JAKARTA, March 5, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Facebook has banned political
advertisements from outside Indonesia ahead of the country’s presidential
poll, just weeks after being heavily criticised by the European Union for not
doing enough to counter election meddling.
The world’s biggest social network said it was temporarily restricting any
paid material from advertisers based outside the Southeast Asian nation that
related to politicians, parties or attempts to encourage voter suppression.
“We want to make it harder to interfere with elections on the platform,
and easier for people to make their voices legitimately heard in the
political process,” Facebook said in a statement, adding the new policy will
be effective Tuesday.
EU officials blasted the company earlier this year for not doing enough to
scrutinise advertising on its site in the run-up to European Union elections
in May.
In response, the company unveiled new tools and rules that would require a
wide range of political ads linked to the elections to be specifically
authorised and tagged with a clear “paid for by” disclaimer.
The US firm first began looking into its influence on elections after
revelations of Russian influence campaigns during the 2016 US election.
But the social media giant has been accused of being too slow to act by
some leaders.
Facebook said it would use a combination of automated and human
intervention to remove offending ads relating to Indonesia.
Indonesia is battling its own wave of online hate speech, as conservative
groups exploit social media to spread lies and target minorities.
Authorities are worried inflammatory material posted online could crack
open social and religious fault lines in the world’s largest Muslim-majority
country ahead of presidential elections in April.
Facebook said in February it removed hundreds of accounts and pages linked
to Indonesian cyber group Saracen that has been accused of spreading hate
speech and fake news.
Facebook has a fact-checking partnership with AFP in multiple countries.