The importance of establishing regulatory clarity for online political ads was
on display in 2016 when Russian-backed interests purchased political ads on
Facebook. The social media giant admitted in fall 2017 that about 3,000 paid
ads – costing about $100,000 – that were linked to fake accounts associated
with the Internet Research Agency, a pro-Kremlin organization, appeared in
users’ news feeds. Most of these were “issue” ads, not express advocacy ones,
and so they went unreported to the FEC. Given the ban on foreign money in US
elections, these ads were additionally concerning, as they were targeted to
battleground states important to the outcome of the Electoral College (Kim
et al. 2018). As Facebook admitted, the ads appeared to be intended to “amplify
divisive social and political messages” (Stamos 2017). With no clarity on
disclaimer rules for online ads, along with noted gaps in disclosure
requirements for some online political ads (see Table 6.1) and little oversight
Social_Media_and_Democracy