The government said that its Elections Bill will strengthen the integrity of electoral processes and make it “more inclusive”.
Among the measures in the bill will be a new “digital imprints regime” to govern online campaign materials. According to proposals detailed last year, the measures will force parties and campaigners from anywhere in the world to link their campaign content to their identity with a digital imprint. The idea behind this measure is to ensure that voters have the same transparency from online materials as they do from leaflets posted through their letterbox. Facebook has already introduced a “paid for by” disclaimer to political advertisements on its platforms.
Concern about misleading political advertising, including state-backed psychological warfare weaponising political information, peaked with the Cambridge Analytica scandal. This prompted a widespread discussion about how to regulate political advertising on online platforms...