UK political ad reform group launches framework globally
The UK-based Coalition for Reform in Political Advertising (CRPA) is taking its framework and campaign to international democracies, issuing a call for collaboration on the reform of political advertising globally.
CRPa launches its framework globally
CRPA was launched in May 2018 as a not-for-profit and cross-party initiative in the UK by Politicaladvertising.co.uk founder Benedict Pringle and Entropy co-founder Alex Tait. The group launched a campaign to highlight a plan to reform political advertising, which has since been used by the Chair of the UK’s Disinformation and 'Fake News' Inquiry, Damian Collin’s MP, in his call for a political ad code late last year.
The group has said it is now launching this code globally because there are lessons from the UK that can be applied to many mature democracies around the world.
Tait explained: “Around the world, democracies are facing similar challenges from the rise of disinformation and “fake news”. It is urgent for Governments to take action and to modernise their rules for political advertising in the digital age. We hope that the learnings we have from our campaign can help provide ideas and inspiration for local initiatives in other countries to demand change.”
The framework consists of four key points that fall under two categories:
Reform the Coalition believes should be common to all digitally mature democracies
1. Legislate so that all paid-for political adverts can be viewed by the public on a single searchable website (so groups can’t hide dishonest ads from anybody).
2. Require political advertisers to carry an imprint or watermarks to show the sponsor of the advert.
Reform the Coalition believes is right for the UK and that should be considered for other countries
3. Require all objective factual claims used in political adverts to be substantiated.
4. Create a body to regulate political advertising.
The group is now calling for any interested international groups to collaborate on sharing the mission, in order to spread the framework more locally.
The timing will be key for Asian countries, as 2019 sees some of the world’s largest democracies taking to polling stations for general elections this year.
Brands are already getting in on the action in India, with travel brand Thomas Cook offering discounts for voters that need to travel to take part.