Facebook will force European political parties to register as advertisers in all EU member states as part of the technology group’s latest attempts to protect voters against disinformation campaigns ahead of pan-EU elections in May.
In his first public appearance in his new role at the social media group, Nick Clegg announced Facebook’s plans to step up its attempts to fight against disinformation campaigns by setting up an electoral hub in Dublin and introducing new EU rules for political advertising.
From March, Facebook will set up a European database of who places and pays for political advertising on the platform as part of its transparency efforts. The company has so far only set up the database for parties and other campaigners in the UK but will expand across the EU’s 27 member states.
“We will require those wanting to run political and issue ads to be authorized
; and we will display a ‘paid for by’ disclaimer on those ads,” said Mr Clegg, who was hired as Facebook’s vice-president for communications late last year.
These rules mean that pan-European political parties would need to register as advertisers in order to campaign across all 27 member states — and campaign by national electoral rules — in forthcoming elections. The database will cover political groups and also “issue” ads on topics such as immigration amid concerns that Eurosceptic forces will hijack May’s vote to spread “fake news”.
Brussels policymakers have made protecting the EU’s elections against foreign interference and disinformation a key priority but has so far avoided regulating against “fake news”.
Facebook has been working with Emmanuel Macron’s government about how to combat online hate speech as part of France’s attempt to draw up laws against the practice.
Addressing a range of recent controversies, including data privacy, regulation and elections, Mr Clegg said it was time for “humility from a very large company like Facebook” but also “honesty” from policymakers about the challenges posed to society by technology.
“Facebook may be the poster child for data-driven businesses, but the questions that have been raised go far beyond one company”, said Mr Clegg.
Mr Clegg, a former MEP and EU technocrat, warned European policymakers concerned about privacy rights not to put it at odds with “prosperity”.
“We must avoid legitimate questions about data-driven businesses evolving into an outright rejection of data sharing and innovation.”
He also criticised regulators’ focus on US tech groups. China, he said, “combines astonishing ingenuity with the ability to process data on a vast scale without the legal and regulatory constraints on privacy and data protection that we require on both sides of the Atlantic”.
