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Facebook refuses to disclose 'chuck Chequers' Brexit advertiser to UK parliament

And last year the UK’s Electoral Commission confirmed the vote was tarnished by in influx of dark money ploughed into social media ads — with platforms such as Facebook offering an unregulated route for circumventing democratic norms.

An unknown group, called ‘Mainstream Network’, ran a series of political ads on Facebook’s platform last year which targeted voters in key leave voting constituencies urging them to pressure on their member of parliament not to support the prime minister’s approach to seek a withdrawal deal from the EU.

But legally, if no deal is agreed before the end of this month the UK could just ‘crash out’ of the EU without any such safety net.

Unknown entities have been using Facebook’s platform to push for exactly that to happen — by paying Facebook to target leave voters with anti-Brexit-deal ads .

Last year research commissioned by a UK parliamentary committee as part of an enquiry into political advertising online spotlit the existence of Mainstream Network, estimating the unknown Facebook advertiser had spent 257,000 in just over 10 months.

Mainstream Network also operated a ‘news’ website, where whoever was behind it curated pro-Brexit content and advocated for no deal being “better than partition or permanent vassalage”.

Last November Facebook policy VP Richard Allan faced questions from the DCMS committee about who is behind the ‘Mainstream Network’ Brexit ads running on Facebook.

Though it said it has passed some information to the UK’s data watchdog, the Information Commissioner’s Office .

He goes on to say that Facebook has provided “information” about Mainstream Network to the UK’s data watchdog “on a private and confidential basis”.

The DCMS committee published its final report into online disinformation last month, setting out a laundry list of recommendations for cleaning up political campaigning in the digital era.

Original article
Author: Natasha Lomas

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