New technologies and electoral processes: online campaigning in social media platforms

The incorporation of new technologies to electoral processes is a phenomenon with a global and exponential growth. Despite its benefits, online campaigning is not without challenges, and can pose threats to transparency and equity in electoral competition. Given the role of elections as foundational pillars of the democratic system and a key gateway for the exercise of fundamental civil rights, these implications must be assessed with care and through specific tools. 

We at PI, together with our Argentinean partners Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (ADC) are researching the multiple layers of online campaigning both at the domestic and international sphere, including the use of technologies which use biometric information in elections, online disinformation and data exploitation for political campaigning. 

In November 2019, Marianela Milanes and Sara Soubelet, researchers of ADC, told us about their project PubliElectoral and their calls to Google, Twitter and Facebook to increase transparency settings in ad libraries in the context of the 2019 Argentinian presidential election. PubliElectoral is an innovative technological tool which collects information on the political ads seen by users on online platforms, without processing their personal data.  

To learn more about the results of Phase 1 of the PubliElectoral project during the Argentinean primary and general elections in 2019, click here.