Spam and Scams Proliferate in Facebook's Political Ads

"SAN FRANCISCO -- An ad that appeared in thousands of Facebook feeds this summer featured an altered video of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt at a regular press briefing. In it, she appeared to say Americans could claim a $5,000 relief check on an official government site. An arrow that then appeared instead led to an advertiser called Get Covered Today."

"Similar ads showed fabricated videos of Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts promising similar rebates that did not exist. "This is not a gimmick," the impersonation of Warren says. In fact, it was. Even so, the company behind the ads and others like it were among the top political advertisers on Facebook, according to an analysis by the Tech Transparency Project, a nonprofit focused on holding large technology companies accountable."

"The ads are a lucrative part of Facebook's advertising revenue that, the project's researchers and others say, has led the company to turn a blind eye to a flood of low-quality or deceptive content, spam and in some cases outright fraud on the platform. "Meta is very aware of these types of scams," said Katie A. Paul, director of the Tech Transparency Project. "They just didn't care." In a report released Wednesday, the project identified 63 advertisers that have by several measures employed deceptive or fraudulent practices."

Altered and fabricated videos were used in Facebook ads to impersonate public officials and promote nonexistent $5,000 relief checks or rebates. Companies behind those ads ranked among the platform's top political advertisers and collectively purchased nearly 150,000 ads, spending almost $49 million over seven years. Many of those advertisers had prior ads removed for policy violations, and some faced suspensions, yet more than half continued to post new ads recently. Researchers attribute continued deceptive content to Facebook's heavy advertising revenue from such buyers and inconsistent enforcement that allowed repeat offenders to keep advertising.

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