Exploiting Meta’s Weaknesses, Deceptive Political Ads Thrived on Facebook and Instagram in Run-Up to Election
www.propublica.org
Despite Meta's stated commitment to crack down on harmful content, it failed to catch tens of thousands of ads that used false claims and deepfakes of political figures to collect users’ sensitive personal data or bait them into monthly charges.

Reporting Highlights

  • Deceptive Political Ads: Eight deceptive advertising networks have placed over 160,000 election and social issues ads across more than 340 Facebook pages in English and Spanish.
  • Harmed Users: Some of the people who clicked on ads were unwittingly signed up for monthly credit card charges or lost health coverage, among other consequences.
  • Spotty Enforcement: Meta removed some ads after first approving them, but it failed to catch others with similar or identical content — or to stop networks from launching new pages and ads.