Educational

In January 2019, Facebook announced that as of February 28 the site would add more information to that displayed when users click on the "Why am I seeing this?" button that appears next to ads on the service. Along with the brand that paid for the ad, some of the biographical details they'd targeted

In February 2019, with a general election expected in May, the Australian government revealed that Australia's main political parties had been hacked by a "sophisticated state actor". The Australian Cyber Security Centre uncovered the hack while investigating a just-revealed hack of the Australian

In February 2019, Joke Schauvliege, an environment minister in Flanders, was forced to resign after she suggested that Belgian intelligence services had information showing that the schoolchildren's strikes to protest climate change were being directed by others. The largest march in Belgium to date

In January 2019, the British transparency NGO WhoTargetsMe, Mozilla, and the US investigative journalism site Pro Publica reported that recent changes in the social network's code were restricting their ability to monitor political ads on Facebook. The company said the changes were part of a

In February 2019 the UK Information Commissioner's Office issued fines totalling £120,000 against the EU referendum campaign Leave.EU (£15,000 and £45,000) and Eldon Insurance (£60,000), trading as Go Skippy Insurance, for serious breaches of electronic marketing laws. The ICO also said it would

On January 9, 2019 the UK Information Commissioner's Office fined SCL Elections, also known as Cambridge Analytica, £15,000 for failure to comply with an enforcement notice the ICO issued in May 2018 ordering the company to respond in full to a subject access request submitted by US-based academic

In January 2019, Facebook announced it would extend some of the rules and transparency tools it developed for political advertising for upcoming spring elections in Nigeria, Ukraine, India, and the EU. In Nigeria, the site will bar electoral ads from advertisers outside the country where the

In December 2018 reports emerged that the Indian Electoral Commission would propose amendments to the Representation of the People Act 1951 that would require citizens to link their Electoral Photo ID Card to their Aadhaar number with the stated goal of improving the accuracy of the electoral rolls

In January 2019, Facebook' announced it had removed multiple pages, groups, and accounts coordinating inauthentic behaviour on Facebook and Instagram that were set up by two unrelated operations originating in Russia. One of these operated 364 pages and accounts was active in the Baltics, Central

Despite Facebook's October 2018 rules intended to provide greater transparency about political ads, the sources of funding for UK political ads remained obscure in early 2019. when a network of hard-Brexit and people's vote campaigning groups spent more than £1 million on Facebook ads in the lead-up

In December 2018, the Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy (ELSAM) warned that data misuse and voter behavioural targeting and micro-targeting could prove factors in the 2019 Indonesian general elections. Researcher Wahyudi Djafar cited examples from Kenya, where Cambridge Analytica had sent

In a November 2017 report, Facebook's security group outlined the steps it would take to combat new forms of misuse of the platform, including attempts to deceive people and manipulate civic discourse at low cost or risk to the organisers. Among the drivers, the group cited the global reach Facebook

During the November 2018 US midterm elections, Moveon conducted an experiment to test whether it could cheaply and quickly maximise the effectiveness of digital persuasion. The project created a Facebook app called MO Research, and recruited people to answer survey questions about current issues via

The results of a year-long review issued by the UK Information Commissioner's Office in November 2018 uncovered a "disturbing disregard for voters' personal privacy" on the part of 30 organisations, including social media platforms, political parties, data brokers, and credit reference agencies

Shortly after the 2016 US presidential election, LinkedIn founder and billionaire Reid Hoffman made a series of multi-million-dollar donations to dozens of left-leaning groups. Among them was American Engagement Technologies, in which Hoffman invested $750,000. In 2018, Hoffman wound up apologising

A December 2018 analysis of the use of Facebook by Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio, Italy's two populist leaders, showed that the two exploited Facebook's streaming video and live broadcast services to bypass the mainstream media and foment discord during the March 2018 Italian general election