“Facebook holds incredible power to affect elections and our national debate. They’ve decided to let political figures lie to you—even about Facebook itself—while their executives and their investors get even richer off the ads containing these lies,” Warren tweeted. “Once again, we’re seeing Facebook throw its hands up to battling misinformation in the political discourse, because when profit comes up against protecting democracy, Facebook chooses profit.”
Warren has repeatedly targeted Facebook and its CEO personally in her battle against Big Tech, reinforcing her role as a David confronting capitalist Goliaths.
Here’s a timeline of the fray:
October 10: Warren launches her own Facebook campaign ads containing false claims about Zuckerberg and Trump.
The strategy of going after Facebook again and again, even using Facebook to do so, seems to have paid off.
Warren—who is again polling in second place after briefly eclipsing former Vice President Joe Biden—received, in the last five days, between 380,000 and 1 million impressions on the ads containing false claims. (Facebook only provides a range, and Warrens’ new ads all received between 10-50K and 50-100K impressions.)
While illustrating how easily fake claims can spread when dispersed by politicians, Warren is also strengthening her appeal to everyday voters in showing she is willing to go up against Big Tech and Wall Street. She even reportedly solicited donations earlier this month under the email subject line “re: Mark Zuckerberg.”
And with Zuckerberg speaking about free expression at Georgetown University on Thursday, be sure to keep an eye out for more fundraising emails and, potentially, more Facebook ads from the Warren camp.
