A transparent digital election campaign? The insights and significance of political advertising archives for debates on electoral regulation

Throughout the last decade, digital technology has become increasingly important in election campaigns. Each new election has seen growing coverage of the role played by websites, social media pages and online advertising in securing electoral victory. At the UK's 2019 general election, this narrative recurred, but while in the past digital technology has been a supplement to offline campaigning, digital was now an integral component of electoral activity. Whether measured in terms of spending on digital campaigning, activity on online platforms or media coverage of digital content, the online sphere was prominent as never before. While recognising the new status of digital campaigning it is, however, important to note that this activity is by no means uncontentious. Indeed, this election raised numerous questions about what is and is not permissible online and how problematic practices should be curtailed. We explore what we know about digital campaigning at the UK's 2019 general election, presenting the first academic analysis of newly available transparency data from the Facebook and Google advertising archives. Reviewing this data, we diagnose the need to revisit existing systems of electoral regulation and oversight with a view to questions of transparency.