Facebook says it will resume its political ad ban in Georgia after the polls close in the Georgia runoff elections

Following the Georgia runoff elections, the Facebook ban that restricts ads on social issues, elections and politics nationwide will be reimplemented in the state, the company said on Tuesday.

Axios 2021-01-06 Sara Fischer

Context & Ripple Effects

Facebook created a Georgia-specific exception to its broader post-election restrictions when it reopened political-ad targeting for runoff voters. Related coverage then found that, after advertising returned, partisan material displaced traditional news publishers in a small sample of Georgia users’ feeds. Reinstating the restriction closes that temporary election window.

First-order effects

Facebook again blocks ads on social issues, elections and politics in Georgia once runoff polling ends, cutting off the paid targeting channel it had reopened for the contest.
Georgia campaigns and advocacy groups lose a Facebook distribution and fundraising tool that related coverage said political-ad restrictions had already made harder to use.

Second-order effects

The reversal reduces the immediate supply of paid partisan election messaging on Facebook after a period in which partisan content crowded out traditional news sites in Georgia users’ feeds.
Political advertisers must shift post-runoff outreach and fundraising toward channels not covered by Facebook’s renewed restriction, while news publishers face less competition from election ad campaigns for Facebook attention.

Third-order effects

Facebook’s Georgia exception and rapid reinstatement point to election-specific ad controls becoming a recurring platform-governance tool, with access determined by campaign timing rather than a stable nationwide policy.
The trade-off becomes structural: broad restrictions limit paid political reach and fundraising, while temporary reopenings can intensify partisan content in the platform’s information environment.

The trend: Major social platforms are treating political advertising as an on-off election-period control, balancing campaign access against concerns over the prominence of partisan content.

Discussion

@kcoxdc Kate Cox on x
Oh, yes, that timing sounds incredibly helpful. 🙄 https://twitter.com/...
@benjancewicz Benjamin Young Savage on x
AFTER the election? How is this helpful? 😂 https://twitter.com/...
@juliaangwin Julia Angwin on x
Facebook is a newstand. But no one can see which news Facebook is pushing to the top. So we built an app for that called #CitizenBrowser. Our first finding: the sharp impact of Facebook's political ad ban reversal in the Georgia Senate elections. https://themarkup.org/... /1
@andymstone Andy Stone on x
@JuliaAngwin Interesting that in this whole Twitter thread you don't mention the sample size - 54 people out of a record (for a runoff) 3 million ballots cast. I'm no PhD but I've heard that the plural of anecdote is not data.
@suryamattu Surya Mattu on x
We've spent the last ten months building #CitizenBrowser, a project that aims to peek inside the Black Box of social media algorithms, by building a nationwide panel to share data with us. Today, we are publishing our first story from the project. /1
@themarkup @themarkup on x
The #CitizenBrowser project seeks to illuminate the content Facebook elevates in its users' feeds. Learn more about how @suryamattu, @leonyin, @angiewaller and @jonkeegan built the standalone desktop application. https://themarkup.org/...
@juliaangwin Julia Angwin on x
The panel gave us our first peek inside the black box of Facebook's algorithms. In the past month we saw how news feeds in Georgia changed dramatically when Facebook flipped the switch to turn on political ads. https://themarkup.org/... /9
@fboversight @fboversight on x
What game is FB playing in Georgia? Why banning political ads in all of the Usa BUT Georgia, where they let disinformation spread wild? https://twitter.com/...
@jilliancyork Jillian C. York on x
The only difference between 2010 Facebook and 2021 Facebook is that they have better PR. Zuckerberg has always been evil.
@slpng_giants @slpng_giants on x
@WillOremus It's remarkable that @facebook hired essentially a Twitter troll to do their comms. Just like the rest of the company, he has zero tact and couldn't care less about appearing as if he's remotely concerned.
@leonyin Leon Yin on x
Building third-party datasets is essential. FB does everything it can to make this as hard as possible. Some of the measures they took to make this as hard as possible are mentioned in our appendix: https://themarkup.org/... https://twitter.com/...
@leonyin Leon Yin on x
I developed automated redaction software with @mynameisfiber to scrub personal identifiers (pink) from the FB feed... Turns out FB is all identifiers? https://twitter.com/...
@carnage4life Dare Obasanjo on x
@eric_seufert @mosseri @WillOremus This news story is dog bites man. Prior to a critical election there being a lot of partisan ads is what one would expect. The same occurs with TV ads.
@eric_seufert Eric Seufert on x
@mosseri @WillOremus Most mainstream criticism of FB is ill-informed and in bad faith. FB is certainly deserving of rebuke for certain things but most of whats written on social media is just frivolous pile-on
@deaneckles Dean Eckles on x
There's this analysis going around looking at FB feeds of 54 panelists from Georgia before and after Facebook lifted their ad ban. The point is obviously causal inference about the effect of Facebook's ban being lifted... but there's really no reason to find this credible. https:…
@fboversight @fboversight on x
Facebook's @andymstone Tweeting up a storm today... https://twitter.com/...
@randfish Rand Fishkin on x
Researchers paid Facebook users in Georgia to monitor everything in their news feeds. https://themarkup.org/... Several fascinating insights, but one of the most surprising is the low engagement D-leaning content earns vs. R-leaning (despite Ds massively outspending Rs). https://…
@elipariser @elipariser on x
@andymstone @JuliaAngwin Respectfully, Facebook has this data and does not make it publicly available. We'd all love to see it. Why not share it if you think the conclusions are flawed?
@stokel Chris Stokel-Walker on x
If I was a Facebook PR I would simply try not to draw attention to the fact that I'm being evil and stymieing the ability of reporters to try and throw light on my shady business practices but that's just me!
@janelytv Jane Lytvynenko on x
Whenever reporters and researchers try to understand how Facebook works, employees say the data is incomplete. The Markup explained the limitations in the story, which was a small sample size. https://twitter.com/...
@evelyndouek Evelyn Douek on x
One fascinating tidbit in this is how *little* political content there was: over A THIRD of the (admittedly small) sample saw NO election-related content on their feeds in December! https://themarkup.org/...
@corintxt Corin Faife on x
Today at @themarkup we published our first story based on #CitizenBrowser data. In it, we found that Facebook ads had a big impact on political news seen by Georgians ahead of the crucial Senate runoff. Here's a quick look at how the story came together. https://themarkup.org/...
@willoremus Will Oremus on x
It's almost like Facebook's goal here isn't actually to inform the public about its algorithm's impacts 🤔 https://twitter.com/...
@lauraedelson2 Laura Edelson on x
In addition to be a cool project by cool people, it's great to see a project really dig in on their methodology. Citizen science projects owe it to the people who contribute their data to explain how they're using it, and @themarkup is doing a heck of a job of that here. https://…
@hari Hari Sreenivasan on x
Another mind boggling solution to try and get around opacity by design https://twitter.com/...
@emilybell Emily Bell on x
Really amazing initiative from @themarkup - first time we can see, in close to real time, how policy changes show up in user feeds. Congrats @JuliaAngwin and team https://twitter.com/...
@stevemullis Steve Mullis on x
This is some really fascinating and innovative reporting. https://twitter.com/...
@billypuntove Billy Bardo on x
sooner or later, we will all be talking about this and/or similar projects inspired by this one. What a GREAT use of human and technological resources. @themarkup is just on a whole 'nother level. https://twitter.com/...
@_loganmcdonald Logan McDonald on x
My favorite part of @themarkup's great work on Citizen Browser so far is this brutal and thorough breakdown of all the ways Facebook has made it harder for researchers to examine the platform. https://themarkup.org/...
@rswitzer Richard Switzer on x
Some excellent journalism being done here. Deep tech reporting is crucial for understanding how technology can influence our lives, governments and economies (and help inform the ways it needs to be regulated). https://twitter.com/...
@niemanlab @niemanlab on x
When Facebook began reallowing political ads in Georgia, campaigns and partisan PACs reacted quickly, spending millions of dollars on sponsored posts in just two or three weeks. An investigation by @themarkup found partisan content elbowed out news sites. https://www.niemanlab.or…
@jonkeegan Jon Keegan on x
We didn't want to build Citizen Browser, but we sorta had to if we wanted to get a glimpse of what real Facebook users are seeing in their feeds. Read @corintxt's 1st story using this data: https://themarkup.org/... AND be sure to read our methodology: https://themarkup.org/...
@corintxt Corin Faife on x
To get a sense of the huge amount of work that got us to the point of publishing, see the methodology here: https://themarkup.org/...
@stokel Chris Stokel-Walker on x
Facebook withholding data from the public and reporters then dunking on reporters who try and get some of that data for small sample sizes is... a brave PR strategy https://twitter.com/...
@blackamazon @blackamazon on x
It's been their model. And it's how reporters have responded to people But more importantly it's how both have responded to marginalized people . Deride them for lack of access you've denied them https://twitter.com/...
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
Buried in this is $450 million of advertising in Georgia run-off, Facebook being out of control due to scale, Facebook carrying zero liability for its amplification decisions of harmful content, Facebook microtargeting harmful content to vulnerable people. https://twitter.com/...
@mozilla @mozilla on x
Despite investments in “sophisticated teams and systems,” over and over again, @facebook failed to enforce their policies and allowed a Super PAC to advertise #misinformation in the lead-up to today's #GeorgiaRunoffs. https://popular.info/...
@adrjeffries Adrianne Jeffries on x
Facebook flipped the switch on political ads in Georgia, and it completely changed what users saw in their feeds — “partisan content quickly elbowed out news sites.” @corintxt's first for The Markup, built on the Citizen Browser project (see credits!) https://themarkup.org/... ht…
@adrjeffries Adrianne Jeffries on x
More about Citizen Browser here: https://themarkup.org/...
@andymstone Andy Stone on x
@JuliaAngwin And while we're talking sample size, this bit from the story is especially noteworthy: “20 [Georgia] panelists were not exposed to any election-related content on their feeds as defined by our keyword search.” So this story is actually based on 34 people?!
@jlowcock Joshua Lowcock on x
The results of @themarkup Citizen Browser project promise to be fascinating https://themarkup.org/...
@suryamattu Surya Mattu on x
.@corintxt crunched the numbers and found that after Facebook flipped the switch for political ads, partisan content elbowed out reputable news outlets in our panelists' news feeds. https://themarkup.org/... /2
@themarkup @themarkup on x
NEW: Ahead of today's crucial Senate runoff elections in Georgia, @Facebook reversed its political ad ban in the state, and the impact was visible on some users' feeds quickly. Read our first #CitizenBrowser story from @corintxt. https://themarkup.org/...
@rashadrobinson Rashad Robinson on x
Facebook banned political ads in the US, EXCEPT in Georgia, and they still allowed 100 ads with election misinfo? This isn't accidental, it's a willful refusal to protect democracy. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...

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