Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube told the Bombay high court on Monday they will only publish political advertisements certified by the Election Commission of India (ECI), and after the authenticity of the ad and the issuer has been verified.

General elections in India are a few months away. The submissions are significant not only because of the upcoming elections, but also after a controversy surrounding political ads on Facebook ahead of the 2016 US elections revealed how social media could be misused by elements within and outside a country in an election year.

Since January, all three companies — Twitter, Google and Facebook — have been making amends to their advertising policies in India and introducing changes to ensure transparency of political ads posted on their platforms.

The matter came before a division bench of Chief Justice Naresh Patil and Justice Nitin Jamdar on Monday, after one, Sagar Suryawanshi, filed a public interest litigation asking that the ECI be directed to restrain social media from carrying political advertisements 48 hours before voting begins. Section 126 of India’s Representation of the People Act prohibits display of any election-related material in a 48-hour blackout period.

In court on Monday, senior advocate Darius Khambata, representing Facebook, said the social media giant already has advertisement policies in the United States, United Kingdom and Brazil, and the same would be adapted for India.

He said Facebook will accept political advertisements and ads on issues of national importance only after it scrutinises their content and verifies their authenticity.

Khambata said Facebook will verify not only the identity and address of the person issuing the ad, but also ensure political advertisements concerning Indian polity are published only by Indian nationals, and pre-certified by the ECI.

Khambata said before this petition in the HC, Facebook’s advertisement policies were effective only in the USA, UK and Brazil. “We have now adopted the same policy for India as well,” he said. In an independent statement released on February 7, Facebook said advertisements that reference political figures, political parties and elections on the social networking site in India will now carry disclaimers about who published and paid for the ad. “For the disclaimer, authorised advertisers can name themselves, a page they run or another organisation as the entity behind the ad. If they name a third-party organisation, we’ll also require additional credentials — like a phone number, email and website or a Media Certification & Monitoring Committee Certificate from India’s Elections Committee,” the company had said in the January statement.

Facebook also said that from February 21, only advertisers who have completed these authorisations and have disclosed who is responsible for the ad will be allowed to run political ads in India. “We will remove political ads running without a disclaimer in the News Feed and will place them in the Ads Library,” the company statement said.

The Facebook ad library, which went live last week, is a repository of information about the ad’s creatives, start and end date of the ad campaign and performance data such as information about who saw the ad.

On Monday, senior advocate Iqbal Chagla, who represented Google and YouTube, said they too have adopted a similar advertising policy for India.

Chagla said Google and YouTube will not publish political advertisement during the 48-hour blackout period, and that the search engine giant will abide by India’s statutory requirements and co-operate to ensure the elections in India are free and fair.

On January 22, Google updated its election advertising policy for India, stating all ads need to be verified by the Election Commission. “The policy requires advertisers running election ads in India to provide a pre-certificate issued by the ECI, or anyone authorised by the ECI, for each ad they wish to run. Google will also verify the identity of advertisers before their election ads run on our platforms,” the company said in a blogpost in January. In addition, Google will introduce an India-specific political advertising transparency report in March, ahead of the Lok Sabha elections.

The statement said Google’s advertiser verification process would begin on February 14. Twitter’s advocate told the HC on Monday that they have guidelines in place, but wanted time to submit a detailed affidavit in reply to the plea.

In January this year, Twitter said it will provide a new advertising dashboard that shows expenditures by political parties on its platform.

The microblogging site is engaging with the ECI to verify candidates and train election officials on how to report suspicious, abusive, and rule-violating activity to Twitter. “We are going to implement here in India something we started this past election in the US, which is an advertising dashboard that provides transparency to the public so that users can take a look at spending on the platform during the course of the election,” Colin Crowell, Twitter Global vice president (public policy) had told news agencies in January.

As far as the 48-hour blackout period goes, Facebook has taken a different stand. Advocate Khambata said on Monday that Facebook will accept only advertisements pre-certified by the ECI and the advertiser should take care not to book political advertisements for publication in the 48-hour period.

The division bench has asked ECI’s counsel, Pradeep Rajagopal, to examine if the statements made by Facebook, Google, YouTube and Twitter take care of the apprehension expressed by the petitioner and file an affidavit by February 28, when the PIL will come up for hearing again.

First Published: Feb 19, 2019 00:56 IST