ScoMo & Albo Already Spending Big On Social Media Election Ads

New research shows both Labor and the Coalition are spending big on digital ads well in advance of either party commencing their federal election campaigns.

ABC News reported advertising data published on Facebook had steadily risen since August last year – despite a brief dip owing to the Christmas/New Year break and the Omicron surge.

Advertisements focusing on any political or social issue formed part of the data, as well as state politics and non-for-profit organisation ads.

According to the ABC, the Coalition has spent a considerable amount on cheap, recurring online advertisements – most of which portray the opposition leader, Anthony Albanese, as an unreliable leader – to target specific voters, as opposed to larger, more expensive TVC’s and other tractional media platforms.

Climate200 has also upped their adspend in the lead up to the federal election, with the newcomer party – which runs on immediate climate action policies – reportedly spending nearly $70,000 between January 26 and February 24 on Facebook ads promoting new candidates in Liberal party strongholds.

Meanwhile, other parties – such as Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party – have embraced the Google-owned YouTube as its advertising platform of choice, with a Google Transparency Report showing of the $2 million political campaigners spent on YouTube ads over the four weeks leading to February 13, 2022, 94.8 per cent came from the UAP.

In fact, Pathmatics data shows UAP to be the nation’s top digital advertiser as of January 2022, spending over $5 million in January, ahead of runner-up, Foxtel Media, and the seventh-place NSW Government.

While this data shows the undeniable power and leverage gained through social media platforms, recent research calls into question the strength of these platforms.

Reset Australia recently formulated five graphics showing fabricated information – such as unvaccinated children weren’t allowed to vote, and major parties had printed ballots – to test Facebook’s capabilities in tracking fake news.

Each phoney advertisement received approval by Meta’s ad manager portal, before being deleted by Reset to avoid exposing fake news to Facebook users.

“The spread of information intended to manipulate and deceive is nothing new. But at no other point in history has anyone had the ability to reach people at the scale available through social media,” Reset Australia’s director of technology policy, Dhakshayini Sooriyakumaran, told Crikey.

“This experiment shows that Meta must be subject to further scrutiny and regulation.”

Reset Australia has called on Meta to provide a live-list of widely spread election-related misinformation posts, as well as other regulations on publicly shared fake news.

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