Dutch Far Right Gets Unexpected Boost From AI, Political Ad Ban

Bilal Gacha knows where to reach his voters online. Gacha is head of communications for Denk, a Dutch political party that mostly represents minority communities. He and his colleagues have typically paid to get their campaign messages into Facebook feeds, using the platform’s data to target people interested in Arabic pop music, Turkish TV dramas and couscous.

Then, on Oct. 6, Facebook’s owner Meta, pulled the plug on all political advertising across the European Union, in response to the bloc’s new transparency rules. That’s left Denk without one of its most powerful tools. “Meta created an online level playing field, which now has completely disappeared,” ...