According to a report at Axios, Republican insiders are fearful that Facebook could reverse course and ban political ads before the 2020 elections which would strike a crippling blow to Donald Trump's re-election campaign.
Following in the footsteps of Twitter booting the ads off of its platform, White House insiders are afraid Facebook will follow suit after taking a beating over the past few weeks by saying they would not censor or refuse misleading ads.
According to the report, "Top Republicans are privately worried about a new threat to President Trump’s campaign: the possibility of Facebook pulling a Twitter and banning political ads," adding, "Facebook says it won't, but future regulatory pressure could change that. If Facebook were to ban — or even limit — ads, it could upend Trump’s fundraising and re-election plan, GOP officials tell Axios. "
According to the report, the Trump campaign has been focusing resources on Facebook where they hope to reach the type of people who get their information from the social media platform despite a lack of rigorous fact-checking.
Axios notes, the president's "campaign has mastered the art of using Facebook’s precision-targeting of people to raise money, stir opposition to impeachment, move voters and even sell Trump shirts and hats."
Trump 2020, "often uses highly emotional appeals to get clicks and engagement, which provides valuable data on would-be voters and small-dollar donors," the report states.
According to Kara Swisher of Recode, she believes Mark Zuckerberg will switch course, saying, "He's going to change his mind — 100% ... [H]e's done it before."
Speaking with Axios, Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh attempted the put possible blame on a possible change of policy on Democrats if it happens.
"We’ve always known that President Trump was too successful online and that Democrats would one day seek to wipe him off the Internet," he explained.
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