Like it or not, Facebook is a major player in EU elections
Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook, has surprised many of late. In danger of becoming the poster boy for online privacy recklessness, he recently called for government regulation of the Internet and said farewell to top Facebook executives who helped mastermind the social media giant’s data and advertising algorithm. He also announced the rollout of a more robust effort to fight election interference. European Union Parliament elections looming in late May, seen by many as a watershed in the bloc’s history, could provide a litmus test on whether Facebook can stop disinformation that seeks to influence voters.
Now with 2.32 billion active users — 278 million of them in Europe — Facebook has started a new initiative that will require political ads in the EU to carry labels such as “paid for by” and be restricted to their home countries, Zuckerberg said. The labels identify the advertiser while a new database gives extra information on who they are, how much they paid and who they target. The measures have already been implemented online, according to the company.
The restrictions mean that EU political groups will not be able to use the social media platform to run pan-European campaigns. Information on advertisers will also be available to non-Facebook users.
Richard Allan, a former Conservative Party member of the UK parliament and now Facebook’s director of policy in Europe, said: “I don’t want anyone to be in any doubt that this is a top priority for the company”.
“We will be using a combination of automated systems and user reporting to enforce this policy,” he said. “These changes will not prevent abuse entirely. We’re up against smart, creative and well-funded adversaries who change their tactics as we spot abuse.”
The moves come as an EU summit of leaders once again raised the alarm on the need to protect European and national elections from disinformation. To counter the spread of Fake News, the EU itself started an online platform on March 18 called the Rapid Alert System that aims to strengthen coordination, analysis and joint responses by EU member states and institutions. It collects open-source information from Facebook, Twitter and other sites while drawing on fact-checkers, insights from academia and international partners.
But it is no easy task to sort vast volumes of data to determine whether its news, politics, advertising or simply personal posts by online users. Facebook is using lists of publishers it judges to be legitimate news providers that are exempt from the “paid for by” labels. Its staff has also researched parties and candidates taking part in the EU election to determine who should be labelled if they buy ads.
But whatever Zuckerberg’s recent mea culpas, many in Europe wonder if the private, incredibly profitable corporation should be the de facto policeman for online speech. Known for its staff of youthful whizz kids, those making
snap decisions in real time at Facebook simply might not have the required maturity and judgement to be the arbiters of truth or fact. Its use of automated software to filter content means that some of the policing will be done by robots, raising other questions such as whether bots can sort the nuances and meaning inherent in human communication.
Today Zuckerberg is not downplaying the impact Facebook has had on elections in the past and the challenge ahead.
“We’ve learned a lot since 2016, where obviously we were behind where we needed to be on defenses for nation states trying to interfere,” he said on American TV last week.
“These aren’t things that you ever fully solve, right? They’re ongoing arms races where we need to make sure our systems stay ahead of sophisticated bad actors,” said the 34-year-old whose personal fortune is now estimated at $64.8 billion.
He said Facebook now has “probably some of the most-advanced systems
A danger is the ‘echo chamber’ effect of Facebook’s algorithm that provides similar content to what has been clicked on before
of any company or government in the world for preventing the kind of tactics that Russia has tried”.
It’s likely that Facebook’s moves will better protect the upcoming EU vote from outside interference, but the scale of its reach will continue to provide a forum for anti-establishment forces. The result might not be as disruptive in Europe as it was in the UK with Brexit and in the US with the election of Donald Trump, but with Facebook able to provide highly targeted, relatively cheap ads, alternative parties are able to spread their views.
A danger is the “echo chamber” effect of Facebook’s algorithm that provides similar content to what has been clicked on before. The repetition of similar content can lead some to believe it is a widespread view or even the most sensible reality, when it could be a far distance from that.
According to the most recent polls the conservative European People’s Party is likely to retain its majority in the upcoming election, with the centerleft Social Democrats second. But the rightwing Europe of Nations and Freedom appears to be gaining ground.
Like it or not, Facebook is a major player in the debate and vote. Only time will tell if it has learned how to keep the discussion real.