A veneer of political transparency
Does seeing Facebook ad spend and the number of advertisements really tell us that much? David Court reports.
Something new happened to me this week. While mindlessly scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed – a habit I really need to break out of – the New Zealand Labour Party served me an ad.
‘‘Auckland, are you ready for the Big Auckland Upgrade? We’re upgrading,’’ it began.
The ad then went on to claim the Labour Party was improving transport, hospitals and schools in Auckland. With the emphasis clearly on the party’s transport ambitions.
Fair enough, too.
Ask anyone who lives in Auckland what’s the worst thing about living in Auckland, and the answer you’ll hear more often than any other is the traffic.
It’s got so bad that recent reports suggest Aucklanders spend an average of 80 hours a year stuck in jams.
And just this week some headlines tell stories of city workers who spent 40 minutes stuck in their cars as they tried to exit a single side street in the CBD.
The people of Christchurch have a similar problem. Although, I’m not basing this on experience – as I’ve never been to Christchurch.
Instead, I’m able to make this assumption as Facebook’s Ads Libraries tool shows me the Labour Party is running a nearly-identical ad targeting Christchurch residents, too.
This is important, because, as far as I can tell, its the first time Facebook’s new Ad Libraries tool has been useful in monitoring New Zealand politics.
Ad Libraries, for those who don’t know, is Facebook’s attempt to be more transparent following the criticism the company received after its handling of ads and fake news during the 2016 United States election.
Now, anyone – you don’t need a Facebook account – can visit Ad Libraries and see a ‘‘library’’ of ads from any Facebook page.
At present, Facebook doesn’t enforce the same level of transparency on New Zealand’s political parties as it does in the US, United Kingdom, European Union and several other countries. However, the Labour Party has confirmed that it will voluntarily sign up to the scheme.
The move opens its campaign up to closer scrutiny of its messaging, and also how much money it spends spreading and targeting its messaging.
Speaking to her caucus, Jacinda Ardern said: ‘‘New Zealanders deserve a positive election. I don’t want New Zealand to fall into the trap of the negative fake news-style campaigns that have taken place overseas in recent years.
‘‘It means voters can see who is behind paid advertising online, how much they are spending and who they are targeting. The measures help avoid anonymous fake news-style ads,’’ Ardern said.
‘‘These rules are compulsory in the US, UK, Canada and the EU, amongst others, but not here. We think it’s the right thing to do to voluntarily adopt them anyway and set a clean tone for the election.’’
Labour’s move will be matched by the Green Party and ACT, while National’s deputy leader Paula Bennett has confirmed it was considering its position.
Working out what political parties have said, or spent, on certain ads can be tricky, though. A quick look at how the UK’s two main political parties used Facebook ads doesn’t return much meaningful data.
We can see that Boris Johnson’s party, the Conservatives, have placed 9900 ads over the past
90 days and that it spent £980,688 (NZ$1,969,864) since October 2018.
Likewise, the British Labour Party ran 2400 ads over the same period and spent £1,203,524 (NZ$2,417,464) since October 2018. What does that tell us? Not a lot. And to make matters more confusing, the Conservatives and Labour didn’t run 9000 and 2400 different ads with different messages.
Instead, they each created multiple versions of the same, with unique ad IDs, and used each ad to target a specific demographic – gender, age group, location – per ad.
‘‘New Zealanders deserve a positive election. I don’t want New Zealand to fall into the trap of the negative fake newsstyle campaigns that have taken place overseas in recent years.’’
Jacinda Ardern Prime Minister
Presumably, this is a strategy employed to monitor the effectiveness, and cost, of targeting specific demographics. That suggests New Zealand’s political parties will employ the same SEM (search engine marketing) tactics for our upcoming elections.
That means journalists and researchers have to monitor and compare tens of thousands of ads to gain insights into whether political parties are using Facebook ads in a ‘‘positive’’ way.
In short, Facebook must do more. A familiar story.