Twitter announced on Tuesday it was expanding its public ads database to show all political adverts in the European election about their sponsorship and targeted audiences. The European election will take place in 27 EU countries to elect MEPs for the next five years and some parties which have pro-Russia ties are winning the election at the moment.
Political parties which need to run election campaigns need to take sponsorship from other groups, including businesses, in order to afford good campaigns. With more money and technical supports, parties can have greater chances to win, this is why some parties are taking Russia-tied support. The online social media has become the new battlefield for politics since Obama’s presidential campaign. Recent years, people are worrying about foreign interference in politics, as the online social media is open and virtually every one could participate in all political campaigns which take place all over the world.
When people are voting, they vote for the political parties which provide more benefits for them. Therefore, Twitter’s move to show the sponsorship may not be as effective as expected that many voters may not care about the groups which back their political parties. Moreover, there is one key issue that policies can be so complicated that only very few people can truly understand the impacts of policies; under such circumstances, the voters can be easily misguided and fail to choose the policies which truly benefit them.
Overall, I think the effectiveness of the actions taken by the online social media platforms might be overestimated.
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