Kyrgyzstan’s CEC initiates cooperation with Facebook on political advertising issues

Bishkek, Sept. 8, 2020. /Kabar/. The Central Commission for Elections and Referendum of the Kyrgyz Republic (CEC) held an online meeting with Facebook representatives, the press service of the CEC reported Tuesday.

The purpose of the meeting, organized by UNDP Office in the Kyrgyz Republic was to discuss the placement of political advertising, its labeling and determine the source of payment for its placement on Facebook.

The meeting was attended by Chairwoman of Kyrgyzstan’s CEC Nurzhan Shaildabekova, member of the working group on information and agitation of the CEC Gulnara Dzhurabayeva, and Head of CEC information department Ruslan Izrekov.

Public Policy Manager Kavita Kangi and Election Integrity Head Natasha Jog attended the online meeting from Facebook.

UNDP Senior Advisor on Elections Yulia Shipilova also took part in the meeting.

During the meeting, the representatives of Facebook informed about their policy regarding the identification of users by means of documentary proof of identity, in which it is reliably known which person is registered under a certain account.

All political advertising is added to the Advertising Library. At the moment, the library across Kyrgyzstan contains 879 advertisements, for which a total of $3,737 has been spent. It also displays information about individuals and parties that paid for the advertisement.

Chairwoman Shaildabekova noted the importance of cooperation with Facebook.

"We highly appreciate the beginning of our cooperation with Facebook representatives. The measures taken by Facebook to verify accounts, from which political advertising comes, are an important contribution of Facebook to clean elections. This creates opportunities to track the transparency of the funding of political advertising for a party or candidates.

When asked by the CEC head about the possibility to block the placement of advertising on the Facebook platform in the silent period, following the example of a policy that will apply in the U.S. presidential elections, representatives of Facebook said this is a new policy, which applies only in the U.S., but they are ready to consider the request of Kyrgyzstan, sent through official sources.

The sides agreed to support further communication in solving this issue, and also expressed gratitude to each other for starting fruitful cooperation.