Georgian Civil Society’s Open Letter to Facebook
By Natalia Kochiashvili
Wednesday, July 1
47 Georgian civil society and media representatives, sent an open letter to Facebook Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and its Vice-President Nick Clegg on 29th of June, calling to take measures to prevent ‘anonymous, coordinated and sponsored political discrediting campaigns’ in Georgia, urging the social network to introduce mechanisms for determining the transparency of political advertisements, as pre-election campaigns will soon start in the country and political interest groups and foreign actors are “undermining the free, equal election environment by using disinformation and Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior (CIB) on Facebook.”
Noting that Facebook’s actions to take down the pages engaged in illicit coordination in 2019 and 2020 have ‘played an important role in increasing the integrity of the information space’. The letter says the effect of these measures was temporary, as the similar inauthentic pages ‘are still being created and use more sophisticated tactics in an attempt to avoid possible future sanctions from Facebook.’
The letter further notes that as disinformation and sponsored discrediting campaigns are again gaining traction ahead of the upcoming elections in Georgia, “lack of transparency of political advertising on Facebook allows malicious actors to bypass requirements of Georgia’s legislation on disclosure of political ad spending.”
Letter reminds that during the 2018 presidential election in Georgia, anonymous pages used sponsored content to wage far-reaching discrediting campaigns on Facebook, with the aim of influencing voters and radicalising election processes against the background of negative campaigns. Such methods were also used last year.
In December 2019 and April 2020, Facebook’s removal of accounts engaged in CIB in Georgia identified that the majority of these accounts were connected to the ruling party and some to opposition as well. “This confirms that the attempts to manipulate public opinion on Facebook are also carried out by internal actors along with external hostile actors such as Russia,” reads the address.
The statement also notes that Russia continues a hybrid war against Georgia using sophisticated information operations and the spread of disinformation as a weapon. Although Facebook has taken down fake information in the past, the effect of the measure has been only temporary.
Media representatives and civil society members urge the founder and the Vice-President of Facebook to strengthen its efforts to identify CIB and remove from the platform accounts involved in such behaviour during the election period; Following the identification of CIB and the removal of pages, Facebook should notify subscribers and followers of accounts that were removed for CIB about the action taken; Running political ads from a foreign country should be prohibited.
One of the requests is to launch ‘Political Ad Library and Political Ads API’– features that allow the readers to identify sponsored political content and trace its sources.
“Ensuring immediate introduction of Facebook’s mechanisms for transparency of political advertisement is a crucial step,” the signatories say.
The authors of the letter hope that “Facebook’s prompt action and genuine cooperation will make it possible to secure the Georgian democracy and integrity of important 2020 parliamentary elections from external and internal interference.”
