Plans of the EU Parliament: With transparency against online manipulation

The EU Parliament wants to tighten the rules for political online advertising. Fake news, hate speech and manipulation should be prevented through more transparency. The plans are likely to cause debate.

False promises, targeted disinformation, hate and hate speech. On the Internet, populists are making the mood for their own political agenda – and are becoming more and more professional in the process. They spread conspiracy theories, fake news and prejudice in order to create insecurity, divide society and manipulate elections. Commercial service providers are often involved – such as the British agency “Cambridge Analytica”, which has since been defunct, which supported the Brexit campaign and the Trump election campaign in 2016 with Facebook user data.

Even today, PR agencies use data analyzes and create psychograms so that political advertising messages can be played out even to the smallest target groups. Who is behind it as the client often remains in the dark.

Identify campaign sponsors

“The findings are clear: there is too much manipulation and abuse in our democracy and in our elections,” says French liberal Sandro Gozi. The EU Parliament therefore wants to significantly tighten the transparency rules for paid political advertising on the Internet in order to better protect EU citizens from disinformation and attempts to influence them from abroad. Because clients from third countries should no longer be allowed to use advertising services in the EU.

“It needs to be clear who is sponsoring these campaigns and why users are seeing them. This is an important step to defend our democracy in the elections we have next year. Local, regional, national and European,” says Tom Vandendendelaere, a Christian Democrat from Belgium. The parties there spend more money on political advertising on online platforms than anywhere else in the European Union.

extend data protection

The European Parliament wants to significantly restrict what is known as micro-targeting, i.e. the targeted display of advertising on the basis of data profiles. Sensitive, personal information, such as religious affiliation, nationality, sexual orientation or political views, should no longer be allowed to be used for individually tailored online messages. Other data only if the user has expressly consented to their use.

After all, a party can use such psychograms to send different messages to different groups of voters, says Green digital expert Alexandra Geese: “For example: ‘Free travel for everyone! No new laws!’ to older people and ‘Climate Protection First’ to younger people. And that doesn’t fit with our public democracy, that as a party you no longer have to take responsibility for what you say.”

Archive for online political campaigns

A central database managed by the EU Commission is intended to ensure the greatest possible transparency and is intended to collect detailed information on online political campaigns. For example, who the clients are or where the money for it comes from. A corresponding archive should be accessible to the public for ten years.

The digital industry considers the EU’s plans to be completely exaggerated and has obviously been trying to actively influence the ongoing legislative process for some time. In any case, MPs report massive lobbying activities aimed at restricting the scope of the regulation in order to defend the lucrative business models of Google, Facebook and Co.

Discussion material within the EU

Next, the MEPs have to agree on a common line with the EU Commission and the representatives of the member states. That shouldn’t be easy. Because the EU countries are also in favor of stricter transparency rules. But they don’t want to go as far as Parliament. Among other things, there should be exceptions for state bodies such as ministries or authorities, so that important information such as election dates or vaccination offers can continue to be communicated via social media.

Critics in the European Parliament fear that governments could use this rule to spread their political messages through the back door, while opposition parties have to abide by strict regulations. So the discussion is just getting started. But it really shouldn’t drag on for too long, because the new rules are supposed to come into force before the end of this year – so that they take effect in time for the next European elections in 2024.