Free Speech is Not Free Reach: How Platforms Self-regulate Misinformation, Political Ads and Election Campaigns

This article analyses social media platform measures on online political campaigning. We track Meta, Google, Twitter and TikTok and assess which types of content and moderation they prioritise and the frequency of (self-reported) interventions taken in the fight against (political/electoral) mis/disinformation. We analyse their policies on online political campaigning and compare these approaches against the goals set out in the renewed EU Code of Practice on Disinformation and the proposed EU Regulation on the Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising. We argue that platform policies and practices merit analytical scrutiny as they determine the boundaries of acceptable speech online, and that measures to regulate political speech should be understood as more than addressing political advertising alone, but also should include policies regarding political accounts and mis/disinformation.