Facebook has banned ads from the Women For Trump movement. Why? Because they enlist support …from women! Really? …Really!
Facebook policy states advertisers may not have “direct or indirect assertions or implications” about race, ethnicity, gender and sexual identity, religion, or financial standing. So the Women For Trump advertisement was banned… for referring to women.
This is nuts! While the recent revelations about Facebook, Google, et al, secretly trying to undermine the 2016 election are very disturbing, this banning of ads by the President’s re-election campaign takes the cake. It shows that the supposed neutrality of social media giants like Facebook and Google has long been a sham.
“Targeting gender, sexuality…” implies ads that are negative toward a certain group. For example, an ad asking “do you hate women, gays, etc. then vote for…” The way this is being framed implies that the ad can’t even reference gender, religion or whatever. And Facebook is very sensitive to liberal “woke” complaints.
The real issue here is that Facebook has amassed huge amounts of data on everyone who has an account with them. All advertisers target their ads based on this data.
Remember when advertisers were open about the demographics they were targeting? If you were watching an NFL game, there were and still are certain types of ads that run there. The same fact is true about a concert beamed from the Kennedy Center in Washington. However, in digital media it is different. The huge amounts of data mined about individuals are leading to secrecy surrounding algorithms, targeting, and more.
Facebook does not want their users to know how much data they have. Facebook divides us using every identity and characteristic they can imagine. They now ban ads directed at half of humanity who define themselves in accordance with their God-given nature?
Some people find this disturbing.
Of course, Women For Biden ads are still running.
Women for Women International is a Facebook group that runs ads targeting women. And they say so right in their ads. I have nothing against their ads or group. However, if Facebook is going to ban ads from Women For Trump, they need to be consistent and do so with every group that targets specific genders.
This is an outrageous act of censorship, voter suppression, discrimination, and social control, restricting ads to individual Americans based on their views. It is no different from Twitter suspending conservatives; the demonetization of conservative websites; the “quarantines” on Reddit; and Google’s manipulated search results.
Facebook is undoubtedly worried that PDJT could win another term. Preventing him from targeting women is one way they can try to reduce his support.