Meta political ad ban opens the gates for disinformation
Meta political ad ban opens the gates for disinformation - The Labour Party
Labour MEP for Dublin Aodhán Ó Ríordáin has condemned tech giant Meta’s decision to cease all political advertising in the coming weeks. The announcement made last Friday by Meta – which owns Instagram, Facebook, Threads and Whatsapp – is “a dark day for democracy and will result in a massive increase in disinformation and electoral manipulation from sinister forces,” according to Ó Ríordáin.
Ó Ríordáin said:
“New EU transparency rules for political advertising are being introduced from October. This is a positive move and will ensure citizens have information on who is paying for political ads, why they are seeing ads and how much is being spent on those ads.
“However, rather than working with these new transparency rules, Meta has decided to shut its platforms to legitimate political advertising. This prevents citizens from receiving and assessing messages from legal, registered political parties.
“However, this doesn’t mean that political messaging on Meta will disappear. Meta’s actions will only facilitate sinister actors, who have no interest in transparency and truth, to manipulate the platforms with lies, disinformation and hate.
“We saw this happen in the Romanian Presidential election in December 2024. The Tik Tok platform had supposedly banned political advertising. However, one Russian aligned candidate, Calin Georgescu, received enormous support on Tik Tok, assisting him to catapult from nowhere to top of the poll. Documents declassified by the Romanian Security Services indicated Georgescu received coordinated support from foreign actors and this was one of the reasons the first round of voting was annulled by the Supreme Court.
“I am calling on Meta to reverse this decision. Social media platforms play an important role in political discourse. The new EU regulations seek only to ensure that political advertising is legitimate, transparent and identifiable. This is positive. By ceasing legitimate political advertising Meta is closing down political debate and opening the door to the sinister forces that will flood its platforms with lies and disinformation. Democracy is the ultimate victim of Meta’s decision.”