Policy

For researchers, processing video and images is hard. The files are large, processing them without powerful hardware is slow and, quite simply, you can’t watch them all. To make research possible, platform ad libraries should include video and audio transcripts as standard.

New laws should mean more clarity and some common standards about what’s «in scope» for ad transparency. In the meantime, the platforms get to choose their own approach. Google’s lazy effort at political ad transparency reflects this.

TikTok’s prohibition on political advertising creates unacknowledged winners and losers. When you weigh those up, their ban seems to favour a certain Donald J. Trump.

This morning, signatories of the 2022 EU Code of Practice on Disinformation published their first reports under the new Code. The voluntary document, which was completed in June last year, signed platforms up to a range of measures designed to counter online disinformation, including commitments around improving the transparency of political advertising.  The 20+ signatories…

Printed election campaign materials published in the UK must contain information about who is responsible for producing them. This information is known as an ‘imprint’. These can help voters understand who is attempting to influence their political beliefs, giving additional context to campaigning material not just in the run up to an election, but between…

Meta will reinstate Donald Trump’s accounts in the next few days. Here are some of the implications of their decision, as we see them: 1/ He never truly went away. For the last two years, Meta has allowed the Trump campaign to run ads provided they weren’t from his account or using his tone or…