Facebook report available here
- Launched its Ads Library Report.
- Reported that between the launch of the ads authorisation process late March up to 29 May 2019, there were 343,736 political ads across the EU, with an amount of €19.8 million of political ads spend and provided a breakdown per Member State.
- Established the Data Transparency Advisory Group (DATG), tasked with providing an independent, public assessment of whether the 4 metrics shared in the Community Standards Enforcement Report are meaningful and accurate.
- Updated its vaccine misinformation policy and informed that it is now reducing the distribution of Pages that violate this policy in the News Feed.
- Reported on tools and actions specific to the European elections such as an escalation channel for political pages to report issues.
The Commission urges Facebook to provide more granular and continuous information in its upcoming annual report regarding the closure of fake accounts or CIB networks so as to better assess malicious behaviour targeting specifically the EU. Lastly, it urges Facebook to provide data on a consistent basis so as to allow an accurate and continuous assessment of the effectiveness of its policies and the progress achieved.
Google report available here
- Improved scrutiny of ad placements in each EU Member State.
- Took action against 88 website publishers for violation of its policies on valuable inventory.
- Reported on receiving 676 verification applications and successfully verifying 174 advertisers to run political ads during the campaign for the EU Parliament elections between 1 May and 26 May 2019.
- Identified and labelled more than 98,000 election ad creatives from verified advertisers.
The Commission calls upon Google to consider ways to improve its metrics to enable a more granular assessment of the progress achieved in the EU.
Twitter report available here
- Reported on 1,428 ads rejected in the EU for not complying with its Unacceptable Businesses Practices Ads policy between 1-20 May 2019, and provided a breakdown per Member State.
- Reported that it prevented 1,975 ads from being delivered to EU users due to non-compliance with its Quality Ads policy between 1-20 May 2019, and provided a breakdown per Member State.
- Updated on its election integrity policy, prohibiting three categories of manipulative behaviour and content: i) misleading information about how to participate to the elections; ii) voter suppression and intimidation, and iii) false or misleading affiliation.
The Commission urges Twitter to develop a policy on issue-based advertising, which ensures transparency and public disclosure of such ads, and to inform the Commission of its progress in its upcoming annual report.
It is important to note that, on the 22nd May 2019, Microsoft joined the Code of Practice and subscribed to all of its commitments.