New Legislation aimed at regulating online political ads criticised for not being robust enough
The Oireachtas Committee on Housing has completed its last pre-legislative scrutiny meeting regarding the Electoral Reform Bill, with some Committee members expressing reservations about how effective it might be in regulating online political advertising.
The government published the General Scheme of the Bill in January. It contains a stipulation that online political advertisements should feature a clear label stating “Political Advert” and providing a link to a page containing (among other things) information on the name of the purchaser of the advert, whether micro-targeting was applied (and criteria used if applicable) and the start and end date of the campaign. Under the legislation, online platforms would be required to appoint a “responsible person” in order to identify and verify the buyer of such adverts by “taking measures reasonably warranted in support of transparency in and around online political advertising”. Further, such a buyer must be an eligible Irish citizen or, if an organisation, must “keep an office in the island of Ireland” from which it carries on one or more of its principal activities.
Those who break the proposed laws could face up to five years in prison and / or a fine of up to €5000. The Scheme also provides for the establishment of a 7-9 person Electoral Commission, chaired by a current or former High Court / Court of Appeal / Supreme Court judge (nominated by the Chief Justice) and including experts in “electoral matters” and “electoral systems”, both Irish and international, and public administration/governance.
The Bill has faced some criticism from the Oireachtas Committee on Housing. As quoted in the Irish Times last week, Fianna Fáil’s Paul McAuliffe claimed the legislation was not “robust” enough, whilst Fine Gael’s Emer Higgins said there was a need to regulate online political advertising “year-round”, and not just at election time as proposed in the Electoral Reform Bill.
Speaking as part of the consultation on the General Scheme in March, Liz Carolan of Digital Action / The Transparent Referendum Initiative guarded against the risk of building “legislation and an institution around a single product”, expressing the view that “the legislation should enforce standards and principles governing our elections, and allow for the creation of an institution empowered to assess, create rules around, and enforce transparency on new products and tactics as they emerge.”
In their own submission on the Bill, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties stated that the appointment of a Chair should be through “an alternative more open selection process” and stated that the Bill in its current form failed to avail of an opportunity to “replace the deeply problematic definition of ‘political purposes’” contained in the Electoral Act 1997. This, they argue, “appears to prohibit any person or organisation based in Ireland from accepting any...donations or grants to assist them in influencing public policy”.
Both Facebook and Twitter have also raised concerns about the proposed legislation. Facebook stated that the reforms could put Facebook in the position where they “have to choose between violating Irish law or violating EU law”; this claim was termed “disingenuous” by Sinn Féin TD and Committee member Eoin Ó Broin as “the (EU) Digital Service Act does not deal with elections.” Meanwhile, Twitter stated that there was a possibility that non-profit organisations could be negatively affected by the measures regarding social media advertising.