In a letter dated Thursday 25 September, around twenty civil liberties organisations urged Google and Meta not to stop displaying paid election-related advertising on their platforms, arguing that this would give free rein to the most extreme content.
Google recently announced that it would be updating its rules on political content, just before the new regulation on targeting and transparency of political advertising (TTPA) (see EUROPE 12840/5) comes into force.
The company has followed in the footsteps of Meta, which had warned of its intention to stop allowing “advertising on politics, elections and social issues on its platforms in the EU from October” (see EUROPE 13688/11).
The signatories fear that this vacuum will encourage the most extreme and emotionally-charged content to the detriment of moderate content. “In such an environment [...], the new ban risks reducing the visibility of moderate voices and thus accelerating radicalisation, to the detriment of democratic discourse”, they argue.
The organisations are calling on Google to “re-examine” the possibility of running political advertising that is not based on tracking and profiling, and to ensure that civil society organisations can continue to run legitimate campaigns “without arbitrary restrictions”.
See the letter: https://aeur.eu/f/imx (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)