Charlie Puyear, Digital Director
In an attempt to “help secure the integrity of the US elections,” Facebook recently announced changes to their political advertising policy. This will have a big impact on campaigns nationwide, and comes after Twitter recently announced that they would not allow paid advertising for political content posted on their platform.
If you are a candidate doing advertising on Facebook through us or independently, here’s what you need to know directly from Facebook:
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“(Facebook) won’t accept new political ads in the week before the election.
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(Facebook will) remove posts that claim that people will get COVID-19 if they take part in voting, and we’ll attach a link to authoritative information about the coronavirus to posts that might use COVID-19 to discourage voting.
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(Facebook) will attach an informational label to content that seeks to delegitimize the outcome of the election or discuss the legitimacy of voting methods, for example, by claiming that lawful methods of voting will lead to fraud.
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If any candidate or campaign tries to declare victory before the final results are in, (Facebook will) add a label to their posts directing people to the official results from Reuters and the National Election Pool.”
For the purposes of our clients and the work we do for them logistically, bullet point number one is of most interest. It means after October 27, candidates will not be able to start to run NEW paid advertising. However, any content that has been running prior to October 27 can be adjusted or updated to run through November 3.
Ultimately, Mark Zuckerberg has given candidates one less week to run last-minute paid Facebook content. Anything posted after October 27 cannot be boosted to a targeted audience.
We will continue to monitor Facebook’s new policy and keep you updated if additional changes will have an effect on your campaign.