Disinformation – Political advertising

BACKGROUND INFORMATION (provided by EACA)

“European Democracy Action Plan”, EDAP
This public consultation was launched to seek stakeholder input for a so-called “Communication” – a precursor of potential legislation. If indeed adopted, such legislation would be far-reaching, ranging from protecting electoral processes (incl. political and  issue-based ads), media freedom, safety of journalists, disinformation, to liability of platforms for misleading information.

What is this initiative about?
The main purpose is to make sure that citizens can make an informed choice for/against an election candidate or political issue free of interference or manipulation (e.g. in elections, referenda). The initiative also expands into areas where disinformation erodes the trust in governments or public information, where false information is spread around public (health) issues, such as Covid-19 (‘infodemic’), the media are discredited or even the safety of journalists is threatened. Disinformation is not illegal per se, electoral laws (e.g. around campaigning) are a national matter, and media freedom/pluralism is unfortunately interpreted in very different ways in different Member States – so an encompassing law is doomed to be quite messy.

Why is this relevant to agencies?

a. If you have political advertisers as clients, e.g. political candidates, political parties/groups, etc. and advertise online: Even at this stage, it seems quite obvious that the Commission will push for more transparency/disclosure rules around political ads (who is behind, how (much) are they financed, how do they target citizens, etc.), political ad libraries, stricter labelling (of paid-for vs. organic content), limitations or even a ban on micro-targeting. One idea is to have the same rules apply for both online, offline and TV/broadcast political advertising.

b. In the context of brand safety (disinformation): The consultation asks whether the Code of Practice on Disinformation (of which EACA and Kreativitet & Kommunikation are signatories) should be continued, changed, or replaced by law. It does so at a time, where the Commission has still failed to present its assessment of the effectiveness of the Code and pressures signatories to go way beyond the commitments that they signed and committed themselves to on a voluntary basis.

c. If you are operating an ad network (unlikely): you will be asked to step up your efforts to demonetise websites that create, present or disseminate disinformation. Various approaches are suggested: (mandatory) black-list approach, collaboration with fact-checkers, giving advertisers the possibility to selectively exclude certain websites (grey lists), blocking ad accounts, white lists, etc.