Tag: twitter

Facebook announces Voting Information Center in effort to register 4 million new voters

Facebook have launched a big push to register more peoople for this autumn’s US elections. Among the tools they have created is a ‘Voting Information Center’. From this summer, anyone logging into Facebook, Messenger or Instagram will see a banner advertising the function. Facebook claim they helped 2 million people to register in 2016 and in 2018 and they want to double that number this time.

2_VotingInfoCenter_FBThe Information Center will have information about registering to vote as well as absentee or postal votes, depending on the particular rules of the state they live in.

In addition, Facebook has finalised their opt-out system for political adverts. Users will be able to toggle a switch to block all political and issue based adverts – anything that has a ‘paid for by…’ label. That’s fine, but it is a blunt instrument. There is no ability to choose only to block certain adverts. And it will be interesting to find out (if they will tell us) how many users take up this feature. The good news is that this feature will slowly roll out across other countries that have an advert register.

There are also a couple of small tweaks. The ‘paid for’ disclaimer that indicated a post was an advert used to disappear when an ad was shared. Now that label will stay on the post. Finally, the platform is tracking the amount spent by political contest so that users can identify better what money is being spent where, not just by who. Hopefully that feature will roll across to countries where campaign finance is more tightly regulated as soon as possible.

So, as you might expect, I have a number of concerns about this scheme, even if the overall proposal is very welcome:

  • First, however big and bold they are making it seem, this is still not the grand vision that Facebook has been lacking for so long when it comes to political posts, adverts and electoral interference. Until we know what their long term gameplan is, they will continue to fiddle around the edges.
  • Second, once again we are looking at a big initiative rolled out for a US election. There is absolutely nothing to indicate when such provisions might be made available in the 150+ other countries in which Facebook has a major influence on voters. Yes – the US election is the biggest single contest this year and Facebook is based there. But having a completely America-centric view on things is deeply damaging to the platform’s reputation in many other countries.
  • Third is what is not being said. Facebook is claiming: “By getting clear, accurate and authoritative information to people, we reduce the effectiveness of malicious networks that might try to take advantage of uncertainty and interfere with the election.” My fear is that they will use the existence of the Information Center as an excuse for not acting as they should when leading figures break the platform rules. A month ago President Trump had a post tagged on twitter because it was deemed that he was aiming to spread mistrust in the election system. This was about the only area in which most platforms are prepared to act (although Twitter also censored a post which it claimed was glorifying violence). This week he has again claimed (without justification) that ‘Democrats will stuff ballot boxes with thousands of fake votes’. That, again, is a post aiming to spread mistrust in the election and should have been blocked. But it hasn’t been. If Facebook starts pointing to the information center as the reason they aren’t taking down such posts when they appear on their platform then they will have failed voters rather than served them.

Who Targets Me launch ten rules to guide online political adverts – and they are good!

Who Targets Me is a campaign group that aims to lift the veil from online political advertising. They have developed a plug-in which people can volunteer to use which means the group can see who is receiving targeted political adverts on social media. Because of the targeting, it is often very difficult for anyone who has not been sent the advert directly to see it.

The group is also campaigning to institute better rules to govern the conduct of political advertising. You may well have seen my posts and thoughts about the need for better rules, and I like what WTM have done with their thoughts.

I would encourage you to read the full post here, but I’m going to take the liberty of posting the rules they advocate and a bit of their thinking below.

In essence, the group believes that it would be wrong to have some form of officially appointed regulator or online adverts. Such a body would be expensive, slow and only able to handle a tiny percentage of the adverts published each year. In addition, their decisions would become politically contentious.

Instead, they are proposing rules which would reduce the way in which advertising can be abused, preserve freedom of expression and targeting and preserve public confidence. Their ten ideas are:

  • Collaborate to define what is ‘political’.
  • Require maximum transparency for political advertising.
  • Force strong verification.
  • Make advertisers earn the ‘right’ to advertise.
  • Allow fewer ads.
  • Make ‘ads’ ads again.
  • Introduce a blackout period for political advertising.
  • Ensure these measures are ‘always on’.
  • Enforce the rules and increase the penalties for breaking them.
  • Update the rules regularly, transparently and accountably.

In their article they list the reasoning for each of these proposals and again I would encourage you to read the whole thing.

 

 

Reading List – 12th June 2020

Twitter has disclosed more than 32,000 accounts which have been part of three state backed schemes to promote disinformation and acting in an inauthentic manner. These accounts are said to be part of state sponsored operations and existed in China, Russia and Turkey.

The 1,152 Russian accounts were said to be promoting the ruling United Russia party and denigrating rivals. The Turkish accounts were engaged in similar activity related to the AK Parti.

Twitter’s opening line of their press release is particularly interesting. They state:

“Today we are disclosing 32,242 accounts to our archive of state-linked information operations — the only one of its kind in the industry.”

That Twitter should have such an archive is welcome. But it seems a shame that other platforms do not and that there is not an industry-wide archive. A similar case can (and has) been made for a multi-platform library of political adverts. Combatting improper and illegal behaviour on social media cannot be undertaken on a platform by platform basis.

 

 

RFE/RL reports apparent confirmation that Moldovan oligarch Vlad Plahotniuc has been hiding out in Moldova.

Plahotniuc was the power behind the Democratic Party and fled in June 2019 after a joint action by Russia, Europe and the USA to try to end the corruption that was endemic under his regime. It has been claimed that he stole more than $1bn, the equivalent to roughly one eighth of the Moldovan economy. 

Plahotniuc apparently made his way to the USA where his request for asylum was rejected and he was ordered to be deported. That deportartion has not happened yet however and it is claimed that he has multiple passports and identities.

 

The Carnegie Moscow Center seems to be going all in on President Putin at the moment. Tatiana Stanovaya argues that Covid-19 and the fall in the oil price have exposed the holes in the Russian regime, whilst Alexander Baunov says that Putin has gone missing during the crisis.

 

Another Carnegie piece, this time looking at the electoral challenges faced by Alexander Lukashenko, the President of Belarus.

Twitter fact-checks Trump: labels postal voting claims as false

Twitter has taken both a huge and a tiny step in deciding to tag President Trump’s tweets about postal voting in California with a link to a fact-checking page. It is huge because this is the first time that any social media platform has even come close to censoring the President when he makes false statements and because it appears to go against Twitter’s own ‘free speech for politicians’ policy.

Screen Shot 2020-05-27 at 09.29.00

But it is also tiny because it is merely a link to another page, a tag applied many hours after the original tweets. And as the Guardian and others have shown, the link doesn’t appear in some cases if you reproduce the tweet elsewhere.

That Twitter should choose to make this decision for posts about elections is not that surprising. The company has singled out attempts at “manipulating or interfering in elections or other civic processes” for special attention. That said, the platform failed to act when President Trump made false statements claiming that Michigan would be sending a ballot to every voter by mail (they are merely sending a postal vote application – something done by many Republican states). It might be cynical to look at the company taking action when the tweets are about their home state of California as being significant, but there you are.

The tweets in question are a repetition of the sort of thing the President said in the Michigan case – that the state would be sending ballot papers to anyone living in the state, even if they are illegal immigrants (that bit is implied) and that state officials would then tell people how to vote. Each aspect is clearly false. The linked fact checking page is pretty good – it aggregates a range of journalists and others explaining why the President’s statements are not correct. How many of the President’s followers will actually read it remains to be seen however.

Predictably, the President is claiming that this action has infringed his right to free speech, and that he ‘will not allow it to happen’ despite platforms having the right under federal law to decide how to moderate what appears. His campaign manager Brad Parscale claimed that this justified his decision to end Trump’s advertising on Twitter, despite the platform itself taking the decision to end all political advertising in 2019, something the Trump campaign at the time complained was biased.

My own view is that I do not believe that Twitter would have taken this decision if it were to be a one-off. They will be generating a huge backlash which will only be justified if they really intend to push on and have a similar form of fact-checking for future statements by Trump and other candidates. Whether they will limit their actions to tweets about elections or spread the net further will be closely watched. In the meantime, it is also a shot across the bows for Facebook which has refused to allow its third-party fact-checkers to critique the posts of politicians and other world leaders.

Reading List – 2nd March 2020

The Guardian reports on developments in the East African country where power has been dominated by the clan system and where minorities and women have been excluded.

 

The possible impact of the coronavirus on the US election has been raised in a number of quarters. In an op-ed on Wired, Jon Stone suggests that the option of an all-mail ballot in November is not that easy to achieve as US elections are managed by states and counties rather than federally.

However, the very fact that people are thinking about the possible impact and how it can be mitigated this far out from the November polls is encouraging.

 

A court in the USA has ruled that privately owned social media companies such as Facebook and twitter are not covered by the First Amendment – the right to freedom of speech. In a case brought by conservative groups, the court said that the companies have the right to censor material they do not like. I would guess that this one will go to the Supreme Court.

 

Most Americans don’t have confidence in the ability of tech platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to defeat attempts to interfere in elections, according the Pew Research. But the vast majority also think that it is the duty of these companies to do so.

 

 

This is fairly techy in the detail, but this article exposes the security flaws in the sorts of electronic voting machines which are common in the US. There are also a couple of videos where experts explain how they might go about hacking individual machines or the election server.

 

Online Harms – how does the UK government plan to address election interference?

The UK government has set out a plan to give media regulator Ofcom more powers to regulate internet companies. The talk is about forcing platforms to hold a ‘duty of care’ for their users. We don’t yet know many of the details, and the term online harms covers a vast swathe of activities from child protection to terrorism, but we also know that the government has previously viewed interference with elections as one of the online harms that needs addressing.

So what is an online harm when it comes to electoral integrity and how could internet companies police such threats?

The first is interference with the electoral process itself. In this case, the UK’s adherence to paper and pencil voting and counts taking place in a single venue for each constituency actually helps. If we used electronic voting machines, or voted via the internet, then these might be open to manipulation. The only instance where the process is open to such manipulation is when scanning is used to count the votes in elections such as the mayor of London. So there needs to be confidence that the scanners and their software is secure and accurate and consideration needs to be given to having at least a sample of the paper ballots hand counted by hand.

The next key area is disinformation (or fake news). Should platforms like Facebook ensure that such posts are not altering the course of the election? 

To date the government has been keen to stress that it should be up to voters to decide for themselves what is truthful and what is not when it comes to electoral propoganda. Political adverts are exempt from the ‘legal, decent and honest’ requirements of, say, washing powder adverts. So politicians can say whatever they want on social media or their own websites. (Of course, the government could change their minds and require truthfulness, but this would mean establishing some sort of board to decide on truthfulness and a whole host of other issues.)

Just because the government doesn’t require it doesn’t stop the platforms having their own rules governing political speech. Facebook is the most open, allowing politicians to do and say what they want. They exempt political adverts from fact-checking and have said they are in favour of free speech and allowing voters to decide what is true or not. At the other end of the scale, Twitter has banned political adverts but still allows politicians to say whatever they want in organic tweets. And in the middle comes Google which has restricted the targeting allowed for adverts, but still allows things such as a banner advert which directed users to a site called labourmanifesto.co.uk – which turned out to be a Conservative party advert.

Platform policies are pretty much worldwide. So the UK government’s new initiative will throw down a gauntlet in the shape of a challenge to create UK service conditions reflective purely of UK laws. That has happened in other countries, but the platforms (and US government) have complained bitterly. Such laws have yet to be fully tested in the courts so we wait to see how the platforms will react.

Where the UK government may choose to act would be in the areas of user identification and financial probity. Electoral participation in the UK is limited to UK individuals and companies, and there are limits to the amount that can be spent. So it may be that the government chooses to impose new burdens on internet companies to ensure that only legal contributions can be made and that those responsible for adverts are clearly identifiable. This would take the form of clear ‘imprints’ and an open library to see who has produced what and at what cost.

Finally there is the issue of foreign interference. With participation limited to UK individuals and companies, what action might be proposed to prevent interference from those based overseas – either to seek to advantage a particular candidate or just to create disinformation and confusion?

To this end, crossbench peer Lord Cromwell (*) has tabled a question in the House of Lords:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, given the “real danger that hostile actors use online disinformation to undermine” the UK’s “democratic values and principles” outlined in their Online Harms White Paper, published in April 2019, what steps they plan to take to empower the proposed independent regulator to require online platforms to take down such material that may be perceived to have an impact on an electoral contest; and what guidance they plan to give to that regulator about how any such decision should be reached.

Of course the government may think election interference should be the responsibility of another body, not Ofcom. Or they may think that there should be no regulation or protection in this area – although that would contradict their main decision and they would have to explain why. We await the further details.

 

* Disclosure – Lord Cromwell manages many UK observer secondments to OSCE/ODIHR international election observation missions on behalf of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and has employed me in this role.

Social media and elections – an update

I’ve written a fair amount over the past year about the problems social media companies face with regard to elections and political posts. You can find examples here, here and here.

In short, the argument is that these companies are massively powerful and can have a huge influence on elections. They have chosen different paths with Twitter banning political adverts, Google restricting the targeting that is allowed for such adverts and Facebook regarding the matter as one of free speech and therefore not really making any changes. Plus there is the problem that all companies are working on the basis of a single worldwide policy which pays no regard to the individual laws that might be applicable in the different countries they operate in.

There have been a few updates in recent weeks:

  • Wired has an article which explains the new Facebook Board, a group of people operating at arms length from the platform who will take the final decision on content moderation. As the article points out, they are almost certain to hear a case on false statements in political adverts and, whilst their rulings don’t automatically set a precedent, it may well be that this is the start of a process that leads to a change in policy.
  • Facebook has also updated its political ad library to make it more transparent and given users the option of seeking fewer political adverts in the future.
  • This decision is not without its critics. In the US, many political consultants – used to being able to rely on Facebook’s micro-targeting functions – have suggested that the ability of users to limit the political adverts they see could make campaigning harder. They have produced a report, which it seems Facebook is looking closely at, suggesting ways forward. However, as with so many concerns in the past, this is a purely US campaign industry solution which doesn’t take account of worldwide issues.
  • Twitter came under fire following a BBC exposé which showed that adverts could be targeted at extreme groups such as neo-Nazis. The platform has pledged to ban such adverts in the future.

Are Facebook finally making a move to limit micro-targeting?

The Wall Street Journal says that Facebook is considering taking steps to limit micro-targeting – the practice of allowing advertisers to send individual ads to just a hundred or so users.

If such a move happens then it will be a response to the pressure the platform is feeling from politicians and activists across the world and the moves made by rivals Twitter and Google in recent weeks.

The proposal, according to the WSJ, would be to raise the minimum number of user targets to a few thousand. That would still allow a high degree of granulation – the ability to target ad recipients based on refined characteristics such as personal likes or geographic location. It isn’t the same as Google’s proposal to limit targeting to age, gender and postcode.

If it happens, this is once again a small responsive step from the biggest platform. What we are still missing is the big picture – where do they see their advertising policy being in five years time and how do they respond to the calls from around the world to make political adverts more transparent and, well, truthful. It would be great if Facebook would set out this vision for us rather than scattershot, incremental steps.

Incidentally, this video of comedian Sacha Baron Cohen ripping into the big platforms whilst receiving an award from the US Anti Defamation League is well worth watching in full.

Google cuts back on political adverts

Google will no longer allow adverts featuring deep fakes, micro-targetting or targetting voters based on registered political affiliation according to a letter sent by the company in the US. It will also expand its library of political ads. The decision is being seen as putting further pressure on Facebook.

The Google announcement, in common with other platforms,introduces terms and restrictions based around the current US market and political system. Adverts based on voter affiliation are already banned in the UK and questioning of the census – another restriction – is a US phenomenon. However the measures will apply worldwide and will be put in place before the UK votes on 12th December.

At present, both Labour and Conservatives are investing heavily in Google Ads which appear when users search for the names of other parties. The new policies would not appear to limit such adverts.

“Whether you’re running for office or selling office furniture, we apply the same ads policies to everyone; there are no carve-outs,” said Google Ads executive Scott Spencer in a blogpost. This is widely interpreted as a dig at Facebook which has exempted political adverts from fact-checking.

However, the company has admitted that its resources to check adverts are limited and the number that may be banned as a result of this policy will be small.

Micro-targetting is Facebook’s key advantage and only exists to a very limited extent on Google. Facebook has a vast database of knowledge on each of its users and sells this knowledge to advertisers, including political advertisers. Google will allow adverts based on gender, age and locations as small as individual postcodes – but will not permit other data to be used.

Twitter’s new policy has now been given in more detail and will ban all adverts from politicians and parties and those which are based on specific, even if they come from pressure groups or individuals. The company also aims to ban advertisements aimed at influencing legislation, but not those which refer to generic issues. Campaign groups have claimed that this means that polluting fossil fuel companies can still run ads to promote their products but that campaigners aiming to stop them will be banned.

Google, like Twitter, does not rely heavily on political adverts for revenue, generating around $128m from the US market since June 2018. But the Guardian has revealed that the company has been under-reporting poltical spending in the UK by a large factor. The newspaper claims that Labour was reported as having spent £50 in the week beginning 27th October, but that the actual figure was around £63,000. A smaller discrepancy also existed for the Conservatives. Whilst there is no indication that Labour or the Conservatives intended to mislead regulators, accurate reporting by platforms is vital to enable the Electoral Commission and public to check that parties are not over-spending on the election.

Reading List – 18th November 2019

In a opinion piece in the New York Times, Daniel Kreiss and Matt Perault (the latter of whom is former public policy director at Facebook) offer options for reforming the elections landscape of social media.

 

For anyone who wants to know more about Iran and how the regime there has changed its global outlook and ambitions, this is a good read.

 

Dr Georges Fahmi of Chatham House examines how protesters across the region have adapted their tactics after the experiences of the Arab Spring. He sets out five lessons for those wnating to overthrow the system in their country, notably that it is not all about a rush to replace unpopular leaders through fresh elections – changing the rules and socio-economic structure of society is vital too.

 

This last recommendation is a listen rather than a read. Brookings President John Allen on why autocrats are rising and what to do about it. Defenders of an international liberal rules-based order need to take action to preserve their vision.