European Union: Passed European Parliament position on Regulation on the transparency and targeting of political advertising including content moderation obligations

On 2 February 2023, the European Parliament passed its position on the Regulation on the transparency and targeting of political advertising. The Regulation outlines transparency obligations concerning political advertising, including advertising displayed on online platforms, mobile applications, websites, games and other digital interfaces. In particular, the Regulation would require providers of political advertising services to label the content displayed on their platform as political advertising if they signed a contract with the sponsor and received remuneration. Furthermore, the publishers of political advertising would be required to establish a flagging mechanism to enable users to notify them of any advertisement that does not comply with the Regulation. The position adopted by the European Parliament makes some changes to the transparency requirements, including more detail regarding the notification mechanism and altered minimum response periods in the month preceding an election of referendum.