Treat Facebook as broadcaster in 2019 election: professor

OTTAWA — Treating social media companies, such as Facebook Inc., as broadcasters could help keep them in line with election regulations and curb unwanted influences resulting from unbalanced perspectives, a law professor at the University of Ottawa argued Wednesday. That was among several recommendations made by Michael Pal and two other legal experts, who appeared at a panel at the university to discuss issues around Facebook and the upcoming federal election in 2019. The suggestions also come against the backdrop of the role Facebook, and its use by Russia, played to help elect Donald Trump as U.S. president in 2016. The options to curb that kind of influence include “really pushing against this idea that Facebook is a neutral platform and treating them as a broadcaster,” Pal said. The assistant professor at the university said broadcasters have separate rules related to elections, which include equal pricing on ad space for parties and, similarly, time given to political parties to advertise themselves, which are guidelines listed on the CRTC website. “Maybe something like that could be adapted to social media, as well,” he said. He noted reports have surfaced with the allegation Facebook was charging less for ads for the Trump campaign compared to Democratic contender Hillary Clinton’s campaign. This was due, the story goes, to Facebook’s algorithm liking more polarizing information because it keeps users engaged on the platform. Parties can effectively spend fewer dollars to advertise digitally and still reach a larger audience compared to traditional television, Pal said. He suggested having a social media political advertising limits alongside the existing general elections spending rules as another recommendation. He said that would help limit discrimination against specific political parties. Facebook is operating at the regulatory periphery, yet it has massive influence on political outcomes, the lecture hall heard. The panelists spoke about a range of influences that social media has on voters, including the ability of Facebook’s algorithms to shoehorn voters into one perspective by consistently feeding them a steady diet of what it believes they want to hear — “filter bubbles,” as they are otherwise called. Elizabeth Dubois, assistant professor of law at the university, said the risk is that people don’t understand how these algorithms work, though she did recognize the force of good that social media can deliver. She said Facebook can be more obvious, or transparent, about how their algorithm works. Pal also suggested a more “intrusive option”: to treat Facebook as an electoral participant. “If Facebook wants to be operating in Canada, maybe the trade-off is they have to give up some of their secrecy and proprietary material so we know how politics is being influenced.” Other rules could include a requirement for Facebook to disclose certain information, such as its political advertising revenue and its sources. “Really what I’m getting at is in the same way we assume political parties, third parties, candidates, leadership contestants must disclose what’s happening and give us a certain baseline of information so we can be informed as voters, maybe Facebook would have to do some similar things,” Pal said, adding that doing so would likely rub against copyright, intellectual property and privacy laws. Last fall, Facebook made some strides to be more transparent with its ads, with Canada becoming a testbed, while a communications lawyers conference heard that policy makers are increasingly concerned about fake news being used to influence the 2019 federal election. And on Wednesday, the BBC reported that Facebook banned the pages of controversial political party Britain First. Trump previously shared posts by the group on Twitter Inc., which suspended the group's account in December. Currently, automated political “bot” accounts have great influence in the social media ring, Dubois pointed out. She said influential versions of those include amplifier bots, which inflate messages and can raise a politician’s profile; and dampener bots, which detract from conversations and force people off the platform. Dubois said there needs to be a code of conduct for political parties in Canada, “where they can sign on and say, ‘we’re going to tell you when we’re using these automated approaches. We’re going to let you know what we’re doing and why, what our goal is, and you can decide for yourself whether or not you think that’s good or bad, whether or not you want to keep supporting us.’” Earlier this month, far-right Italian political figure Matteo Salvini credited Facebook for his party's success in that country's elections. A Vanity Fair editor on Twitter quoted him as saying, "Thank God for the internet, thank God for social media, thank God for Facebook." — With reporting by Ahmad Hathout at ahathout@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

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Treat Facebook as broadcaster in 2019 election: professor

Broadcast | March 14, 2018

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