By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – Facebook says it will not allow
foreign-funded advertisements for an upcoming presidential election in
Indonesia, the world’s third-largest democracy, hoping to allay concerns that
its platform is being used to manipulate voting behavior.
The announcement on Facebook’s website said the restriction
in Indonesia took effect Monday morning and is part of “safeguarding
election integrity on our platform.”
Facebook and other internet companies are facing increased
scrutiny over how they handle private user data and have been lambasted for not
doing enough to stop misuse of their platforms by groups trying to sway
elections. Critics say foreign interests, and Russia in particular, used
Facebook to harvest private data and disseminate paid ads that may have
influenced the outcomes of the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the U.K.
referendum on leaving the European Union.
Indonesia votes for president on April 17. The campaign pits
incumbent leader Joko Widodo against ultranationalist former Gen. Prabowo
Subianto, who was narrowly defeated by Widodo in 2014.
The social media company, which also owns Instagram and
WhatsApp and has about 2.3 billion users for its Facebook site alone, said it’s
using a mix of automated and human intervention to identify foreign-funded
election ads.
It said the restriction applies to any ads coming from an
advertiser based outside of the country “if it references politicians or
political parties or attempts to encourage or suppress voting.”
The company said it had also prohibited foreign-funded
advertisements for Nigeria’s elections in February and for Ukraine’s elections
later this month.
For upcoming elections for the European Parliament and India,
it has said advertisers will need to be authorized to buy political ads and a
new tool will provide information about an ad’s budget, the number of people it
reached and demographics about who saw the ad, including age, gender and
location.