Amélie P. Heldt
In late March
2019, Facebook announced it would tighten up its rules for political
advertisement and is now – once again – under attack for getting it wrong. The
attempt of the world’s largest social media platform to protect the E.U.
elections from foreign interference is effectively restricting European
candidates to their country of residence.
The network
infrastructure is particularly suited to spread (mis)information, which makes
the problem of so-called “fake news” on social media platforms hard to solve.
Recent work shows how the attention economy relies on content that provokes
strong emotions, and that it benefits from the data generated through user engagement
to optimize behavioral advertisement. (See, for example, recent publications
from Zuboff, Crockett, Benkler
et al., Ghosh
and Scott.) It is more likely that controversial content will
be algorithmically
prioritized in a user’s newsfeed, including both viral content
and false
information that was designed and spread with the intention to
mislead the recipient. Plus, the distribution of misinformation can be amplified
by buying targeted
advertisement space, just like with any other digital marketing campaign. This mix can become quite explosive, even
more when it comes to disinformation in periods of election
campaigns. The accompanying effects can be threatening for
democracy if fake news posts are realistic enough to be
believed and if the exposure to them is
high. Since Brexit and the U.S. presidential campaigns in 2016, the use of social
media marketing for political purposes has become more common but the
way it operates remain opaque. The dimension of this issue was revealed by the Cambridge
Analytica scandal in March 2018, which got Facebook into a
pretty pickle.
In an effort to fix
mistakes of the past and to counter allegations it would not live up to its
responsibilities, Facebook published its new
rules for political advertisement in the European Union two months
ahead of the election days. The two main novelties are that advertisers need to
be “authorized in their country to run ads related to the European
Parliamentary elections,” and that “all ads related to politics and issues on
Facebook and Instagram in the EU must be clearly labeled.” With the latter,
Facebook is implementing a transparency-enhancing tool that experts have been demanding for a long
time. At the same time it makes Facebook the de facto arbitrator over what is political speech and what is not.
It also does not solve the problem of adapting political communication to
potential voter profiles. More urgent, however, is the problem with the first
rule, which is designed to be “a real barrier for anyone thinking of using Facebook
to interfere in an election from outside of a country.” However, these
elections are pan-European, and so are the campaigns.
This shows that
Facebook struggles with the E.U. elections, not fully considering the actual circumstances.
The problem with authorizing advertisers only in their countries is that it
restricts the candidates considerably in their sphere of action. The
parliamentary groups within the European Parliament are composed of delegations
from Member States but each belonging to the same political family. Thus, their
campaigns run both on a national and a supra-national level. For example,
Manfred Weber, top candidate for the European People’s Party (the largest
political group in the European Parliament) and the potential next president of
the European Commission, can only campaign in Germany as a member of his German
party. It also means that European parties and candidates are treated as “foreign
interference” by Facebook, clearly missing on the whole rationale of the European
Union and its parliamentary elections (and the E.U. single market).
As reported, the most senior
E.U. civil servants believe that failing to recognize the role of pan-European
political parties and institutions “would encroach upon fundamental EU rights
and freedoms, such as free movement and political participation.” In this
letter they also complained about Facebook preventing the E.U. institutions from
calling on citizens to vote. (Ironically, Nick Clegg, Facebook’s head of global
policy and communication, is a former British MP who should be familiar with
the functioning of E.U. elections.) The representatives of eight political
groups followed suit, with this open
letter to Mark Zuckerberg. So far, it remains unclear if Facebook will grant
only single exceptions or thoroughly change its rules. Both politicians and
institutions depend on social media to reach voters that are spread out in
different countries, hence not reachable by classic means like election
posters. The whole electoral process is based on a free flow of information,
enabling the formation of opinions. An inherent part of citizens’ electoral
rights is their freedom of information, which is currently hindered by
Facebook’s new policy. Just a few weeks ahead of the elections, it seems unreal
that the campaigns would be seriously disrupted and it shows, once again, the
immense power of Facebook over not only individual communication but also the
public discourse.
Amélie P. Heldt is a junior researcher and doctoral
candidate with the Leibniz Institute for Media Research, Hamburg, and currently
a Visiting Fellow with the Information Society Project at Yale Law School. You can reach her by e-mail at amelie.heldt@hiig.de