2020 Election: The Online Battlefield

In mid-October, an ad ran on Facebook falsely accusing former Vice President and presidential primary candidate Joe Biden of blackmailing Ukrainian officials by withholding U.S. aid to prevent an investigation of his son Hunter. Although President Trump’s reelection campaign did not pay for the ad, a super PAC called “Committee to Defend the President” did. This ad accused Biden of withholding aid from Ukraine to elicit personal favors from the Ukrainian government, a crime actually committed by Trump and currently being investigated in an impeachment inquiry. In one version of the video, a narrator proclaims, “Send Quid Pro Joe Biden into retirement,” mirroring the language surrounding Trump’s potential quid quo pro in the impeachment inquiry. The ad attempted both to warp the public’s understanding of the impeachment investigation and harm Biden’s public image. Facebook allowed this ad containing false information to run on its platform, in violation of its policies on misinformation. The Biden campaign rebuked the ad in a letter to Facebook, attacking the company’s inaction in enforcing its policies. In the letter, the campaign acknowledged Facebook’s policy of allowing political leaders’ speeches and ads to remain up as they are considered “inherently newsworthy.” However, as this ad was paid for by a super PAC rather than a politician, the letter argued that it violated Facebook’s policies. In the letter, Biden’s campaign manager Greg Schultz stated, “This is the most basic test. The ad contains transparently false allegations, prominently debunked by every major media outlet in the country.” 

This latest dispute between Biden and Facebook comes in the midst of a broader debate surrounding the proper role of social media our political tradition.

This latest dispute concerning a social media platform’s content moderation policy comes amidst a broader debate surrounding the proper role of social media in our political discourse. This debate has played out in disputes about the spread of disinformation as well as in presidential debates concerning the proper role of Big Tech in the American marketplace. In light of the Kremlin’s attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election by spreading false ads about Hillary Clinton to support her rival, both politicians and the public have carefully monitored online platforms’ implementation of their content moderation policies. Over the last few years, the heads of major social media companies, including Facebook, Google, and Twitter have been called to testify in congressional hearings to articulate their policies. Members of Congress have raised concerns not only about the role of misinformation in influencing voters but also about the spread of terrorist content and hate speech. Congress has also sought to ensure that political biases do not affect these companies’ filtration processes. These concerns call into question how the First Amendment of the Constitution applies to social media platforms. These platforms are privately owned companies through which millions of users publish content, meaning that they are not legally required to adhere to First Amendment standards of free speech. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) empowers owners of online platforms to remove content that they deem inappropriate but does not require these platforms to adhere to neutrality nor to protect the First Amendment Rights of their users. However, founder and CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg views his company as a platform designed to give people a voice. Zuckerberg has designed his content moderation policies around this fundamental belief that, while Facebook is not legally required to protect its users’ First Amendment rights, it has a responsibility to do so. 

However, even within the highly-contested policies that online platforms have laid out, their implementation of these policies is often inaccurate and inconsistent. Several of these companies utilize a combination of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and human monitors to identify inappropriate and illegal content as well as misinformation. In the case of the super PAC’s ad attacking Biden, Facebook failed to remove it. Six versions of this ad targeted Facebook users in South Carolina, Iowa and Massachusetts, according to Facebook’s ad library. The first four primary elections will occur in Iowa, South Carolina, New Hampshire, and Nevada. This super PAC likely targeted voters in Iowa, and South Carolina due to the proximity of those elections. Furthermore, many New Hampshire residents work in Boston and, therefore, have IP addresses in Massachusetts, potentially explaining the super PAC’s attempt to target Massachusetts. The ad was viewed by over 4 million people, largely in the targeted states. Facebook’s failure to enforce its own policy may have significant implications for Biden’s results in the upcoming primaries. 

The potential implications of candidates’ social media use on the outcome of the Presidential election highlight the growing role of social media in transmitting information and swaying public opinion.

Democratic primary candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren attacked Facebook not only for its failure to enforce its policies but also for the policies themselves. Before the super PAC released its ad, the Trump campaign also created ads with similarly false accusations against Biden. When the Biden-attack ad was released, Biden’s campaign asked Facebook to take it down. However, as it came from a political leader, the ad remained in alignment with Facebook’s policies. Warren, one of the biggest critics of tech giants like Facebook, subsequently bought a political ad on Facebook that deliberately included false information about both Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. The ad stated that Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg are supporting President Trump’s reelection, even though Zuckerberg has not announced his support of any candidate. The ad was not removed as the spread of false information by politicians and public leaders is protected by Facebook’s content moderation policies. Warren used the ad to call attention not only to Facebook’s policy but also to her attempts to combat Big Tech. At the end of the ad, Warren states, “You’re probably shocked, and you might be thinking, ‘how could this possibly be true?’ Well, it’s not.” After the ad’s release, Warren tweeted, “Facebook changed their ads policy to allow politicians to run ads with known lies—explicitly turning the platform into a disinformation-for-profit machine. This week, we decided to see just how far it goes.”

However, although Warren and several other Democratic candidates have argued that tech giants pose a significant risk to both capitalist competition and to our privacy, presidential candidates are expected to spend more money on social media than any others since the invention of the Internet. In 2016, Clinton and Trump spent a total of $81 million on Facebook ads. Candidates this election cycle have already spent more than $63 million with a year left before the general election. Despite their criticism of Big Tech, candidates’ spending on online advertising demonstrates the fact that these platforms are an unprecedented tool for communicating with voters. 

There are three basic phases of online advertising in political campaigns. First, ads are targeted towards acquiring new donors and supporters. Second, campaigns will use ads to persuade undecided voters. Finally, ads will be targeted at getting supporters out to vote on election day. As primary candidates are largely still in the first phase of this advertising process, their media efforts have generally focused on appealing to their bases. A digital strategist at a media consulting firm based in D.C. that currently represents one of the candidates, explained that online platforms generally serve as the most efficient way that candidates can add to their email lists and acquire donations. Furthermore, platforms allow ad buyers to target individual users based on demographics and demonstrated interest in political issues. For example, Facebook allows the advertiser to layer in age, party-affiliation, region, behaviors, and interests. Facebook identifies these qualities about its users based on their online engagement and targets users with this information. As the owner of Instagram, Facebook also controls the ads politicians can purchase on this platform and allows campaigns to choose which platform and format they prefer. 

Social media’s influence on both the outcome of the Presidential election and how we interpret our Constitution calls into question how social media will fundamentally alter the structure of our political system.

While the four top-polling primary candidates have all spent significant sums on Facebook ads, the audiences that candidates target with these ads differ as each attempts to garner donations from their bases. While Biden’s campaign has overwhelmingly targeted users born after 1975, Senator Bernie Sanders’ ads are more than twice as likely to be seen by users born after 1975 than before. Sanders has spent nearly half a million dollars on users born since 1995, while Biden has spent less than $12,000 on the same age group. This sum represents less than 1% of Biden’s overall Facebook ad spending. The campaigns’ spending also demonstrates a significant gender divide. Biden, who is generally more popular with women has spent nearly two-thirds of his overall Facebook budget on ads targeting women, while Sanders has spent approximately 50% of his spending on males and 50% on females. Nearly 55% of Biden’s Facebook ad budget has solely been devoted to women who are 45 years or older. These spending patterns reflect the composition of each candidates’ base as each seeks to procure donations as Biden is most popular with middle-aged women and Sanders with young men. Meanwhile, both Warren and Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s campaigns have targeted voters with demographics reflective of the makeup of predicted primary voters: slightly more women than men and a slightly older age group. Democratic candidates have also collectively spent the most advertising money targeting voters in the first four primary states. 

However, while Democratic primary candidates are investing nearly all of their funding and efforts into advertisements targeting voters for the primary, President Trump has already begun advertising for the general election by targeting swing states. In September, the Trump campaign spent more than $700,000 on Facebook ads just in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Florida. The President won each of these states by narrow margins in 2016, and they will be decisive in determining the outcome of the general election. This geographic difference in ad spending may leave the Democrats at a disadvantage in the general election. 

The potential implications of candidates’ social media use on the outcome of the Presidential election highlight the growing role of social media in transmitting information and swaying public opinion. Social media’s influence on both the outcome of the Presidential election and how we interpret our Constitution highlights social media’s potential to fundamentally alter the structure of our political system. 

Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.