Political Groups spend €17 million ahead of the EU Elections 2019

Nearly €17 million has been spent on highly targeted political ads directed at Facebook users across the European Union as Europe prepares to vote next week.

In a European Election wrought with concerns over the rise of fringe populist groups using shadowy tactics on social media and in response to widespread calls for action from the global tech company, Facebook started releasing ad spending data less than one week before the vote.

The company’s ‘Ad Library’ is part of its attempt to improve transparency around which political groups are spending money and the scale of their reach, along with the type of ads being targeted at voters as Europeans prepare for the second largest democratic vote in the world.

View interactive here: https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/373592/

In a number of countries, national elections sit alongside or near to the EU elections. These tend to have the highest political ad spend per capita.

In Belgium, the federal election is the same day as the EU vote (this Sunday, the 26th), ad spending is one of the highest in the EU with €1.5 million has spent between March, 2019 and May 21st according to Facebook’s data.

This translates to 14 cents for every one of the country’s 11 million population.

Similarly, in Denmark, where general elections will take place ten days after the European vote, the equivalent of 9 cents per citizen has been spent as of Tuesday May 21st — with Facebook earning nearly €550k in total for helping parties and candidates try to persuade voters.

Meanwhile Malta, with a population a little over 400,000 people, has seen more Facebook advertising per head than anywhere else in the EU, with 18 cents per person being spent on ads.

View interactive here:https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/373591/

Speaking on the first time on the release of spending data on EU elections by Facebook, WhoTargetsMe’s founders spoke on why growing awareness of targeted advertisers and the amount of money being spent by political groups is important:

“Highly targeted advertising allows political groups to spread different messages to different groups of voters — entirely individual to the voter’s feed and taking place beyond public scrutiny, ” says Louis Knight-Webb of Who Targets Me.

“You can be advertised to based on your age, gender, likes and dislikes, behaviours and attitudes, appealing to your interests or playing off your prejudices. All the while your neighbour can receive an entirely different campaign. In campaigns like this, no two people see the same messages, and the shared experience of democracy is destroyed.”

Sam Jeffers, Co-Founder of Who Targets Me, says the data will be used to conduct important research into how targeted political advertising is changing the way democracy works.

“Facebook’s political ads are a growing — and controversial — part of every election in the world. Parties use them extensively because they’re cheap and highly targeted. But they’re extremely ephemeral and their effect on elections is still unclear,” he said.

“New transparency measures are welcome, but they’re far from perfect. Citizens need to make it clear that they want transparent and trustworthy elections — and governments need to act.”