Facebook Is Running Partisan Ads From ‘Pink Slime’ Newsrooms, Watchdog Says
Facebook and Instagram are running millions of dollars in ads from so-called pink-slime newsrooms — partisan organizations masquerading as local media outlets — in battleground states heading into the midterm elections, according to a report Thursday from NewsGuard.
The media watchdog, which rates the credibility of news outlets, said that both left- and right-leaning organizations are relying on the tactic, spending a total of about $3.94 million on Facebook and Instagram ads so far in 2022. The ads, which are able to reach highly specific audiences using proprietary tools, have been featured on Facebook and Instagram feeds more than 115 million times, NewsGuard found.
“The result is a new kind of political dark money,” according to the report, which analyzed the social networks' Ad Library, a database of their political ads. “The partisan networks can, and often do, identify their funders as seemingly apolitical entities.”
Meta Platforms Inc., the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, said in response that — while news publishers connected to political entities are allowed on Facebook — they aren't eligible to be included in the service's News feature and “are held to the same standards as political entities when it comes to advertising.”
“People access political information in many ways, but on Facebook they benefit from a level of transparency around political advertising that not only leads the tech industry, but TV, radio and print, as well,” said Andy Stone, a spokesperson for the company.
In August 2019, ahead of the 2020 US presidential election, Facebook and Instagram updated their advertising policies to require “paid for” disclosures on political ads running on those services. A year later, the
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