Syracuse Sun

The recent ElectionGraph report from the Institute for Democracy, Journalism and Citizenship (IDJC) reveals a significant increase in negative advertising on Facebook and Instagram following an assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump in July. This rise occurred despite calls from both major political parties to reduce inflammatory rhetoric.

The report highlights that Trump's own advertisements contributed notably to this trend. It also uncovered ongoing "coordinated inauthentic behavior" by certain external organizations, including a network of Facebook pages running potentially scam-related ads. These ads accounted for an estimated $5 million or approximately 4% of total ad spending by outside entities, resulting in about 234 million impressions.

ElectionGraph aims to identify misinformation trends in the U.S. presidential election and other key contests of 2024. The third quarterly report from this project examines ads related to primary and general election presidential candidates on Meta platforms between September 1, 2023, and August 31, 2024.

Findings indicate that the Democratic ticket outspent Trump's campaign tenfold—approximately $50 million compared to $5 million—on these platforms during the specified period. In Pennsylvania, this gap widened to twelve-to-one. However, Trump surpassed Biden's and Harris' campaigns combined by roughly five-to-one in terms of "uncivil" ads.

In terms of social media impressions, there was a four-to-one difference favoring the Democratic ticket with around one billion impressions versus 250 million for the GOP. This data does not include Trump-related expenditures on other platforms like X or Truth Social.

Beyond campaign spending, nearly 3,500 Facebook pages from external organizations have invested $55 million over the past year aiming to sway public opinion during this election season.

Supported by Neo4j's grant and analytics software, ElectionGraph focuses on tracing misinformation origins through algorithmic classification of ads on Facebook and Instagram while providing a publicly accessible dashboard for exploring its findings.

While Meta allows approved access to ad data—which is not required nor trackable similarly across TikTok or Google—the findings offer insights into information targeting voters ahead of the upcoming elections.

Jennifer Stromer-Galley from IDJC expressed concern over scams masquerading as legitimate advertisements filled with falsehoods further polluting voter information environments: “My concern with ongoing scams running on Facebook and Instagram is that they look like legitimate advertisements but are full of falsehoods."

Jim Webber at Neo4j emphasized how their technology aids distinguishing between legitimate actors versus malicious ones within complex networks: “This important research enabled by Neo4j can help voters distinguish legitimate actors from malicious ones hidden within complex networks."

Margaret Talev noted real bipartisan concerns about violence accentuated by attempts against Trump proving no match against negative campaigning’s allure: “Real bipartisan concerns about election-related violence...have proved no match for magnetic pull.”