Political Ads
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Political negotiations continue: EU lawmakers fail to agree on strong rules for regulating political advertising
On 10 October, the European Parliament, the Commission and the EU Council had their fifth meeting (in the so-called trilogues) to find an agreement on the transparency and targeting of political advertising. The three institutions could not come to a consensus. Here is why.
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Open letter: EU Lawmakers must uphold human rights to privacy and free expression in the Political Ads Regulation
EDRi and 26 civil society organisations, voice our deep concern regarding the worrying developments related to the Regulation on the Targeting and Transparency of Political Advertising.
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Will the European Union allow politicians to use your personal data for political advertising?
A leak by POLITICO revealed that the European Commission presented three scenarios on how the Political ads regulation will impact the processing of special categories of personal data such as sexual orientation, religion or mental health.
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Sex, religion and race are advertising taboos, except for power-hungry politicians
As the GDPR turns five, certain EU lawmakers want to rip out some of its protections, so they can use our deeply personal information to tailor political ads and tip political elections and campaigns in their favour.
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European Parliament approves a timid online political advertising proposal
Tomorrow, 2 February, the European Parliament will vote on the regulation on the transparency and targeting of political advertising proposal in plenary. Although this regulation intended to restrict the use of personal data to target online political advertisements, important proposals to tackle the root causes of data-driven vote manipulation were watered down during the discussion in the Parliament.
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Elon Musk buying Twitter. What could possibly go wrong?
A new chapter of the surveillance capitalism saga happened just three days after the EU members adopted the final agreement on the Digital Services Act (DSA). The board of directors of Twitter accepted Elon Musk’s offer to buy the company for USD 44 billion. The deal is not closed yet, and now the ball is in Twitter’s shareholders to accept or reject the offer. This news has grabbed the media's attention worldwide and opened public discussions on how this would affect not only the features of Twitter but also freedom of speech in the digital sphere.
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Not everything is allowed in politics: Upcoming political advertising legislation must introduce limits
In November 2021, the European Commission launched a proposal for a regulation on the transparency and targeting of political advertising. The document will place harmonised rules for more transparency of political advertising to facilitate the sector’s internal market. Now, it is the European Parliament’s turn, specifically the IMCO (Internal Market and Consumer Protection) Committee to lead the legislative process.
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Facebook starts to increase transparency in political ads in the Balkans
Facebook has announced that it will expand its transparency system and confirmation of authenticity of ads about elections and politics starting from mid-March. Namely, Facebook will cover 32 additional countries, including Serbia and North Macedonia where the elections are to take place very soon.
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Shedding light on the Facebook content moderation centre in Athens
Following months of efforts, in early September 2019, EDRi observer Homo Digitalis managed to shed light on a case that concerns each and every Facebook user: a content moderation centre in Athens, Greece, tasked to moderate Facebook ads. As many other content moderation policies run by virtually unaccounatable private companies, this can pose threats to […]
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Twitter banning political ads – the tip of the iceberg
Twitter seems to have learnt the lessons of the 2016 US elections. After the revelation of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the link between the use of social media targeted political advertisement and the voting behaviour of specific groups of people has been explored and explained again and again. We now understand how social media platforms […]
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Facebook lies to Dutch Parliament about election manipulation
On 15 May 2019, Facebook’s Head of Public Policy for the Netherlands spoke at a round table in the House of Representatives about data and democracy. The Facebook employee reassured members of parliament that Facebook has implemented measures to prevent election manipulation. He stated: “You can now only advertise political messages in a country, if […]
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Facebook fails political ads tests several times
On 28 June 2018, Facebook announced it had set forth a compulsory “Paid for by” feature, limiting anonymity by requiring to submit a valid ID and proof of residence. This had been introduced in reaction to a series of election interference in the past year through foreign political advertising on social media platforms.
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