner’s Office and several companies and parties were sanctioned. The report added: ‘As a result of such controversy, targeting based on sensitive categories of “Political affiliation and/or beliefs” or “Religious or philosophical affiliation and/or beliefs” is also prohibited under X’s own ads policy.’

The NoYB noted the EC is itself concerned about the use of microtargeting as a means of communicating political opinions. ‘It is therefore striking that in this case the respondent uses microtargeting techniques trying to influence the public opinion in relation to a legislative process’, they said. NoYB has lodged a complaint with the European Data Protection Board about the practice.

A spokesman for SF said: ‘It is a matter for the European Commission to answer questions about their advertising.’