Fears over impact of Facebook on election outcomes
FACEBOOK WILL have an influential role in the General Election, critics have warned, despite concerns over regulation.
The social network played a decisive part in the outcome of the Brexit vote and the US election, political campaigners have said. And, arguing that Britain’s upcoming poll is likely to follow suit on the BBC’s programme, they said that unprecedented use of the site allowed campaigns to single out specific audiences with targeted posts.
Gerry Gunster, political campaigner at Leave.EU, hailed Facebook as a “game-changer” and said: “You can say to Facebook, I would like to make sure that I can micro-target that fisherman in certain parts of the UK so that they are specifically hearing that if you vote to leave that you will be able to change the way that the regulations are set for the fishing industry.
“Now I can do the exact same thing for people who live in the Midlands who are struggling because the factory has shut down. So I may send a specific message through Facebook to them that nobody else sees.”
Simon Milner, policy director at Facebook UK, said political parties enlisted specialists from the firm to help maximise their use of the site. The social network also provides a virtual Facebook Elections service to help parties craft their online campaigns.
Critics have expressed concern at the unregulated nature of Facebook’s role in politics. Damian Collins, chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport committee, who earlier this year led an inquiry into the spread of fake news, called for the site to be more accountable.
He told the BBC: “Historically there have been quite strict rules about the way information is presented and broadcasters work to a very strict code in terms of partiality and there are restrictions on use of advertising.
“But with something like Facebook you have a media which is increasingly seen as the most valuable media in an election period but which is totally unregulated.”