Politicians Are Stuck With Facebook

For campaigns seeking to advertise on social media, there aren’t other good options

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Beth Becker had just finished teaching Democrats how to use Facebook’s digital tools at the Netroots Nation conference in Pittsburgh in mid-August when she heard about a protest taking place down the hall. Angry demonstrators were targeting the befuddled and apologetic employees of Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platforms Inc., who were manning a booth to explain how cool the metaverse will be.

Becker, who runs her own digital strategies firm, says she understands why people were upset about Meta sponsoring a progressive gathering after years of infuriating reports on the company’s content moderation failures and data missteps. But she says other digital platforms offer nowhere near Meta’s political advertising options. “We still have to use Facebook,” she says. “Most of the other platforms won’t take our money.”

A decade ago political campaigns loved Facebook for its ability to turn clicks into donations and its email lists of likely voters. But in interviews, a dozen ad agency executives and digital strategists said they now see a platform that offers a fraction of its previous return, because a stagnating user base and policy changes have made it harder to target specific kinds of voters. Meta declined to comment.