campaign in 2017, up 71% from the previous
election in 2015, according to research by
Tactical Tech, a Berlin-based group that seeks to
mitigate the impact of technology on society.
Labour’s digital spending more than tripled to
1.47 million pounds in the same period.
But it is hard to know how to regulate digital
campaigning as it is difficult to get a complete
picture of how and where parties focus their
digital spending.
The campaign that has pushed the limits
furthest this year is the Conservatives.
First, they took a TV news interview with
Labour’s Brexit spokesman, Keir Starmer, and
edited it to make it appear that he couldn’t
answer a question about the party’s position
on leaving the EU. The video has been viewed
more than 1.1 million times. Then, during a
leaders’ debate last month, the party’s press
office temporarily rebranded its Twitter feed
``factcheckUK” and used the account to attack
Corbyn’s comments.
Will Moy, chief executive of Full Fact, a real fact-
checking website, criticized the stunt.
“It was an attempt to mislead voters, and I think
it is inappropriate and misleading for a serious
political party to behave that way,” he said at
the time.
Caught unprepared in 2017, when social media
helped Labour to a better-than-expected
performance, the Conservative Party this year
brought in a New Zealand-based firm called
Topham Guerin to sharpen its online message.
Sean Topham and Ben Guerin, both in their
20s, helped Scott Morrison become Australia’s
prime minister in 2018 with a strategy to flood