The complicated story behind July's Facebook ads spending.

Hi, Friends —

✰ Welcome to [our digital disco]!

This week’s release will be a bit different. I’ll be diving into the rise of digital advertising in politics, conspiracy theories, and some peculiar patterns tying the latter together. These topics are relevant because the U.S. Presidential election cycle is ramping up, just in time for nearly-indistinguishable misinformation (think, A.I.-generated photos, videos, podcasts, and more) to be widely available to anyone with internet access and a few spare dollars.

Money flows where attention goes

As the 2024 presidential campaign season approaches, many experts are watching Facebook ad spending for clues on the candidates’ political campaign strategies. Digital media accounted for ~2-3% of political ad spending in the 2016 election cycle, then jumped to 18% leading up to the 2020 election. The shift suggests that political campaigns are recognizing the importance of social media and digital platforms in shaping public opinion and influencing electoral outcomes.

Yet this season, the trend appears to be changing. Recently, reporters have flagged how little Donald Trump appears to be investing in social media advertising — which is shocking, given how deeply the former president invested in digital advertising throughout the last two elections. While the Trump campaign does appear to be spending less in this manner, the data exhibits that other big spenders are heavily supporting the former president’s campaign through less-obvious tactics.

To dive deeper, I churned out an analysis of Facebook’s top-paying advertisers. We can see that from July 1-30 2023, the Joe Biden Victory Fund was the fourth-highest spender in Facebook ads ($~920K). Trump’s fundraising committee doesn’t even make it to the top 50 ad spenders, landing at about a tenth of Biden’s spending over the same time period.

But there’s something else going on here, too. Three of the top spenders — Sound of Freedom Movie, Angel Studios, Inc., and Operation Underground Railroad — are all endorsed by former president Donald Trump. Together, these advertisers are outspending Biden by over 760% (with a total of $7.9M). And they’re are all connected by one person: former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agent and Trump presidential appointee, Tim Ballard.

Let’s dive in.

Ballard and Trump

Tim Ballard founded Operation Underground Railroad (OUR) in Utah in 2013 with the goal of rescuing children from sex trafficking and bringing their abusers to justice. The organization has gained attention for its high-profile sting operations and global partnerships with law enforcement. However, OUR has also been the subject of investigations by the FBI, IRS, and DHS. These agencies have raised questions about the scale and efficacy of OUR’s operations — as well as allegations that its operators actually increased nefarious attention to and engagement with the child trafficking market. Many experts believe Ballard’s ‘sting operations’ have primarily functioned to promote his brand, while failing to break down (and in some cases, perpetuating) real trafficking networks.

Critics have also raised concerns about Ballard's alleged links to the QAnon conspiracy theory.

QAnon is a far-right conspiracy theory that has gained popularity in recent years. The conspiracy theory posits that an underground group of devil-worshipping elites run the world and engage in child sex trafficking. QAnon believers subscribe to a variety of unfounded claims, including the idea that Trump is working to dismantle this network. The conspiracy has also helped Donald Trump in past and present campaigns by appealing to a group of supporters who believe in its message.

Ballard has denied any connection to QAnon and has denounced those who draw a connection between his organization and the conspiracy theory. However, Ballard has been criticized for circulating unsupported figures about the extent of the sex-trafficking industry and for making controversial, QAnon-aligned statements about trafficking. He is known for sensationalizing stories of trafficking on Fox News, a Congressional testimony, and at a Trump White House Event — and often as evidence to support Trump’s border wall agenda. It doesn’t stop there. Ballard and OUR’s political ties can be seen directly to the former president himself, as Trump appointed Ballard as Co-Chair of the Public-Private Partnership Advisory Council to End Human Trafficking in late 2019. And as for the movie about one of Ballard’s operations, “Sound of Freedom”? Former president Trump hosted a screening of the film at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club. The film’s producer, Eduardo Verástegui, was also a Trump appointee during his administration (member of the President’s Advisory Commission on Hispanic Prosperity).

Culture war and the Sound of Freedom

"Sound of Freedom," a movie about child sex trafficking, has become an unexpected box-office hit, attracting a diverse range of conservative audiences and, some would say, promoting a Trump-aligned conspiracy theory. The film portrays the supposedly (debated-ly) real events of Tim Ballard, portrayed by Jim Caviezel, a former federal agent dedicated to rescuing South American children from sex traffickers. “Sound of Freedom” was also partially financed by Andrew McCubbins, the film’s executive producer who pled guilty in 2020 to an $89 million Medicare fraud scheme. (McCubbins has stated that he has attended 22 sting operations against human trafficking — and that the proceeds from his Medicare fraud scheme did not make their way into the movie.) Critics and anti-trafficking experts have opined that the film embellishes the reality of child exploitation and stokes the QAnon conspiracy, both in the film’s content as well as comments made by Ballard and Caviezel. Despite this criticism, the film's themes have resonated with mainstream Republicans concerned about children's issues, evangelicals drawn to its religious aspects, and some QAnon believers who have embraced its narrative.

And as for Angel Studios? The streaming platform is also a Utah-based media company, perhaps most known for its American Christian television series, “The Chosen.” "Sound of Freedom" was initially under the purview of 20th Century Fox, was first rejected from Disney (after the latter acquired the label) prior to its acquisition by Angel Studios.

The complicated picture of digital ads & political campaigns

The power of pop culture is not to be understated. Movies, songs, and other media are known to have won elections and even wars, whether or not they were initially created as political propaganda. Take, for example, “Io Sono Giorgia (Giorgia Meloni Remix),” released last year by MEM & J. The song became so popular that it brought Meloni, an Italian far-right politician, out of the ultra-nationalist barracks and won her the title of Italian prime minister.

While the Meloni remix was originally made to poke fun at Giorgia Meloni, cultural propaganda can also be an explicit tactic — employed to strategically spread of information, influence public opinion, and advance specific political agendas. This type can be particularly insidious because it can hide within movies, advertisements, and other media to promote biased narratives and deceptive messages. It also makes cultural propaganda, and its influence, incredibly difficult to measure.

Now, I am not suggesting that the Trump campaign is explicitly investing in QAnon-adjacent media to garner support for his campaign.

I am, however, suggesting that there are many ways that public opinion can be swayed in favor of political candidates.

It is clear that “The Sound of Freedom” has messy ties to Ballard, Trump, and a host of other political stakeholders. Whether or not the Trump campaign was involved, “The Sound of Freedom” is quite likely garnering more support of nationalists toward Ballard’s OUR organization, toward Trump-era border control policies, and even toward to QAnon conspiracy theories. To say that Biden is investing more in digital advertisements is to fail to acknowledge the many, many ways media and advertising can be leveraged to support political campaigns and mobilize public opinions. And if Trump is somehow subsidizing the ads of the film, Angel Studios, and/or OUR? No one is the wiser. Yet.

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about the upcoming U.S. Presidential election, and how vastly different it will be from prior years. We’re well aware of how significant of a role misinformation played in the 2020 and 2016 U.S. presidential elections — fueling uncertainty, division, and mistrust. Its propagation through social media and other platforms influenced voter behavior, shaped public opinion, and amplified existing societal divisions, contributing to our deeply polarized political landscape. The sheer scale and reach of Facebook's advertising capabilities amplified the impact of misinformation campaigns, fostering an environment where false narratives could spread rapidly.

Of course, things are never straightforward. Facebook ad spending isn’t directly indicative of impact and reach — Donald Trump, for example, paid slightly more per ad than rival Hillary Clinton leading up to the 2016 election, and slightly less per ad than the Biden campaign leading up to 2020 (Facebook ad charges vary wildly, particularly in swing states). Facebook also isn’t the main source of digital influence. To really get a comprehensive handle of presidential candidate spending, we’d want to bring in a wide breath of platforms (Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit…), news sites, and search engines — not to mention podcasts, which are quickly becoming the primary form of news consumption for many Americans.

The 2024 U.S. Presidential election is also poised to be vastly more challenging given the level of sophisticated technologies than can easily generate and spread misinformation. Generative AI in particular — think, the deep fake of Pope Francis donning Balenciaga — can be leveraged to create nearly-impossible-to-differentiate videos, photos, audio clips, and more. The latter may not only sway the public’s beliefs and votes inorganically, but also further erode trust and reliability in the political system.

In short: the next year-and-a-half is likely to be riddled with misinformation and cultural propaganda. And “straightforward” data — such as amount spent on Facebook ads — is likely to fall very short of helping us understand the the real influence any political candidate has on voters.

Expansion of Facebook Ad Data, 1 August 2023

I’d love to investigate each one of these… the lobbyist strongholds of Big Oil (Shell USA, $580K; American Petroleum Institute, $460K), worker unions (WorkMoney, $1.2M), and more is palpable. But those deep-dives are for another time.