Twitter to ban political advertising in ‘pre-election’ period

Thestar.com
June 27, 2019
Alex Boutilier

Twitter will ban political advertising from political parties and advocacy groups in the lead up to Canada’s federal election.

The company told the Star Tuesday that it is taking the action because it needs more time to comply with new federal rules that require all political advertising to be catalogued in advance of an election.

The ban, which will be in effect from June 30 until the election is called, applies to any advertising by “parties or by organizations that are targeting specific politicians or specific political parties,” said Michelle Austin, Twitter’s public policy point person in Ottawa.

Austin said “issue advocacy and issue advertising” would not fall under the ban.

“Once the writ is dropped (and) the election is called, we’ll allow all advertising, and we’ll be posting those ads in (Twitter’s) ads transparency centre,” she said.

Under Bill C-76, the new election law passed by the Liberal government, social media companies are required to develop advertising libraries to provide transparency around political advertising, including who is pushing a certain message to their users.

The measure, which applies only to the months leading up to and including the election, is intended to prevent the kind of misinformation campaigns that propagated on social media platforms in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and in other Western democracies during election periods.

Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould has been pressuring social media companies to go above and beyond what the government is mandating them to do around misinformation, state-sponsored propaganda, and election interference.

Twitter has taken a middle ground between Google, which has banned political advertising outright rather than comply with the new election laws, and Facebook, which has built up a public advertising library to catalogue political ads in advance of the “pre-writ” period.

Austin said there wasn’t enough time between the Liberals’ election law changes was passed and the “pre-writ” period to build out a system to catalogue political ads. She said that the ban applies not only to political parties but third-party advocacy groups such as Unifor, the union pledging to “resist” Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives, and Canada Proud, a social media organization aiming to take down Justin Trudeau’s government.

“Unfortunately, this isn’t just an on-off button,” she said. “We’re going to push out allowing political advertising to the election, which was previously our plan but was changed by (C-76).”

While much of the attention around social media companies and misinformation has focused on Facebook, whose platform U.S. intelligence agencies say was used by the Kremlin to tilt the 2016 presidential election in Donald Trump’s favour, Gould has singled out Twitter for particular scorn.

“We haven’t heard from Twitter in terms of what they’re planning on doing for the upcoming election,” Gould told reporters outside the House of Commons earlier this month.

“I think it’s important for Canadians to be aware that Twitter has essentially decided not to take responsibility for these activities, that Twitter is not committing to what they’ll do here in Canada.”

In a statement on Wednesday, Gould said the government is “reassured” by Twitter’s announcement.

“The law protects our democratic processes and shines a bright light on election advertising, ensuring transparency and accountability,” Gould wrote in a statement. “The more information Canadians have about what they see online, the better they can understand who is trying to influence their vote.”