The European Commission (EC) is urging Facebook and Google to communicate why and how they target political ads to people and who pays for them. The purpose of these rules is to make political campaigning on the Internet more transparent.
If “methods of increasing” reach to a wider audience are based on the personal data of users, such as religious beliefs, sexual orientation or ethnicity, then they should be banned. Targeting will be allowed if the user has explicitly consented to it.
The European Commission is concerned that misinformation and the abuse of political advertisements are undermining democratic elections, reports NIXSolutions.
The bill requires not only digital platforms, but also PR companies, political parties, bloggers and data brokers to disclose how many people they target with political ads, for how long and what method they use to select who will see it.
In addition, experts cite statistics as an example where 40% of people do not distinguish between organic content and paid content. Additional rules will lead to increased regulation of the use of confidential information.