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Introduction
Some people think that only political parties can place online political ads. But, did you know that other organisations can also campaign to influence your vote?
Online campaigning
It’s difficult to know whether information you see online is reliable or misleading. Key to helping you judge fact from fiction is knowing the source of the information you see.
Know who is responsible for online political ads
It’s often clear who has placed an online political ad, particularly if it’s directly encouraging you to vote for them. But sometimes it’s not clear who is responsible for an ad.
Printed campaign materials have to include an imprint, which identifies who placed the advert. We advise campaigners to include an imprint on digital material, but currently this is only required under law in Scotland. The UK Government is working towards implementing digital imprints for UK elections.
We work with social media companies to improve the transparency of online political ads.
Some websites and platforms provide information about who has paid for an online political ad – you can often find this information by clicking on ‘options’ in the advert itself. But, providing this information is not currently a legal requirement.
Some websites and platforms also provide a summary report about the political adverts on their services and how much money campaigners have spent on them.
These ‘ad libraries’ are a useful way of finding out who is funding online political ads.
The Electoral Commission is responsible for enforcing the imprint rules where election campaign material is promoting a party or a group of candidates. If campaign material is promoting a particular candidate, the police are responsible.
All printed election campaign material must have an imprint, including newspaper and billboard advertising.
Currently, imprints on digital election campaign material are only legally required in Scotland. The UK Government is working towards implementing imprint requirements on online election campaign materials.
If you’ve spotted digital election campaign material in Scotland without an imprint (apart from material promoting individual candidates), or where the imprint doesn’t look correct, report it to us.
