Facebook deletes political ads... SNS emerges as a variable in the US presidential election

Fact-Check Label on Trump's Tweet and Removal of Political Ads on Facebook

Heightened Sensitivity to Re-election Impact

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwon Jaehee] Social networking services (SNS) have emerged as a variable in this year's U.S. presidential election. Following Twitter's addition of a 'fact-check' label to tweets by U.S. President Donald Trump, Facebook has introduced a political ad hiding feature and taken direct punitive actions such as deleting Trump's political ads. There is growing interest in whether these moves by U.S. SNS companies will influence the presidential election.

According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on the 18th (local time), Facebook announced that it deleted a post from Trump's election campaign 'Team Trump.' The post was an online election ad featuring a red inverted triangle symbol, which was once used by the Nazis to identify political prisoners in concentration camps. The Team Trump ad included the slogan "Stop Antifa now" along with the text, "Far-left organized thugs are running wild in our streets," and "They are destroying cities and inciting riots."

President Trump has previously pointed to 'Antifa' as the force behind riots during protests over the death of George Floyd caused by white police brutality. Through this post, the Trump campaign appealed for support for President Trump's effort to designate Antifa as a terrorist organization.

Facebook immediately removed this ad. Facebook stated, "It violated our policy prohibiting organized hate," and explained the reason for deletion as, "We do not allow the use of hate group symbols used to identify political prisoners." Currently, this ad is not visible on Facebook, and a message stating "Removed for violating Facebook's advertising policies" is displayed.

Facebook's shift from its previous stance to actively intervene in political ads is expected to inevitably affect Trump's re-election bid. President Trump has consolidated his support base through aggressive online ad campaigns and SNS politics. In particular, Trump's campaign has focused its online ads on Facebook, which is primarily used by men in their 60s, a key demographic of Trump's supporters. According to Media Matters, a U.S. nonprofit media watchdog NGO, the Trump campaign displayed 88 ads featuring the red inverted triangle symbol in a single day on the 17th (local time). According to Facebook's Ad Library, these ads targeted male voters in Texas and had the potential to reach over one million users.

Twitter also announced that it will halt all political advertising worldwide ahead of the 2020 U.S. presidential election. According to research consulting firm Kantar, the scale of digital advertising in the U.S. election reaches 1.4 trillion won.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.