Nick Clegg shares Meta's plans to help secure the US midterms, building on Meta's 2020 policies, like restricting new political ads one week prior to the vote
After years of revising and updating its election strategy, Meta Platforms Inc. is pulling out a familiar playbook for the US midterms …
Bloomberg
Context & Ripple Effects
Earlier reporting said Meta was reconsidering its final-days ban on new political ads as it prepared for the 2022 midterms. The announced approach resolves that immediate policy question by retaining a familiar one-week restriction rather than abandoning it.
The decision also sits alongside Nick Clegg's central role in Meta's political-policy decisions, including the decision to ban Donald Trump, making the midterm plan part of a broader governance remit rather than a standalone ad-policy change.
First-order effects
Political advertisers on Facebook and Instagram lose the ability to launch new campaigns during the final week before the US midterms, while Meta must enforce the restriction and its associated election-safeguard playbook.
Second-order effects
Campaigns and political-ad buyers must finalize creative and targeting earlier, concentrating late-stage activity on ads approved before the cutoff rather than fresh launches.
Meta's choice preserves a rule it had reconsidered, giving US officials and advertisers a clearer operating expectation for the midterm period.
We just shared our plans to help protect the US midterm elections. We have hundreds of people across more than 40 teams working on this, and we invested more than $5 billion in safety and security last year alone. Our efforts include: https://twitter.com/...
Some key things in Meta's midterm announcement: 1. Ad ban the week before will happen again but no editing of the ads or targeting 2. Labels will only be deployed “in a targeted and strategic way” https://twitter.com/...
Like we did in 2020, we will prohibit any ad that attempts to delegitimize this upcoming election, and also prohibit new social issue and political ads during the final week of the campaign. Read more here: https://about.fb.com/...
.@Meta has updated its political ads policy ahead of midterms —No longer permit edits to political, social, electoral ads previously approved to run within week before midterms —Yes, but: Advertisers can adjust bid amount, budget amount, scheduled end date https://www.axios.com/.…
time to tap the “the problem is the organic conspiracy content you prioritize serving to people to keep them on your hell site, and not ads” sign https://twitter.com/...
So, I'm going through old stories about tech companies and elections and I came across this gem of a quote from an AP story in July 2005. “I would bet that in the 2016 election, somebody's Facebook entry will come back to bite them.” 😬😬😬
I'm always skeptical of Facebook's ad restrictions. Following the 2020 election, it banned ads about social issues, elections, and politics, but let The Daily Wire earn millions of impressions on ads that seemingly fit that criteria https://www.mediamatters.org/ ... https://twitt…
3. Ad library now contains targeting info (previously announced) 4. Lots of tools and ways they are providing people with authoritative information on where, when and how to vote.
FB/Meta won't go so far as to say it has elections figured out. But the company says it's using basically the same playbook for the 2022 midterms as it used for the 2020 US general election https://www.bloomberg.com/...
TikTok's ban only covers paid political collabs. Earlier this year, I wrote more about TPUSA's “unpaid” social media brand ambassadorship program. https://www.theverge.com/...
NEW: TikTok is moving to ban influencers from posting content in partnership with politicians and political groups ahead of the midterms. This was a growing issue last cycle. Wrote about TikTok's midterms approach below ⬇️ https://www.theverge.com/... https://twitter.com/...