Facebook Bans One Political Ad. But Should It Follow Twitter's Lead And Just Ban Them All?

Tonight the BBC is reporting that Facebook has banned an ad by The Fair Tax Campaign which is apparently run by Alex Crowley, a former aide to Boris Johnson who left that role in late September. The ad is an attack on Labour's tax plans, with the headline "Could you afford an extra £214 each month?" Crowley claims the substantiation comes from something called the New Economic Foundation Report and dates from August this year, which is a little odd, as Labour have not yet announced their tax plans and certainly hadn't in August. Crowley also said the campaign had no links with the Conservative Party. Must be purely coincidental then.

However, the reason for Facebook's action is that although the ad was labelled as "sponsored", it did not say who had paid for it, as required by the platform's rules for political ads. Politcal advertisers have to register with Facebook and display a "paid for by" disclaimer. As soon as The Fair Tax Campaign complete those requirements, the ad can go back up. Bet you can hardly wait!

Following on from Geraint's post about Twitter's decision to ban political ads from its platform, let's take step back to consider the wider issues around political advertising.

It's been clear since the 2016 referendum that there are major problems with the regulation of political advertising in the UK. On TV, this problem is met with the simple expedient of a blanket ban. It was originally intended to prevent well funded vested interests from buying political influence. The problem is that it is so widely cast that it also prevents TV ads for causes such as the environment, hence the ban of the Greenpeace / Iceland rang-tan commercial last year. We once helped Make Poverty History navigate their way through Clearcast, only for Ofcom to come along and ban the ad in short order, on the basis that third-world debt relief is a 'political' issue.

In other media, where political ads are allowed, there are other problems. The ASA was at pains to remind everyone recently that they do not regulate ads around elections and - errr - referendums. So politicians can (and do) lie through their teeth in their election ads - as well as their ads for referendums - and there is nothing we can do about it. Then again, we all know their lying through their teeth, because that is what they do, so perhaps that ameliorates the problem?

Another problem is identifying the publisher of an ad and therefore who has paid for it and whether they are...