Underscoring the importance of digital campaigns in modern politics, Parscale was back in the headlines Tuesday as the newly named campaign manager<\/a>for Trump\u2019s 2020 reelection effort.<\/p>\n A Facebook vice president tried to tamp down the story Tuesday, maintaining<\/a> that Trump usually paid higher ad rates on the company\u2019s platform than Clinton did. But several digital marketing specialists of both parties were unanimous in telling POLITICO that Facebook\u2019s ad pricing system is tailor-made to benefit candidates like Trump, whose mastery in generating controversy through the media allowed him to generate a steady stream of traffic to his online utterances.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hardly a new phenomenon for some candidates to win big advantages in ad buys versus their competitors<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n To Democrats\u2019 dismay, they say voters clearly responded.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, the system is incentivized for red meat,\u201d said Tim Lim, a Democratic advertising strategist. \u201cBut that says less about Facebook than it does about the American public.\u201d<\/p>\n The disagreement about whose rates were higher will probably only further complaints, especially among Democrats, that the inner workings of Facebook and other Silicon Valley giants are far too opaque given their vast and growing influence on society. Former Clinton aide Philippe Reines hinted that the allegedly favorable treatment for Trump could help fuel a push for regulations of online ads \u2014 a topic that Democratic lawmakers have only begun to broach.<\/p>\n \u201cZuckerberg is either untroubled his 2 billion user beast is abused like tax cheats outsmart the IRS; or @facebook\u2019s grown too immense, too complex, it\u2019s a runaway train,\u201d Reines fumed<\/a> on Twitter after Wired\u2019s article ran. \u201cEither way the public good is at risk. That\u2019s when companies are regulated.\u201d<\/p>\n Clinton herself weighed in<\/a> Monday night: \u201cWe should all care about how social media platforms play a part in our democratic process. Because unless it\u2019s addressed it will happen again. The midterms are in 8 months.\u201d<\/p>\n Clinton supporters leaped on the reported disparity at Facebook as the latest evidence that social media had undermined democracy in 2016<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Even in traditional media, it\u2019s hardly a new phenomenon for some candidates to win big advantages in ad buys versus their competitors: In 2012, for example, President Barack Obama\u2019s campaign was able to stretch its dollars by buying television ads directly at the discounted rates that federal law guarantees for presidential candidates \u2014 while Republican challenger Mitt Romney relied heavily on advertising by outside political groups that had to pay the full price.<\/p>\n Romney\u2019s campaign was entitled to the same discount as Obama\u2019s for its direct ad purchases, but Obama\u2019s campaign \u2014 which had the luxury of not facing a divisive primary \u2014 also made sure to lock in those savings by buying the spots months in advance.<\/p>\n Still, Clinton supporters leaped on the reported disparity at Facebook as the latest evidence that social media had undermined democracy in 2016, akin to the sale of politically charged ads to Russian \u201ctroll farms\u201d and the unvetted fake news that flourished on the company\u2019s trending news feed in the months before the election.<\/p>\n On the other hand, a senior Clinton campaign official told POLITICO on Tuesday that her team was well aware at the time of how Facebook\u2019s pricing model works. But they underestimated how appealing Trump\u2019s bombast would prove with a wide swath of voters.<\/p>\n The former reality television star put more attention into fundraising and cultivating his base<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cThe only element of this that is a surprise is just how popular that content was,\u201d said the Clinton official, speaking only on background to avoiding being seen talking for the candidate. \u201cWe had a slightly more optimistic theory of who the voters are. We knew there was a narrow set of people who were loving the \u2018nutty\u2019 Trump stuff. We thought it was narrower than it was.\u201d<\/p>\n Digital political marketers call it common knowledge that advertisers pay less if their ads are more engaging. In many cases, they say, that\u2019s a win-win-win for advertisers, Facebook users and the company itself, populating the site with better targeted and more compelling ad spots.<\/p>\n Facebook says it sets ad prices based on factors that include the sort of audience an advertiser is targeting and the complexity of the action the audience is meant to take. For example, an ad designed to get someone to make a donation \u2014 considered a straightforward transaction \u2014 might fetch a low price. But an ad spot meant to persuade a voter to back a certain candidate by showing him or her a video is thought to have a harder task, and might cost more.<\/p>\n That was a factor in the Clinton-vs.-Trump contest, both Democratic and Republican digital experts say. The Democratic nominee focused her Facebook ad program on persuading hard-to-get voters, while the former reality television star put more attention into fundraising and cultivating his base.<\/p>\n Millions of Americans responded to Trump\u2019s ability to tap into simmering feelings of disaffection and anger | Bryan Thomas\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Those choices affected the prices they paid. Said a Facebook spokesperson, \u201cThe system works the same way for every advertiser, ensuring equality of opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n From there, it was up to the voters, including the millions of Americans who responded to Trump\u2019s ability to tap into simmering feelings of disaffection and anger.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re constantly reinforcing how we want these ads to be based upon our behavior \u2014 what we\u2019re clicking on, what we\u2019re sharing,\u201d said Zac Moffatt, the digital director for the 2012 Romney campaign, now CEO of the firm Targeted Victory. \u201cAnd Democrats click on it, too, because they wanted to get all worked up. They can\u2019t help themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n That sort of attention can further drive down prices, said digital ad experts.<\/p>\n Television, of course, varies its ad rates depending on when they run \u2014 during the Super Bowl versus an average Thursday night, for example. But social media differs in that it effectively sets rates based on content, and it can judge how compelling that content is because of the data it constantly amasses about what users do after they see an ad. It\u2019s the sort of powerful insight that makes Facebook advertising compelling to advertisers \u2014 and has made Facebook itself into a multibillion-dollar behemoth.<\/p>\n But that dynamic worries some election professionals.<\/p>\n Washington might write new regulations to rein in the tech industry has so far amounted to a lot of heated words<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cFacebook\u2019s business model is such a problem for the electoral process because what they have done is essentially incentivize the more polarizing and extreme communications,\u201d said Ann Ravel, a former Democratic chairperson of the Federal Election Commission. \u201cYou don\u2019t know if someone is calling in a neighbor to watch an ad on TV, but Facebook knows if you\u2019re sharing it.\u201d<\/p>\n Adds the Clinton official, \u201cIt makes sense if you\u2019re selling, you know, swimsuits. If you\u2019re Facebook, you should absolutely want to serve up better swimsuit ads. But when it comes to politics, it makes less sense because if you have a super fired-up community that\u2019s going to love your content even if it\u2019s nutty or racist or untrue, then the platform shouldn\u2019t give that stuff an advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite this grumbling, the idea that Washington might write new regulations to rein in the tech industry has so far amounted to a lot of heated words. Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Mark Warner of Virginia have, alongside Arizona Republican John McCain, pushed a bill that would force the social media platforms to disclose who\u2019s paying for political ads, one response to the past year\u2019s revelations about Russian interference. But that measure has failed to gain momentum.<\/p>\n Elsewhere in Congress, there\u2019s been high-level idea-floating about the need for government to act as a check on the tech industry \u2014 Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and former Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.) have been among those engaging in that discussion. But there\u2019s been little appetite for turning that rhetoric into concrete legislative proposals.<\/p>\n Original Article<\/a><\/p>\n [contf] [contfnew] Hillary Clinton\u2019s latest complaint about Facebook\u2019s role in ..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":66783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
\n
\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/GettyImages-576612058-714x476.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n\n
<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"