Nigel Farage is now running Facebook ads that most people would describe as racist.

Nigel Farage is now running Facebook ads that most people would describe as racist.

The old and current media paradigms collide in ads like this - the ten second TV clip taken out of its context, the wider extrapolation, the unprovability of the claim either way, the furious response (usually still in the papers), not knowing which voters see what or the impact it has on them...

A new SNP FB ad clips the Scottish leaders TV debate to allege Labour and Reform have a secret deal to "stop the SNP".

Scottish Lab leader Anas Sarwar strongly denies this, saying Scottish Reform leader Offord's claim is a "desperate lie" and that he'd never work with a party he considers racist.

The first ad for a Reform candidate for the local elections from their official Facebook account is for former Conservative, Cllr Jaymey McIvor. Interesting choice (though he denies he was chucked out of the Tory party after sending unsolicited pics).
www.facebook.com/ads/library/...

Inside a pro-Conservative influence operation on Community Notes Inside a pro-Conservative group effort to influence X's Community Notes

NEW on @indicator.media:

I found a group of X accounts that worked together to remove Community Notes from British Conservative Party accounts during the 2024 UK general election.

New Reform ad claims the cost of the "Boriswave" is £20k a year per household. Trying to kill the Tories once and for all (not sure this sticks though, Johnson is long gone and the term seems niche, unless you read certain newspapers).

Scotland | All parties | Meta & Google

Full report is here:
trends.whotargets.me/reports/7e7c...

Historically, they aren't particularly big spenders on digital ads, but the SNP are investing heavily this time ahead of next month's Holyrood election. E.g. currently outspending Reform 15:1 (Labour always top the list).

🤔

Congratulations to our many pro-democracy friends in Hungary tonight. Your hard work, bravery and persistence over the last years has been incredible and is an example to us all.

If you want to see the latest digital ads the parties are running for the forthcoming Scottish, Welsh and local elections in the UK, follow our bot, which posts them as they appear: @wtmadupdates.bsky.social

Worth noting though - $22.7m from illicit influence ops sounds a lot, but it's spread over nearly a decade, across many countries, and it's still less than an average month of US political ad spend on Meta. Country and context v. important for understanding ops' effectiveness.

Good stuff - interesting data to explore.

The Representation of the People Bill, the Rycroft Review and the future of online political ads in the UK Another missed opportunity to fix gaping holes in digital campaign rules?

New: The UK's new Representation of the People Bill, the Rycroft Review and the future of online political ads.
open.substack.com/pub/whotarge...

The Representation of the People Bill, the Rycroft Review and the future of online political ads in the UK Another missed opportunity to fix gaping holes in digital campaign rules?

New: The UK's new Representation of the People Bill, the Rycroft Review and the future of online political ads.
open.substack.com/pub/whotarge...

If you like this work, please create a "supporter" account here:
trends.whotargets.me/start

And you can donate to Full Fact here:
fullfact2.beaconforms.com/form/cb049fc5

How Full Fact will be covering the 2026 elections – Full Fact Full Fact is undertaking an ambitious range of activities to ensure that you, our audience are as well informed as possible.

We're collaborating with @fullfact.org on tracking ads and holding them accountable for the Scottish, Welsh + local elections in the UK next month. More on that here: fullfact.org/politics/how...

Includes a snazzy calculator to work out how much you'd save if short haul flight taxes were scrapped (the political ad > calculator pipeline is a classic, though unusually this one doesn't capture an email before telling you the answer).

Reform has new digital ads out, running a pretty classic local elections strategy - half "eye-catching if we were in government policy", half "council tax will be lower".

The "Independent Business Network", an organisation working to "seize the opportunities Brexit provides", is targeting UK Cabinet members with Facebook ads with their calculation of the financial impact of the (their term) "Unemployment Rights Act". www.facebook.com/ads/library/...

You should check out the work we've been doing for the last decade!

If you've been following foreign (as well as some domestic) threats to British democracy over the last several years, the full report is worth a read:
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69c29f...

Advert libraries One means of creating transparency in online political advertising is through the use of advert libraries by the social media companies. Such libraries allow journalists and the wider public to see in one place all the adverts placed on the platform, including those by political entities, providing legitimate insight into the focus of campaigning and the facts deployed. A number of the commentators I spoke to, and the Committee on Standards in Public Life76, have called for advert libraries to be made available on all platforms for political adverts, where the following information would be presented • precise figures for amounts spent • who paid for the advert • for targeted adverts, information about the intended target audience of the advert and the types of people who actually saw the advert. Some social media companies already have advert libraries in place. For example, Meta offers a library where adverts about social issues, elections or politics that have run in the past seven years are publicly available, and the library offers additional information about spend range, reach breakdown and the name of the entity or person responsible for the advert 77. But the provision of advert libraries across social media companies is inconsistent and not all that do exist are accurate and up to date. Strictly speaking, this issue of advert libraries strays beyond my remit, However, I have heard enough evidence to suggest that there would be considerable benefit to transparency of online advertising if the Government were to use its convening power to work with social media companies to extend the practice and to achieve consistency in how advert libraries are presented.

Lastly, though it's outside the report's remit, Rycroft says "there would be considerable benefit to transparency of online advertising if the Government were to use its convening power... to achieve consistency in how advert libraries are presented."

We wholeheartedly agree!

Second, there's the idea that "imprints" which under UK law are designed to show who promotes a message, are extended to include who paid for it. There are also recommendations relating to influencers, and the "always on" nature of modern campaigning.

The first thing it calls for is a full ban on foreign funded political advertising. That would be welcome (though there's always a debate about "what is political?" and "what is advertising?", both of which can be far from straightforward when you're in the weeds).

The UK government just published the Rycroft Review into foreign interference in UK politics. The primary focus is influence through donations, but there's a short section on political advertising and campaigns (p. 45-47).
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69c29f...

Should you have a truth regulator for political ads? – Who Targets Me

As good as it sounds, there are loads of reasons why we think that's actually a really bad idea. whotargets.me/en/should-yo...

Starmer says fuel tax hike plan to be kept under review over Iran Fuel duty on petrol and diesel is due to rise from September, when a 5p cut is phased out.

The Government is planning to gradually reverse a 5p cut made at the start of the war in Ukraine from September. But it has also said this change is "under review" given the current situation. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The Conservatives are using the price anxiety caused by the US/Iran war to run Facebook ads claiming Labour is "about" to raise fuel duty. This isn't strictly true, and it's certainly not imminent.
www.facebook.com/ads/library/...