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Content Type: Explainer
Monday, August 5, 2019
Recently the role of social media and search platforms in political campaigning and elections has come under scrutiny. Concerns range from the spread of disinformation, to profiling of users without their knowledge, to micro-targeting of users with tailored messages, to interference by foreign entities, and more. Significant attention has been paid to the transparency of political ads - what are companies doing to provide their users globally with meaningful transparency into how they're being…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Wednesday, June 24, 2020
Last week, Facebook announced that it would allow voters in the United States to opt out of seeing social issue, electoral or political ads from candidates in their Facebook and Instagram feeds.
Whilst Facebook’s attempt to increase the agency of users during the election period is commendable, the binary choice left to voters to either see political ads or not see them at all is a limited and short-sighted one.
Real transparency concerns are still unaddressed
Whilst Facebook enables users…
Content Type: Examples
Wednesday, November 4, 2020
Following the Trump re-election campaign's "block" purchase of Youtube homepage ad space - known as its masthead - in early 2020, Youtube has announced that it will be “retiring” reservations for full-day advertisements on its coveted homepage ad spot beginning in 2021, a change it said it communicated to advertisers earlier this year.
Instead, advertisers will only be able to buy that spot on a per-impression basis, making it harder for a single advertiser to dominate the page for a day at a…
Content Type: Video
Friday, January 22, 2021
In recent years, the use of online political campaigning has gained significant traction, with regulatory bodies often struggling to catch up. The unregulated use of political ads can pose threats to transparency, and all the more so when online platforms fail to play their part.
We at PI, together with ELSAM, are investigating the reach, effectiveness and impact of regulation by social media platforms and electoral authorities on online political advertising. Our research has shown that…
Content Type: Video
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
In recent years, the use of online political campaigning has gained significant traction, with regulatory bodies often struggling to catch up. The unregulated use of political ads can pose threats to transparency, and all the more so when online platforms fail to play their part.
We at PI, together with InternetLab, are investigating the reach, effectiveness and impact of regulation by social media platforms and electoral authorities on online political advertising. Our research has shown…
Content Type: Video
Monday, June 29, 2020
When exposed to online political ads, individuals are usually - though not always - able to reliably identify the political actors behind the ad. However, there is little transparency in relation to the targeting mechanisms operating behind some of the ads - an users are rightly concerned.
Behind the social media curtain, political actors avail themselves of data collected through a range of sources to infer additional data about their voters. This allows political actors to build profiles…
Content Type: Long Read
Thursday, October 3, 2019
An analysis of what Facebook, Google, and Twitter have done to provide users with political ad transparency as of September 2019. Our full analysis is linked below.
Recently the role of social media and search platforms in political campaigning and elections has come under scrutiny. Concerns range from the spread of disinformation, to profiling of users without their knowledge, to micro-targeting of users with tailored messages, to interference by foreign entities, and more. Significant…
Content Type: Video
Friday, January 22, 2021
Nos últimos anos, o uso de campanhas políticas online ganhou força significativa, com os órgãos reguladores muitas vezes lutando para se atualizar. O uso não regulamentado da propaganda política pode representar ameaças à transparência, ainda mais quando as plataformas online deixam de cumprir a sua parte.
A PI, juntamente com o InternetLab, está investigando o alcance, a eficácia e o impacto da regulamentação por plataformas de mídia social e autoridades eleitorais na propaganda…
Content Type: Explainer
Thursday, December 5, 2019
PI has long worked on the exploitation of data by companies. We've filed complaints against companies that constantly track you around the internet, we've shown how numerous phone apps share data with Facebook, we've exposed how advertisers track visitors on mental health websites, we've shown how period tracking apps collect and share data of users (including whether they are having unprotected sex or not!), exposed how major tech companies are not providing meaningful transparency to their…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Monday, November 18, 2019
This op-ed originally appeared on the Atlantic Council's Disinfo Portal.
While these concerns are held by societies globally, Privacy International’s (PI) recent analysis shows that in jurisdictions where companies have been under pressure to act—by governments and institutions such as the EU, or civil society—they have adopted self-regulatory practices. But they have failed to apply this heightened transparency elsewhere.
The role of social media and search engine companies in…
Content Type: News & Analysis
Friday, January 15, 2021
Over the past years, there has been much attention paid to political advertising transparency on online platforms. Growing internet penetration and the rising popularity of social media have made social media platforms a key battlefield for political actors in the fight for votes, where political ads have proved themselves to be a popular weapon. This means online transparency towards voters has become more imperative than ever.
And yet, social media platforms’ regulation of political ads…
Content Type: Video
Wednesday, July 1, 2020
The incorporation of new technologies to electoral processes is a phenomenon with a global and exponential growth. Despite its benefits, online campaigning is not without challenges, and can pose threats to transparency and equity in electoral competition. Given the role of elections as foundational pillars of the democratic system and a key gateway for the exercise of fundamental civil rights, these implications must be assessed with care and through specific tools.
We at PI, together…
Content Type: Guide step
Friday, May 1, 2020
Uber appears to offer few options to limit data collection and it’s unclear how the data the company has about users is shared with third parties including advertisers, although there have been numerous reports about Uber’s data sharing activities. These screenshots show a few things you can do.
It’s tough to minimise targeted ads on phones because ads can be delivered based on data from the device level (such as what operating system your phone is using or based on unique numbers that…
Content Type: Guide step
Friday, May 1, 2020
Twitter plays an increasingly important role as a space facilitating democratic engagement, debate and dissent. However, Twitter's track record in relation to protecting people's data has in some instances fallen short of expectations. In August 2019, for example, Twitter revealed that it had shared with advertisers the data of users who had opted-out of personalised ads. More recently, Twitter admitted that data which had been given by users for safety security purposes had been "inadvertently…
Content Type: Guide step
Friday, May 1, 2020
Google dominates online search. The company also owns YouTube and Android, with the latter reportedly making up nearly 75% of the global smart phone market share. PI has written about the numerous problems that come from corporate concentration and the use of data by monopolistic companies, and there are numerous examples of Google's failure to protect its users.
Below is a set of steps you can take if you wish to minimise ad targeting when using Google.
1. Go to gmail.com and sign in
Content Type: Long Read
Friday, September 13, 2019
We found this image here.
Using Facebook, Google, and Twitter’s ad libraries, PI has tried to understand how political ads are targeted in the UK. This information – which should be very clear on political ads – is instead being squirreled away under multiple clicks and confusing headings.
Importantly, in most countries around the world, users cannot understand why they’re being targeted with political ads on these platforms at all. This is because Facebook, Google, and Twitter have taken…
Content Type: Long Read
Friday, February 7, 2020
This piece was written by PI Partner Hiperderecho's Executive Director Miguel Morachimo and originally appeared here. Image from here.
The recent congressional elections in Peru have been different in many ways. This is primarily because the rules that prohibit parties and candidates from advertising on radio and television through paid ads have been applied for the first time. That has led the effort and expenditure on electoral advertising to be focused on alternative platforms, from printed…
Content Type: Advocacy
Thursday, December 5, 2019
As we come to the end of 2019, major weaknesses remain with the transparency that all major platforms have so far provided to users. This piece will overview these weaknesses and suggest steps to move forward in 2020.
Tying heightened transparency to "political" ads introduces a variety of problems. For a start, each platform has defined "political" differently, with some having wider definitions and some, incredibly narrow. When an ad is not designated as political, oftentimes it is provided…
Content Type: Long Read
Thursday, April 23, 2020
This review is based on information in the public domain, primarily that of the platforms themselves. It is not exhaustive and this field moves with speed - however, it aims to offer a snapshot of approaches and practices.
TikTok
TikTok is a short-form video app (owned by ByteDance) which allows advertising and sponsored content. Two thirds of TikTok’s over 113 million users (are reportedly aged 16-24) and it was the second most downloaded app in 2019, beaten only by WhatsApp’s 849 million). …
Content Type: Long Read
Sunday, April 21, 2019
“Truth exists, but you have to find it”, Oleksandra Matviychuk of Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties told me as I interviewed her in central Kyiv one week before the 2019 Ukrainian run-off election, “and in order to do so you have to make some effort”. We’re talking about her experience working on the ground in Ukraine, a country with a long history of battling against disinformation.
Activists in Ukraine have long experience navigating the noisy and chaotic environment that disinformation…
Content Type: Long Read
Thursday, December 5, 2019
Recently the role of social media and search platforms in political campaigning and elections has come under scrutiny. Concerns range from the spread of disinformation, to profiling of users without their knowledge, to micro-targeting of users with tailored messages, to interference by foreign entities, and more. Significant attention has been paid to the transparency of political ads, and more broadly to the transparency of online ads.
As discussions of potential solutions evolve from banning…
Content Type: Guide step
Friday, May 1, 2020
The screenshots below outline some steps you can take to minimise the data you share on WhatsApp. The company announced changes to group privacy (details here) but we are not currently (as of 14/05/19) able to see these changes (PI is UK-based).
It’s tough to minimise targeted ads on phones because ads can be delivered based on data from the device level (such as what operating system your phone is using or based on unique numbers that identify your phone), browser level (what you search for…
Content Type: Guide step
Friday, May 1, 2020
TikTok is a short-form video app (owned by ByteDance) which allows advertising and sponsored content. Two thirds of TikTok’s over 113 million users (are reportedly aged 16-24) and it was the second most downloaded app in 2019, beaten only by WhatsApp’s 849 million). Like other tech platforms, ByteDance makes most of its money from advertising. TikTok allows advertisers to target ads on the basis of custom or lookalike audiences, namely targeting users on the basis of pre-defined characteristics…
Content Type: Guide step
Friday, May 1, 2020
While Telegram says in its privacy policy that the company doesn’t “use your data for ad targeting or other commercial purposes”, the company says that “no third party bot developers are affiliated with Telegram” and that developers “should ask [users] for [their] permission before they access [their] data or [users] make it available to them. It’s unclear what oversight Telegram provides over how these developers use the platform to communicate with users. The screenshots below outline some…
Content Type: Guide step
Friday, May 1, 2020
It’s tough to minimise targeted ads on phones because ads can be delivered based on data from the device level (such as what operating system your phone is using or based on unique numbers that identify your phone), browser level (what you search for within a browser), and within the apps you use. An app could target ads at you based on your location (tied to your unique device id number(s)) for example. Apps, including Instagram, direct you to opt-out of targeted ads at the device level.
…
Content Type: Guide step
Friday, May 1, 2020
Facebook has been in the news over the past few years for failing to protect users’ data (here are some examples). Facebook can be an important tool in facilitating democracy and provides the potential to spread messages and ideas around the globe. For these reasons, it’s not possible for some people to simply stop using Facebook. However, the company continues to struggle to prove itself worthy of our trust and capable of complying modern privacy laws and expectations.
1. Go to facebook.com…