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Facebook Considering Political Ad Blackout Before US Election

bloomberg.com

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Re: Facebook Considering Political Ad Blackout Before US Election

#2

Post by rhyswallace »

Interested to see the graph of political ad spend on Facebook in the final days leading up to election day in 2016.

Some countries, like France, already ban political advertising in the few last days before election day, in efforts to avoid last-ditch misinformation campaigns at the last moment. They also ban political advertising on social media in general though, so not exactly pommes to apples.

Re: Facebook Considering Political Ad Blackout Before US Election

#3

Post by atlasunshrugged »

rhyswallace wrote: post #2

Interested to see the graph of political ad spend on Facebook in the final days leading up to election day in 2016. Some countries, like France, already ban political advertising in the few last days before election day, in efforts to avoid last-ditch misinformation campaigns at the last moment. They also ban political advertising on social media in general though, so not exactly pommes to apples.

Me too, I know Acronym tracks this week by week now but I haven't seen historical data (https://www.anotheracronym.org/newsletter/fwiw-voter-registr... from their newsletter this AM).

They do ban it, although I'd be curious to see if the parties here actually abide by the ban

Re: Facebook Considering Political Ad Blackout Before US Election

#6

Post by justaguy88 »

ben7799 wrote: post #4

Seems pointless unless they start vetting every ad to ensure it's not political. It's amazing they don't vet ads to begin with since it does sound like they have those armies of contractors checking every post... but the posts aren't paid...

those armies of contractors only check the posts that are reported

Re: Facebook Considering Political Ad Blackout Before US Election

#7

Post by nkingsy »

I remember reading a story on here of a former Mormon who advertised only to the email addresses of their still-Mormon family.

This kind of power has some scary implications, and it is precisely what made Facebook turn into an advertising giant.

The fact that they’ve left these systems largely in place after watching the damage they’ve caused means facebook execs think changing these systems would be a financial disaster.

Edit: changed ambiguous wording.

Re: Facebook Considering Political Ad Blackout Before US Election

#10

Post by julianeon »

There's an interesting shift that seems to be happening at FaceBook. The logic is basically:

If Trump loses the election, we should be out in front of any changes the new adminstration would consider. If we can do an easy layup, we should take it.

Remember, FaceBook is famously numbers-driven. They, probably more than anyone else, believe in the power of numbers and algorithms. They probably even have insight into political groups and grass-roots trends that we don't have. But all the public data we know about is leaning away from Trump, at the moment.

So they could aggressively back a loser, and then get punched in the face if, as expected, he loses. (Sure, they'd be better off if he wins - but the numbers must bear that out).

Or they could make a couple of tactical adjustments now, and if the political tide turns against them, they could truthfully claim, oh we've been moving in this direction for a while now - glad you noticed!

It seems like an increasing number of FaceBook executive decisions are unfavorable to Trump these days. I don't believe that's entirely based on principles or lofty abstractions - I think it's smart positioning, based on the data.

The data is pointing away from Trump, and FaceBook is adjusting.

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