Here's the spending share for the final week before the Mayoral by-election. Feels like a big miss from the Greens to spend so much for just 12% (and elimination) in the first round. They're usually more conservative in deploying resources when they're not going to win.

Although the Greens spent a lot on digital ads in Manchester, Restore were the biggest spending party on polling day itself.

Although the Greens spent a lot on digital ads in Manchester, Restore were the biggest spending party on polling day itself.

Good piece by @stephenkb.bsky.social on the challenges (lack of accountability and counter-speech among them) of politics-by-vertical video. www.ft.com/content/9f96...

Burnham and the problem of politics by social media

The old tightly regulated party broadcast model is dead — for better and for worse

ft.com

Obviously it's not only restricted to the US - it can happen anywhere, and the rules on this sort of thing are years behind the reality.

This needs to be understood as the third wave of the ongoing scandal around opaque online political advertising (after the illicit Russian influence campaigns and massive data abuses of 2016).

In the US at this point, you have to assume that any influencer or blue tick content about politics primarily exists because the creator is getting paid (and usually not disclosing the fact).

Brandy Zadrozny@brandyzadrozny.bsky.social · 2w ago

Get in, there’s a new secret political influence campaign paying people to post. This time, a network targeting people in Michigan. First paid to post about how hard it is to afford groceries and gas, the accounts have gone hard in recent days, supporting Haley Stevens. www.ms.now/news/haley-s...

In the US at this point, you have to assume that any influencer or blue tick content about politics primarily exists because the creator is getting paid (and usually not disclosing the fact).

Brandy Zadrozny@brandyzadrozny.bsky.social · 2w ago

Get in, there’s a new secret political influence campaign paying people to post. This time, a network targeting people in Michigan. First paid to post about how hard it is to afford groceries and gas, the accounts have gone hard in recent days, supporting Haley Stevens. www.ms.now/news/haley-s...

New Labour digital ad campaign going straight for the informal style Burnham has tried to cultivate. First name only, no tie, "sign up to hear from me". Will be interesting to see how they balance the personal brand vs. the promise of a more inclusive government and party.

"Farage" vs. "Binface" keyword mentions in Meta political ads shows no contest - it's 98% to 2% since the start of July. But... the majority of Farage mentions are from his opponents.

Farage's limited campaign (due to a lack of rivals) in Clacton has ramped up (a bit) with two video ads framing his arguments for calling the by-election (half "standing up to the establishment", half "letting voters clear me of any wrongdoing over getting £5m from Christopher Harborne")

Some folks' predictions about what US conservatives might to do TikTok haven't yet come to pass (but nor has ours - that they'd immediately unban paid political ads).

Kyle Tharp@kylewilsontharp.bsky.social · 2w ago

📊 NEW: Progressives feared that TikTok's new ownership would suppress their views or skew content on the platform to the Right. Data shows that in the 6 months since the company's deal closed, there has been no significant shift in reach or engagement on political content 🧵

Notable moment here - on the 15th of July, for the first time, Restore Britain bought more political social media ads than any of the other parties.

In 2024, the spending limits were raised by far too much, creating upward pressure on campaigns' budgets and desperation for big donations. At the same time, the cost of reaching voters, thanks to digital, has fallen dramatically over the last two decades. Cutting the limits is a no-brainer.

Josiah Mortimer@josiahmortimer.bsky.social · 3w ago

The Government has just asked the Electoral Commission to review election spending limits, which were massively hiked by the Tories. Could be very significant.

Very welcome news.

Knight First Amendment Institute@knightcolumbia.org · 3w ago

Breaking: A federal court has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from enforcing an immigration policy targeting noncitizen researchers, advocates, fact-checkers, and trust and safety workers based on their work. knightcolumbia.org/content/fede...

Platform political ad bans don't work (and their detection and enforcement will probably get worse as advertiser tactics evolve). The EU needs to work out how to fix the TTPA so that we get transparency, not rule bending and dodging.

Tech Policy Press@techpolicypress.bsky.social · 3w ago

Major platforms sold political ads in Cyprus despite saying they had banned the practice, according to new research. Tech Policy Press fellow Liz Carolan on the gaps in EU rules ahead of major European elections.

The Green Party are already spending heavily online for the Manchester Mayoral by-election. No one else has started yet. Generally the party only spends when they think they'll win.

The Makerfield by-election is still a week away, but Labour is already starting to set the scene with digital ads for the Greater Manchester Mayoral by-election that's likely to follow it.

Reform ad spend in Makerfield (the local party page + Rob Kenyon's) isn't very high at the moment, and might even be tailing off. Leading indicator for their expectations next Thursday?

Experimenting with a new tool to track the relative prominence of keywords in political ad campaigns on Meta. E.g. here showing that, in the US, ads including "data centers" are currently more prominent than ones about "gas prices"

"Formal political advertising is regulated because we understand that money influences political communication and behaviour. Creator programmes are an “always on” version of the same phenomenon." And they're almost totally unregulated. open.substack.com/pub/whotarge...

The other political advertising problem

... and how to deal with it

open.substack.com

Much of today's political communication isn't bought by parties during elections. It's produced by creators who are paid and promoted by platforms. We regulate campaigns because money shapes politics. It's time to recognise that creator programmes do too. fulldisclosure.whotargets.me/p/the-other-...

The other political advertising problem

... and how to deal with it

fulldisclosure.whotargets.me

After the Milburn report on young people's employment and training prospects was published last week, Reform launched ads on the topic, targeting the under-25s .

We've a comment in this (and it's worth a read anyway!)

Amy Borrett@amyborrett.ft.com · 2mo ago

🚨Elon Musk has boosted the public profile of Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe on X, pulling Britain’s political discourse towards extreme content and amplifying his influence ahead of a knife-edge election in Makerfield More @FT: as.ft.com/r/80f4639f-0...

Rupert Lowe's Restore are campaigning heavily in Makerfield, and it's obvious that's now pushing Reform further right in their messaging. It's the first time they've talked about "mass deportations" in paid ads.

Rupert Lowe's Restore are campaigning heavily in Makerfield, and it's obvious that's now pushing Reform further right in their messaging. It's the first time they've talked about "mass deportations" in paid ads.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Reform UK spending on Facebook ads surged before May elections

Party spent £252,000 in last two weeks of campaign on its main Facebook pages compared with Labour’s £276,000

theguardian.com

NEW: How Reform ramped up the funding and sophistication of its political Facebook ads in the final weeks of local election campaign. Financial muscle filtering through to coordination and quality. Story using @whotargets.me data www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Reform UK spending on Facebook ads surged before May elections

Party spent £252,000 in last two weeks of campaign on its main Facebook pages compared with Labour’s £276,000

theguardian.com

These list building ads from Reform have been running for the last week. They've spent nearly £10k on them and reached over a million people on Facebook and Instagram.

France's elections (Presidential next year) seem quite open to illicit influence, particularly from/on the right. www.reuters.com/business/med...

Exclusive: France probes whether Israeli firm BlackCore interfered in local elections, sources say

French authorities are examining whether a foreign interference campaign aimed at a hard-left party ahead of March's municipal elections was carried out at least in part by an obscure Israeli firm cal...

reuters.com