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    Liberal Super PAC Is Turning Its Focus Entirely Digital

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    No more television ads from Priorities USA: The group is planning a $75 million online effort to help President Biden and Democrats up and down the ballot.Priorities USA, one of the biggest liberal super PACs, will not run a single television advertisement in the 2024 election cycle.Instead, the group announced Tuesday, Priorities USA is reshaping itself as a digital political strategy operation, the culmination of a yearslong transition from its supporting role in presidential campaigns to a full-service communications, research and training behemoth for Democrats up and down the ballot.The move reflects a broad shift in media consumption over the past decade, away from traditional broadcast outlets and toward a fragmented online world. It also shows the growing role played by big-money groups in shaping campaigns and American political life: Priorities USA says it will spend $75 million on digital “communications, research and infrastructure” in the next year.“We have learned that the internet is evolving too quickly for the traditional campaign apparatus to keep up in two-year cycles,” Danielle Butterfield, the group’s executive director, said in an interview. “We have committed to not just closing the gaps, but building infrastructure. We are not just focused on single-candidate investments.”She added, “We are, I think, teaching folks how to fish.”Ms. Butterfield said that more than half of that $75 million would be direct investments supporting President Biden’s re-election efforts and the campaigns of other Democrats on the ballot. Those plans, she said, will also have “embedded experiments” that will provide feedback on how people are responding to their efforts.The organization said it was developing relationships with influencers and other “content creators” to spread campaign messages on platforms like TikTok. The group has also been working on “contextual targeting,” which it defined as presenting ads to voters based on what they were watching on their devices at any given moment.Priorities USA also has a nonprofit arm that focuses on litigation and voter protection work.Because of its size, the organization is essentially without peer or competitor in its new role, but Ms. Butterfield likened its new focus to that of the Center for Campaign Innovation, a conservative nonprofit group — not a super PAC — that is focused on digital politics.Eric Wilson, the founder of the Center for Campaign Innovation, said Priorities USA’s change of focus “clearly shows that the way campaigns are going is around content creation and digital platforms.” While television advertising remains the best way to get a message in front of the most people, he said, “we are seeing diminishing returns on TV advertising — it’s becoming more expensive and less effective.”“Media fragmentation is a big challenge for campaigns,” Mr. Wilson said, noting that the Center for Campaign Innovation does not work with campaigns. “You’ve got platforms that are banning political advertising. How do we teach campaigns to create their own content? What are the ways you can get political ads distributed, in a world that’s set up to block political messages?”He added, “We spend a lot of time and investment figuring out how voters get information and why they make decisions.” (The Center for Campaign Innovation does not work with any campaigns.)Priorities USA was formed in 2011 and supported Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and Mr. Biden’s 2020 campaign. It has relied on support from major Democratic donors; in 2020, former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York gave more than $19.2 million, campaign finance records show.The group has expanded in recent years and has run digital training programs and an ad tracking service for strategists. It has also reached beyond presidential campaigns to work on Senate campaigns and state elections, including the recent Pennsylvania Supreme Court race. More

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      Beyond the Debate, Republicans Are Deep in the 2024 Ad Wars

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      Many of the party’s presidential candidates have spent heavily as they try to introduce themselves to voters. Ads for Donald Trump, meanwhile, look ahead to a matchup with President Biden.Americans who don’t live in early presidential nominating states — that is to say, most Americans — might not be aware of the advertising wars already underway in the 2024 campaign. For months, Republican candidates have been on the airwaves, plugging away at themes we are likely to see more of during the party’s high-stakes first debate on Wednesday.This year, they face an unusual challenge: Former President Donald J. Trump has effectively taken on the role of an incumbent. The rest of the candidates have spent tens of millions of dollars to introduce themselves to primary voters, stake out policy positions and chart a course to the general election — only to be overshadowed by Mr. Trump.“I think of advertising as spitting out Ping-Pong balls,” said Ken Goldstein, a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco who has researched political advertising. Mr. Trump’s influence, he said, means that other candidates’ messages often do not reach voters: “There’s this big, huge wind blowing those Ping-Pongs back in their face.”The gamble for the challengers is that the wind will shift — or go away entirely.“If your opponent is winning 57 percent of the vote and you have 2, there is zero percent chance you are making that difference up with advertising,” said Lynn Vavreck, a professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles. Even in a typical election year, Dr. Vavreck said, the persuasive effects of campaign television advertisements are small, and fade fast.“That doesn’t mean everybody polling under 10 percent should stop,” Dr. Vavreck said. “They need to be seen as a candidate who’s taking it seriously. That includes advertising.”Here’s a look at some of the themes and strategies emerging in the campaign advertising for the more than a dozen Republican candidates.How are the candidates dealing with Trump?Republican candidates face an unusual challenge: Former President Donald J. Trump has effectively taken on the role of an incumbent.Christian Monterrosa for The New York TimesMany of the Republican candidates, particularly the lower-polling ones, do not address the former president at all in their ads. Others take indirect shots at him.Former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey and his allies are the loudest exception.In a series of acerbic ads, a super PAC supporting Mr. Christie has ripped Mr. Trump over his indictments, his electoral losses and his impeachments. In an ad that ran nationally after Mr. Christie qualified for the debate on Wednesday, the narrator goads Mr. Trump to join him onstage: “Are you a chicken, or just a loser?”Ads on New Hampshire and Iowa stations by the main super PAC backing Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida have criticized Mr. Trump elliptically — for instance, asking why the former president is attacking Republican governors rather than focusing his attention on Democrats and President Biden. (Mr. Trump, one ad concludes, “is all about himself.”) In another ad, a man covers his Trump bumper sticker with a DeSantis one.Other groups not connected to any candidate have spent millions opposing Mr. Trump.Win It Back, a super PAC that shares leadership with the Club for Growth, a conservative anti-tax group, has bought $5.6 million in ads, according to an analysis by AdImpact, a media-tracking firm. The ads including lengthy broadcast spots in Iowa and South Carolina that feature voters who once supported Mr. Trump but are now looking for a new candidate.A political action committee supporting Mr. Trump, in the meantime, has turned its attention to the general election, with a 60-second ad attacking Mr. Biden.Who is spending the most?Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and his allies have spent $46.2 million on ads, including a huge outlay on commercials planned for the weeks after Wednesday’s debate.Jordan Gale for The New York TimesThe main super PAC supporting Mr. DeSantis has spent $17 million buying television ads, while MAGA Inc, a PAC supporting Mr. Trump, has spent $21.4 million, according to the AdImpact analysis.But that doesn’t come close to the $46.2 million spent in support of Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, between his campaign and a super PAC backing him. That figure includes a huge outlay on ads planned for the weeks after Wednesday’s debate.A PAC supporting Nikki Haley has spent $8.4 million on ads — about the same amount spent on ads for Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, between his largely self-funded campaign and a super PAC supporting him. Ms. Haley’s ads include broadcast spots in New Hampshire and Iowa that draw on her experience as ambassador to the United Nations, and a clip describing her as the “surprise rock star” of the Trump administration.Perry Johnson, a businessman who has lent his own campaign $8.4 million, has spent $1.9 million on ads. One ad that ran in Illinois features him walking determinedly through a blizzard of computer-generated charts and mathematical equations, representing his love of statistics and quality standards.Many of his online ads have included a plea for donations to get him over the threshold of 40,000 donors required to participate in Wednesday’s debate. (The Republican National Committee said on Tuesday that he had not qualified.)Pleas for donors to contribute just $1 — a clear attempt at meeting the debate threshold — also featured heavily in digital ads by SOS America PAC, which is supporting Mayor Francis X. Suarez of Miami. The super PAC has spent $1.7 million on ads, the AdImpact analysis shows.What themes are emerging?Many of the candidates have appealed to anti-abortion voters in their ads.Meridith Kohut for The New York TimesBorder security, China, a touch of Ukraine, inflation, cleaning up Washington. And, of course, the culture wars.Mr. DeSantis’s super PAC has amplified his resistance to coronavirus lockdown orders, and lauds him for “pushing back against the woke left.” In a video clip in one of the ads, he says: “If you’re coming for the rights of parents, I’m standing in your way.” The group’s ads have also gone after Disney and Bud Light.Another ad from the group aims to appeal to anti-abortion voters, quoting Mr. Trump relaying criticism that the six-week abortion ban Mr. DeSantis signed in Florida was “too harsh.”The super PAC supporting Ms. Haley ran a digital ad in May that highlighted her “pro-life” voting record in South Carolina, and criticized Mr. Biden for encouraging protests after Roe v. Wade was overturned. “We need a president who unites Americans,” she says, “even on the toughest subjects.”Perhaps no candidate has made more of his opposition to abortion than former Vice President Mike Pence, and his ads have addressed this head-on. One of his longer ads focuses entirely on his anti-abortion record.Both Ms. Haley and Mr. Pence have used the phrase “the ash heap of history” in stump speeches that wind up in their ads — Ms. Haley in reference to the future of “Communist China,” and Mr. Pence in reference to the overturning of Roe.What’s the visual style of the ads?Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign ads often feature him speaking directly at the camera.Christian Monterrosa for The New York TimesSo far, most of the ads have been pretty “cut-and-paste,” as Mr. Goldstein put it. Inspiring personal stories, a few grim shots of Mr. Biden, uplifting music, a few wives offering endorsements of their husbands, adoring crowds, American flags.The entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy (total ad outlay: $334,000, plus $240,000 more from a supporting super PAC) has made a slightly different presentation. Unlike other candidates’ campaign ads, his spots do not rely on dramatic voice-overs, but feature him in a room, speaking directly at the camera.The super PAC supporting Mr. Scott tried another approach to introduce the candidate: ads featuring prospective voters speaking to the camera about the senator, as if speaking to their neighbor: “Have you seen him work a crowd?” “Did you see Tim Scott on ‘The View’?” “He will crush Joe Biden.”Who has the best Ronald Reagan cameo?Recordings of Ronald Reagan have appeared in ads for former Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Ramaswamy.Dirck Halstead/Getty ImagesDoes a 40-year-old endorsement count? An ad for former Gov. Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas — seeking $1 donations to help him reach the debate stage — consists almost entirely of a short clip of former President Ronald Reagan, sitting at his desk in the Oval Office and addressing the camera.“If you believe in the values I believe in, there’s a man you should get to know,” Mr. Reagan says. “His name is Asa Hutchinson.”Mr. Reagan had nominated Mr. Hutchinson to serve as the United States attorney for the Western District of Arkansas. The clip appears to be from an endorsement for Mr. Hutchinson in the 1986 Senate race. (He lost to Dale Bumpers, an incumbent Democrat.)Mr. Ramaswamy invokes Mr. Reagan in a digital ad, saying the former president “led us out of our national malaise” carried over from the 1970s. Mr. Ramaswamy pledges to lead America out of its latest “national identity crisis.” More

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      Elon Musk Takes a Page Out of Mark Zuckerberg’s Social Media Playbook

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      As Mr. Musk takes over Twitter, he is emulating some of the actions of Mr. Zuckerberg, who leads Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.Elon Musk has positioned himself as an unconventional businessman. When he agreed to buy Twitter this year, he declared he would make the social media service a place for unfettered free speech, reversing many of its rules and allowing banned users like former President Donald J. Trump to return.But since closing his $44 billion buyout of Twitter last week, Mr. Musk has followed a surprisingly conventional social media playbook.The world’s richest man met with more than six civil rights groups — including the N.A.A.C.P. and the Anti-Defamation League — on Tuesday to assure them that he will not make changes to Twitter’s content rules before the results of next week’s midterm elections are certified. He also met with advertising executives to discuss their concerns about their brands appearing alongside toxic online content. Last week, Mr. Musk said he would form a council to advise Twitter on what kinds of content to remove from the platform and would not immediately reinstate banned accounts.If these decisions and outreach seem familiar, that’s because they are. Other leaders of social media companies have taken similar steps. After Facebook was criticized for being misused in the 2016 presidential election, Mark Zuckerberg, the social network’s chief executive, also met with civil rights groups to calm them and worked to mollify irate advertisers. He later said he would establish an independent board to advise his company on content decisions.Mr. Musk is in his early days of owning Twitter and is expected to make big changes to the service and business, including laying off some of the company’s 7,500 employees. But for now, he is engaging with many of the same constituents that Mr. Zuckerberg has had to over many years, social media experts and heads of civil society groups said.Mr. Musk “has discovered what Mark Zuckerberg discovered several years ago: Being the face of controversial big calls isn’t fun,” said Evelyn Douek, an assistant professor at Stanford Law School. Social media companies “all face the same pressures of users, advertisers and governments, and there’s always this convergence around this common set of norms and processes that you’re forced toward.”Mr. Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and a Twitter spokeswoman declined to comment. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, declined to comment.Elon Musk’s Acquisition of TwitterCard 1 of 8A blockbuster deal. More

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      Political Campaigns Flood Streaming Video With Custom Voter Ads

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      The targeted political ads could spread some of the same voter-influence techniques that proliferated on Facebook to an even less regulated medium.Over the last few weeks, tens of thousands of voters in the Detroit area who watch streaming video services were shown different local campaign ads pegged to their political leanings.Digital consultants working for Representative Darrin Camilleri, a Democrat in the Michigan House who is running for State Senate, targeted 62,402 moderate, female — and likely pro-choice — voters with an ad promoting reproductive rights.The campaign also ran a more general video ad for Mr. Camilleri, a former public-school teacher, directed at 77,836 Democrats and Independents who have voted in past midterm elections. Viewers in Mr. Camilleri’s target audience saw the messages while watching shows on Lifetime, Vice and other channels on ad-supported streaming services like Samsung TV Plus and LG Channels.Although millions of American voters may not be aware of it, the powerful data-mining techniques that campaigns routinely use to tailor political ads to consumers on sites and apps are making the leap to streaming video. The targeting has become so precise that next door neighbors streaming the same true crime show on the same streaming service may now be shown different political ads — based on data about their voting record, party affiliation, age, gender, race or ethnicity, estimated home value, shopping habits or views on gun control.Political consultants say the ability to tailor streaming video ads to small swaths of viewers could be crucial this November for candidates like Mr. Camilleri who are facing tight races. In 2016, Mr. Camilleri won his first state election by just several hundred votes.“Very few voters wind up determining the outcomes of close elections,” said Ryan Irvin, the co-founder of Change Media Group, the agency behind Mr. Camilleri’s ad campaign. “Very early in an election cycle, we can pull from the voter database a list of those 10,000 voters, match them on various platforms and run streaming TV ads to just those 10,000 people.”Representative Darrin Camilleri, a member of the Michigan House who is running for State Senate, targeted local voters with streaming video ads before he campaigned in their neighborhoods. Emily Elconin for The New York TimesTargeted political ads on streaming platforms — video services delivered via internet-connected devices like TVs and tablets — seemed like a niche phenomenon during the 2020 presidential election. Two years later, streaming has become the most highly viewed TV medium in the United States, according to Nielsen.Savvy candidates and advocacy groups are flooding streaming services with ads in an effort to reach cord-cutters and “cord nevers,” people who have never watched traditional cable or broadcast TV.The trend is growing so fast that political ads on streaming services are expected to generate $1.44 billion — or about 15 percent — of the projected $9.7 billion on ad spending for the 2022 election cycle, according to a report from AdImpact, an ad tracking company. That would for the first time put streaming on par with political ad spending on Facebook and Google.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Midterm Data: Could the 2020 polling miss repeat itself? Will this election cycle really be different? Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, looks at the data in his new newsletter.Republicans’ Abortion Struggles: Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed nationwide 15-week abortion ban was intended to unite the G.O.P. before the November elections. But it has only exposed the party’s divisions.Democrats’ Dilemma: The party’s candidates have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, while not distancing themselves from President Biden’s base or agenda.The quick proliferation of the streaming political messages has prompted some lawmakers and researchers to warn that the ads are outstripping federal regulation and oversight.For example, while political ads running on broadcast and cable TV must disclose their sponsors, federal rules on political ad transparency do not specifically address streaming video services. Unlike broadcast TV stations, streaming platforms are also not required to maintain public files about the political ads they sold.The result, experts say, is an unregulated ecosystem in which streaming services take wildly different approaches to political ads.“There are no rules over there, whereas, if you are a broadcaster or a cable operator, you definitely have rules you have to operate by,” said Steve Passwaiter, a vice president at Kantar Media, a company that tracks political advertising.The boom in streaming ads underscores a significant shift in the way that candidates, party committees and issue groups may target voters. For decades, political campaigns have blanketed local broadcast markets with candidate ads or tailored ads to the slant of cable news channels. With such bulk media buying, viewers watching the same show at the same time as their neighbors saw the same political messages.But now campaigns are employing advanced consumer-profiling and automated ad-buying services to deliver different streaming video messages, tailored to specific voters.“In the digital ad world, you’re buying the person, not the content,” said Mike Reilly, a partner at MVAR Media, a progressive political consultancy that creates ad campaigns for candidates and advocacy groups.Targeted political ads are being run on a slew of different ad-supported streaming channels. Some smart TV manufacturers air the political ads on proprietary streaming platforms, like Samsung TV Plus and LG Channels. Viewers watching ad-supported streaming channels via devices like Roku may also see targeted political ads.Policies on political ad targeting vary. Amazon prohibits political party and candidate ads on its streaming services. YouTube TV and Hulu allow political candidates to target ads based on viewers’ ZIP code, age and gender, but they prohibit political ad targeting by voting history or party affiliation.Roku, which maintains a public archive of some political ads running on its platform, declined to comment on its ad-targeting practices.Samsung and LG, which has publicly promoted its voter-targeting services for political campaigns, did not respond to requests for comment. Netflix declined to comment about its plans for an ad-supported streaming service.Targeting political ads on streaming services can involve more invasive data-mining than the consumer-tracking techniques typically used to show people online ads for sneakers.Political consulting firms can buy profiles on more than 200 millions voters, including details on an individual’s party affiliations, voting record, political leanings, education levels, income and consumer habits. Campaigns may employ that data to identify voters concerned about a specific issue — like guns or abortion — and hone video messages to them.In addition, internet-connected TV platforms like Samsung, LG and Roku often use data-mining technology, called “automated content recognition,” to analyze snippets of the videos people watch and segment viewers for advertising purposes.Some streaming services and ad tech firms allow political campaigns to provide lists of specific voters to whom they wish to show ads.To serve those messages, ad tech firms employ precise delivery techniques — like using IP addresses to identify devices in a voter’s household. The device mapping allows political campaigns to aim ads at certain voters whether they are streaming on internet-connected TVs, tablets, laptops or smartphones.Sten McGuire, an executive at a4 Advertising, presented a webinar in March announcing a partnership to sell political ads on LG channels.New York TimesUsing IP addresses, “we can intercept voters across the nation,” Sten McGuire, an executive at a4 Advertising, said in a webinar in March announcing a partnership to sell political ads on LG channels. His company’s ad-targeting worked, Mr. McGuire added, “whether you are looking to reach new cord cutters or ‘cord nevers’ streaming their favorite content, targeting Spanish-speaking voters in swing states, reaching opinion elites and policy influencers or members of Congress and their staff.”Some researchers caution that targeted video ads could spread some of the same voter-influence techniques that have proliferated on Facebook to a new, and even less regulated, medium.Facebook and Google, the researchers note, instituted some restrictions on political ad targeting after Russian operatives used digital platforms to try to disrupt the 2016 presidential election. With such restrictions in place, political advertisers on Facebook, for instance, should no longer be able to target users interested in Malcolm X or Martin Luther King with paid messages urging them not to vote.Facebook and Google have also created public databases that enable people to view political ads running on the platforms.But many streaming services lack such targeting restrictions and transparency measures. The result, these experts say, is an opaque system of political influence that runs counter to basic democratic principles.“This occupies a gray area that’s not getting as much scrutiny as ads running on social media,” said Becca Ricks, a senior researcher at the Mozilla Foundation who has studied the political ad policies of popular streaming services. “It creates an unfair playing field where you can precisely target, and change, your messaging based on the audience — and do all of this without some level of transparency.”Some political ad buyers are shying away from more restricted online platforms in favor of more permissive streaming services.“Among our clients, the percentage of budget going to social channels, and on Facebook and Google in particular, has been declining,” said Grace Briscoe, an executive overseeing candidate and political issue advertising at Basis Technologies, an ad tech firm. “The kinds of limitations and restrictions that those platforms have put on political ads has disinclined clients to invest as heavily there.”Senators Amy Klobuchar and Mark Warner introduced the Honest Ads Act, which would require online political ads to include disclosures similar to those on broadcast TV ads.Al Drago for The New York TimesMembers of Congress have introduced a number of bills that would curb voter-targeting or require digital ads to adhere to the same rules as broadcast ads. But the measures have not yet been enacted.Amid widespread covertness in the ad-targeting industry, Mr. Camilleri, the member of the Michigan House running for State Senate, was unusually forthcoming about how he was using streaming services to try to engage specific swaths of voters.In prior elections, he said, he sent postcards introducing himself to voters in neighborhoods where he planned to make campaign stops. During this year’s primaries, he updated the practice by running streaming ads introducing himself to certain households a week or two before he planned to knock on their doors.“It’s been working incredibly well because a lot of people will say, ‘Oh, I’ve seen you on TV,’” Mr. Camilleri said, noting that many of his constituents did not appear to understand the ads were shown specifically to them and not to a general broadcast TV audience. “They don’t differentiate” between TV and streaming, he added, “because you’re watching YouTube on your television now.” More

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      N.Y. Governor Candidates Flood the Airwaves With $20 Million in Ads

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      With the June 28 primary fast approaching, candidates for governor are spending big to get their message out to voters.An Army veteran. A bartender’s son. A hard-working executive, burning the midnight oil.These are just a few of the ways in which candidates vying to be New York’s next governor have introduced themselves to voters in a barrage of campaign advertisements before the June 28 primaries.In the Covid era where in-person campaigning still remains fraught, political ads offer candidates an opportunity to speak directly to voters, showcasing their qualifications and vision for the future.Four of the candidates for governor have spent a combined $19.8 million on television ads: Gov. Kathy Hochul and Representative Thomas Suozzi, both Democrats, and Representative Lee Zeldin and Harry Wilson on the Republican side. Other candidates, including the New York City public advocate, Jumaane Williams, a left-leaning Democrat, and Andrew Giuliani, a pro-Trump conservative, have not yet purchased ads on television, according to AdImpact, a firm that tracks television ad spending.There has, however, been some major ad spending on behalf of a familiar noncandidate, who is at least as of now not running for governor — former governor Andrew M. Cuomo.Hochul leads the spending warMs. Hochul’s first television ad shows the governor late at night at her desk in her Albany office, portraying her as an executive who has worked tirelessly since ascending to the governorship following the unexpected resignation of Mr. Cuomo in August.What the 30-second spot does not show is how Ms. Hochul has also worked tirelessly to raise campaign funds.The governor, who as of January had amassed a record-smashing $21.6 million campaign war chest, has so far spent more than $6.8 million in ad buys, according to AdImpact. Most of the spending, not surprisingly, has been focused on New York City and its suburbs, where most Democratic primary voters live.Wielding the power of incumbency, Ms. Hochul utilized her first ad to highlight some of the voter-friendly policy priorities she negotiated with lawmakers as part of the state budget in April. The ad underscores her efforts to confront some of the biggest election-year issues — crime and skyrocketing prices — by touting measures to crack down on illegal guns and cut taxes for the middle class.Ms. Hochul released a second television ad last week focused on her commitment to protect abortion rights in New York, shortly after news broke that the Supreme Court was likely to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark decision that legalized abortion across the country in 1973.Similar to other Democratic campaigns nationwide, Ms. Hochul’s operatives are hoping to wield the issue against Republicans — the ad accuses two of her Republican rivals of wanting to ban abortion — and to galvanize Democratic voters in November, when control of Congress will also be in play.Representative Tom Suozzi has used his ads to focus on his vows to combat crime and lower taxes.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesSuozzi focuses on crime and taxesMr. Suozzi, a centrist Democrat from Long Island, has used his campaign ads to cast himself as the “common-sense” candidate and to attack Ms. Hochul. Some of the ads blame her for failing to address rising gun violence, chiding her for an endorsement she received from the National Rifle Association during her time in Congress.Mr. Suozzi has focused most of his ads on his promise to lower income and property taxes and to further roll back the changes to the state’s bail laws that the Democrat-led Legislature passed in 2019.Mr. Suozzi has repeatedly blamed bail reform for leading to the release of more criminals. He has accused the governor of not doing enough to fix what he sees as deficiencies in the bail laws, even though Ms. Hochul recently persuaded lawmakers to approve some changes.Mr. Suozzi, who trails Ms. Hochul in public polls, faces an uphill battle: The Democratic primary tends to attract the party’s most liberal voters, but he is running as an unabashed moderate unafraid of taking on the party’s vocal left wing.“It’s not about being politically correct, it’s about doing the correct thing for the people of New York,” he says in one ad, which the campaign named, “No B.S.”Mr. Suozzi, who had about $5.4 million in the bank as of earlier this year, has poured just over $3.9 million into television ad buys.He began spending on television ads as early as January, far before Ms. Hochul, but his campaign has not made ad buys in the most recent weeks of May, according to AdImpact.A representative from Mr. Suozzi’s campaign said that it had halted buying because of some uncertainty around the date of the primary, but planned to soon resume.Representative Lee Zeldin is running negative ads attacking the governor.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesZeldin goes negative on Hochul and state of New YorkMr. Zeldin’s television ads have consistently sought to link Ms. Hochul to the ills that his campaign argues have befallen New York because of Democratic rule, a recurring theme as he seeks to become the state’s first Republican governor in 16 years.Anchored on a pledge to “Save Our State,” Mr. Zeldin’s ads home in heavily on crime — they rail against bail reform and the defund the police movement — as well as the state’s high taxes and population loss.They also seek to tie Ms. Hochul, who served as Mr. Cuomo’s lieutenant governor for six years, to the scandals that led to his resignation (one calls her a “silent accomplice”). His campaign’s most recent television ad is focused exclusively on the arrest in May of Ms. Hochul’s former lieutenant governor, Brian Benjamin, on federal bribery charges.Mr. Zeldin, who is the Republican Party’s designee in the race, has used the ads to tout his own credentials as a military veteran and as a “tax-fighting, trusted conservative.”They make no mention of his staunch support for former President Donald J. Trump, who remains largely unpopular in his home state, where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans two to one. Mr. Zeldin voted against certifying last year’s presidential election in January 2021, a move Democrats have used as a cudgel against him.Of the more than $5 million in campaign money Mr. Zeldin had as of January, about $3.9 million has been steered into television ads.While Mr. Zeldin has spent almost $1.5 million in the New York City area, the majority of his television ad spending has gone outside the downstate region, targeting the state’s conservative voters.Harry Wilson, a businessman who contemplated running for governor in 2018, is hoping to upset the Republican nominee, Representative Lee Zeldin.John Minchillo/Associated PressHarry Wilson spends big on airtimeMr. Wilson, a businessman who has run for state office before, nonetheless entered the race largely unknown to voters. But he’s hoping that a slate of ad buys stretching from February to June will change that.Mr. Wilson, who is reported to be largely self-funding his campaign, has spent more than $5.2 million, according to AdImpact, outspending Mr. Zeldin, who is widely seen as the front-runner on the Republican side.Mr. Wilson ran a well-regarded campaign for comptroller in 2010 that captured the support of three major editorial boards, but he lost narrowly to the Democratic nominee, Thomas P. DiNapoli. He also contemplated running for governor four years ago, but decided against it.Mr. Wilson hopes that his record coaching troubled companies and center-right social views will appeal to moderate voters looking for a change.His ads focus on bureaucratic inefficiency, rising costs and population losses that Mr. Wilson blames on “corrupt go-along to get-along politicians.” Like some of his competitors, he promises to lower taxes and add police officers. But he also pitches himself as a fiscally conscious political outsider, with the perspective and experience to turn around a failing state.“I’m running for governor because I cannot sit by and watch as New York is devastated by career politicians,” he says in one ad.Ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo has released two political ads and has spoken at churches as part of his campaign to rehabilitate his image.Victor J. Blue for The New York TimesCuomo to New York: Don’t you forget about meThough he is not an official candidate for any office, the former governor has also run two ads — spending $2.8 million out of the campaign fund he left office with, according to AdImpact.The ads seek to restore Mr. Cuomo’s image after his resignation last year amid allegations of sexual harassment and to reframe him as the victim of political attacks.Mr. Cuomo ran the ads from late February until late March, heightening speculation that he might jump into the race, but hasn’t made any ad buys since then.Mr. Cuomo has denied any inappropriate behavior, and five district attorneys declined to prosecute claims against him after opening inquiries. However, the New York State attorney general, Letitia James, State Assembly investigators and many of those same district attorneys found Mr. Cuomo’s accusers to be credible.One 30-second advertisement begins with a smattering of newspaper headlines memorializing the closure of several investigations into sexual harassment and assault allegations, concluding that “political attacks won, and New Yorkers lost a proven leader.”The other seeks to remind New Yorkers of Mr. Cuomo’s achievements in office, citing the state’s gun laws, the $15 minimum wage and major airport and bridge projects.“I never stopped fighting for New Yorkers, and I never will,” he says. More

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      Meta Will Give Researchers More Information on Political Ad Targeting

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      Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said that it planned to give outside researchers more detailed information on how political ads are targeted across its platform, providing insight into the ways that politicians, campaign operatives and political strategists buy and use ads ahead of the midterm elections.Starting on Monday, academics and researchers who are registered with an initiative called the Facebook Open Research and Transparency project will be allowed to see data on how each political or social ad was used to target people. The information includes which interest categories — such as “people who like dogs” or “people who enjoy the outdoors” — were chosen to aim an ad at someone.In addition, Meta said it planned to include summaries of targeting information for some of its ads in its publicly viewable Ad Library starting in July. The company created the Ad Library in 2019 so that journalists, academics and others could obtain information and help safeguard elections against the misuse of digital advertising.While Meta has given outsiders some access into how its political ads were used in the past, it has restricted the amount of information that could be seen, citing privacy reasons. Critics have claimed that the company’s system has been flawed and sometimes buggy, and have frequently asked for more data.That has led to conflicts. Meta previously clashed with a group of New York University academics who tried ingesting large amounts of self-reported data on Facebook users to learn more about the platform. The company cut off access to the group last year, citing violations of its platform rules.The new data that is being added to the Facebook Open Research Transparency project and the Ad Library is a way to share information on political ad targeting while trying to keep data on its users private, the company said.“By making advertiser targeting criteria available for analysis and reporting on ads run about social issues, elections and politics, we hope to help people better understand the practices used to reach potential voters on our technologies,” the company said in a statement.With the new data, for example, researchers browsing the Ad Library could see that over the course of a month, a Facebook page ran 2,000 political ads and that 40 percent of the ad budget was targeted to “people who live in Pennsylvania” or “people who are interested in politics.”Meta said it had been bound by privacy rules and regulations on what types of data it could share with outsiders. In an interview, Jeff King, a vice president in Meta’s business integrity unit, said the company had hired thousands of workers over the past few years to review those privacy issues.“Every single thing we release goes through a privacy review now,” he said. “We want to make sure we give people the right amount of data, but still remain privacy conscious while we do it.”The new data on political ads will cover the period from August 2020, three months before the last U.S. presidential election, to the present day. More

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      Swiss Approve Ban on Tobacco Ads

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      Health advocates have said that the legislation, which was approved in a referendum, was a significant step toward tightening the country’s loose tobacco regulations.ZURICH — Advertisements glamorizing cigarettes will soon be a thing of the past in Switzerland, after voters on Sunday overwhelmingly approved legislation forbidding tobacco companies from displaying them in public spaces.Health advocates have said that the legislation, which was approved in a referendum, was a significant step toward tightening the country’s loose tobacco regulations.“Many organizations have stepped up to the plate and advocated for a solution that prioritizes youth protection,” said Flavia Wasserfallen, a member of the Swiss National Council and a proponent of the initiative.Across much of the West, tobacco advertisements long ago fell out of favor, but they have lived on in this Alpine nation, with displays for cigarettes and e-cigarettes showing up on billboards, in movie theaters and at events like music festivals.But voters made it clear on Sunday that they were no longer interested in seeing them, and despite strong opposition from the tobacco industry and the government, the tougher regulations were approved by 56.6 percent of voters and received strong support from the country’s French- and Italian-speaking regions, despite having the country’s highest smoking rates.Steps have been taken in recent years to try to introduce tougher regulations on tobacco-related products in Switzerland. In 2015, the Federal Council, the country’s executive branch, proposed a Tobacco Products Act that would ban the sale of tobacco and related goods to minors as well as restrict advertising.Parliament eventually approved a weakened version of the bill, which forbade the sale of tobacco to those under 18 but let advertising continue mostly unimpeded.The most recent initiative was started by a group of more than 40 health organizations that formed in response to the weakening of the tobacco legislation. The revamped Tobacco Products Act, which includes the advertising-related provisions that voters approved on Sunday, is expected to come into effect in 2023.“The majority of our country has decided to correct Parliament’s decision on the Tobacco Products Act,” Hans Stöckli, who serves as the president of the committee behind the initiative, said on Sunday. Mr. Stöckli described the result as “a historic milestone” and as “a necessary step” toward improved tobacco regulation.Opponents of the measure called the tighter restrictions extreme. And while they agreed that tobacco should be age-restricted, they said that the new rules amounted to a de facto ban on a legal product because children could potentially be exposed to advertisements anywhere.Switzerland has long had a close relationship with the tobacco industry. Philip Morris and Japan Tobacco International have their international headquarters in the country, and British American Tobacco also has a strong presence.The industry employs about 4,500 people in Switzerland, according to the government, including in the production of high-tar cigarettes that are illegal to produce or sell in the European Union. Cigarettes rank with chocolate and cheese as some of the country’s leading exports.Even after the new rules take effect, Switzerland will continue to have more liberal tobacco regulations than many other countries. And it will also still not fulfill all of the requirements needed to ratify the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, an international response to combating the tobacco epidemic, despite signing it in 2004. The United States has also not ratified the convention.Alain Berset, Switzerland’s vice president, who also serves as the country’s health minister, had opposed the initiative before the vote. But at a news conference on Sunday, he acknowledged that Swiss voters had spoken, and said that the government would move forward with the new regulations.“The Federal Council will now tackle the implementation of the initiative,” Mr. Berset said.The Tobacco Products Act was not the only issue on the ballot on Sunday. In a move that people feared could have cut Switzerland off from global medical progress, voters shot down a proposed ban on all human and animal experiments in the country.Voters also decided against providing Swiss media outlets with increased financial support, by rejecting a government proposal to extend subsidies to online media as well as to regional radio and television stations.A government-approved amendment to the federal stamp duties act that would have made it cheaper for companies to raise new capital was also rejected, with opponents saying it would have mainly benefited large companies. More

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      Meta’s Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Quarter

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      At some point, the jig is up for almost every highflying tech company (consider that Cisco was, for a time in 2000, the world’s most valuable company). That’s usually because executives put on blinders to one constant rule of innovation I’ve observed: The young devour the old.So, are the worrisome quarterly results posted Wednesday by the outfit formerly known as Facebook an early sign of that? That seemed to be Wall Street’s conclusion, which until now has showered the social networking giant with unquestioning love, but nonetheless shaved more than $250 billion off its market value, or 26 percent, the largest one-day dollar drop for a U.S. company in history.That’s quite the indictment, since the money crowd has stuck beside the company despite a roiling series of controversies in the 18 years since its founding. Privacy violations, foreign interference, harmful impacts on teenage girls, data breaches, voluminous disinformation and misinformation, and the hosting of citizens charged with seditious conspiracy have made the company into the singular villain of this digital age. It has even supplanted the ire that was once aimed at Microsoft (ironically, seen today as the “good” tech company).But until now, none of these myriad sins have seemed to matter to investors, who have cheered on Facebook’s digital advertising dominance that has yielded astonishing profits.It posted $10.3 billion in profits in the fourth quarter, an 8 percent dip, despite a 20 percent sales gain to $33.7 billion. But those profits were a disappointment, dragged down in part by $10 billion in 2021 spending on its Reality Labs unit, which makes its virtual reality glasses and similar products. That’s serious money to throw at something, but it looks to be just the tip of Meta’s spear in the battle to dominate the still vaporous metaverse. Mark Zuckerberg has clearly decided to go all in on what he views as the battleground for the future.There are other troubling signs, including the meteoric rise of TikTok and the impact of Apple’s ad tracking changes that have hurt Facebook’s ability to hoover up users’ personal data in service of targeted ads.While the Apple challenge and the metaverse spending are certainly troubling, what we might be seeing is the market’s tiring of co-founder Zuckerberg at the helm, even as more exciting and energetic rivals come into play. Even Microsoft seems more relevant and vibrant, including its recent and very deft plan to snap up Activision, a move Meta wouldn’t dare make due to regulatory scrutiny.So Facebook is forced to be creative on its own, not always its strongest suit given how it is known for ham-handedly shoplifting ideas from others.Indeed, Zuckerberg did not sound much like Caesar Augustus — the techie’s favored Roman emperor — in his earnings call with investors: “Although our direction is clear, it seems that our path ahead is not quite perfectly defined.” You’d imagine $10 billion would buy a better map.Thus, right on schedule, the company is trying to soften up Washington influencers for its next act, the metaverse. According to a report by Bloomberg, Meta is focused on think tanks and nonprofits, especially those that lean libertarian or free market, to presumably convince them that what happened back in web2 will not be an issue in web3, the supposed next phase of the internet.Narrator: It will be in issue.Meta gives funding to a lot of these organizations, of course, a kind of soft way to influence. It spent $20 million on lobbying alone last year — more than five times the amount in 2012 — which is more than triple Apple’s spending and roughly double Alphabet and Microsoft’s. Amazon was the only tech company to surpass Meta, with about $20.5 million in lobbying spending.Given the increasing bipartisan furor with the company, it makes sense. As Neil Chilson of Stand Together, a nonprofit associated with Charles Koch, put it: “There’s a lot of scrutiny on them, and they are trying to move into a new space and bring the temperature down at the same time.”Ya think? In a “Sway” interview I did recently, former Disney C.E.O. and Chairman Bob Iger noted the dangers of the metaverse: “There’s been enough said and criticized about toxic behavior in internet 2.0; Twitter, Facebook, you name it. Imagine what can happen when you have a much more compelling and immersive and, I’ll call it, collective of people or avatars of people in that environment, and what kind of toxic behavior could happen.”“Something Disney is going to have to consider as it talks about creating a metaverse for themselves is moderating and monitoring behavior,” he said.So it appears Zuckerberg is right about one thing about Meta’s direction: It’s going to be a bumpy ride.4 QuestionsI caught up with Chris Krebs, who served as director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency under President Donald Trump and now runs the Krebs Stamos Group. I’ve edited his answers.Are you surprised that the conspiracy theories around election fraud have gotten worse, despite all your efforts to debunk the information, which ultimately led to your being fired in a tweet?Sadly, no, not really. That’s unfortunately the game plan — they flood the zone with garbage to overwhelm evidence-based reality. Not to necessarily prove any particular plot or conspiracy theory, but to confuse the masses so they don’t know whom to trust, they just know that “something isn’t right here.” What really set the stage was the former president’s supporters had been primed to expect a rigged election. After all, Trump had been telling them that’s the only way he could lose. This agitation was made that much easier due to most voters only having a casual understanding of how elections work, exacerbated by some of the changes and confusion around voting during Covid. So, when you’ve been told to expect shenanigans, and you don’t know how anything works, the things you don’t understand look like conspiracy theories. Even though we were regularly debunking election-related conspiracy theories, the flood of lies pushed by elites and influencers amounted to a self-fulfilling prophecy that overwhelmed us.Then there’s the ecosystem of grifters that boost these conspiracy theories for their own benefit, because ultimately disinformation is about power, money and influence. Until we hold them accountable for the harm they’ve done to democracy, they’ll continue to do it. We have to place the blame squarely where it lies: The fact that the former president continues to push lies about the 2020 election, simply because he can’t take the loss. That his own party won’t stand up for the country is really one of the more shameful chapters in American political history.The recent New York Times story that as president, Trump tried to get Homeland Security to seize the voting machines feels ominous. Were you aware of this and what is your assessment of his aims?I wasn’t aware of the scheme before I was fired in mid-November 2020, but I heard about it from a few reporters and government officials soon afterward in December. That it was even floated for consideration in the Oval Office is completely insane. It also says a lot that Trump’s own cabinet officials and advisers rejected the concept out of hand as beyond their authorities and illegal. Based on who was reportedly pushing this garbage to the president — namely Mike Flynn, Sidney Powell, Mike Lindell and Phil Waldron) — maybe they thought they were going to actually find something despite all available evidence. The more likely outcome? There was nothing there to find and they would either misrepresent something or manufacture a story entirely. That’s exactly what happened in Antrim County in Michigan in mid-December, where a group issued a report that was riddled with errors and misinterpretations that was then thoroughly debunked by experts in the field. Even if the plot had survived the inevitable legal action by the targeted states, it would have been the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security or some other agency analyzing any seized machines, and not the president’s rogue group of advisers. There was no evidence then or now that suggests they’d find foreign manipulation of votes or vote counting — because it didn’t happen.What are your biggest worries about the next election and what is your confidence that it will be secure?I remain confident that the work we all did through the 2020 election led to a secure, free and fair election. I also have continued confidence in the vast majority of professional election officials across the country committed to secure and transparent elections. Congress has to continue investing in elections so that we can continue the march toward 100 percent voter-verifiable paper. In 2016, less than 80 percent of votes had a paper ballot associated with the vote, with the remainder of votes stored on digital media. That’s hard to audit. In 2020, that number jumped to around 95 percent, according to a study by the Center for Election Innovation and Research. Entire states like Georgia and Pennsylvania shifted from paperless systems to paper ballot-based systems, leaving Louisiana as the only remaining state that’s broadly paperless. To its credit, Louisiana has tried, but has run into various procurement snags. We also need to continue expanding postelection, precertification audits that are based on transparent standards and methodologies conducted by election audit professionals. One of my greatest concerns looking ahead to 2022 midterms and 2024 is not necessarily a foreign cyber threat; instead, it’s a domestic insider threat posed by partisan election officials. This isn’t just speculation. In Mesa County, Colo., the Republican county clerk is under grand jury investigation for allowing unauthorized access to voting systems. More concerning, there are “Stop the Steal” candidates running in secretary of state races in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Michigan and elsewhere that, if in office in 2024, would be in a position to affect how elections are run and even refuse to certify if their preferred candidate doesn’t win.That’s just not any American democracy that I recognize, and if you’re anything like me, you’re a single-issue voter: If you run on a stolen election platform, you’re unfit for public office.You formed your firm Krebs Stamos Group with Alex Stamos, former Facebook chief security officer, and one of your first clients was SolarWinds, the famously hacked network software company. What do you do for your clients and what’s the most important thing companies need to pay attention to?The set of companies in the sights of high-level cyber actors are no longer limited to the big banks, energy firms and defense contractors. Instead, the hundreds of technology firms that are critical supply chain partners for just about every aspect of our nation’s economic engine are now targeted by foreign cyber actors. Companies must recognize that if you’re shipping a product, you’re shipping a target; if you’re hosting a service, you are the target, and then adjust their approach to security accordingly.We work with clients to develop and implement risk management strategies informed by this dramatic shift in geopolitical and geo-economic concerns that shape our world today. What’s happening in Eastern Europe is a perfect example. While we might not know for certain if Russia is going to attack Ukraine, Russia has plenty of offensive options, and they’ve proven time and again that they aren’t afraid to use cyber capabilities that directly impact businesses across the globe. Then there’s the Chinese government. As Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Chris Wray said this week, “Whatever makes an industry tick, they target.” Using hacking, spying, covert acquisition and other techniques to steal intellectual property from advanced technology firms, they seek to gain a commercial advantage for Chinese firms. State actors exploiting our growing digital dependencies for intelligence, commercial, influence and military purposes is now the norm, rather than the exception, and every business needs a security strategy driven from the c-suite.Lovely & LoathsomeLovely: With TikTok full of some truly vile and dangerous challenges (the now-banned milk crate challenge, for one), perhaps we need to focus on the many inventive and fun ones. I am enamored of what’s known as the Drop Down Challenge, in which people, well, drop down into a squat, typically synchronized. There was a skit on it on “Saturday Night Live” this past week, but the real thing is oddly satisfying and, mostly, persistently creative. Check out this one called the “nurse edition.”Loathsome: Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, continues his reign as Twitter’s most obtuse tweeter. Last month, after walking back his repeated statements acknowledging there was a “violent terrorist attack” on the Capitol last January, Cruz the next day accused President Biden of “trying to signal weakness and surrender” to Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. Mockery ensued, obviously, but that digital dopiness was somehow topped this week with his tweet advising people in his state to get ready for cold conditions, noting it’s “better to be over prepared than underprepared for winter weather.” That comes just a year after he decamped to Cancún, Mexico, amid a serious home heating fuel crisis in Texas, a debacle thoroughly chronicled on Twitter.Conclusion: You cuncan’t make this stuff up! More

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      Facebook Said to Consider Forming an Election Commission

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      The social network has contacted academics to create a group to advise it on thorny election-related decisions, said people with knowledge of the matter.Facebook has approached academics and policy experts about forming a commission to advise it on global election-related matters, said five people with knowledge of the discussions, a move that would allow the social network to shift some of its political decision-making to an advisory body.The proposed commission could decide on matters such as the viability of political ads and what to do about election-related misinformation, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the discussions were confidential. Facebook is expected to announce the commission this fall in preparation for the 2022 midterm elections, they said, though the effort is preliminary and could still fall apart.Outsourcing election matters to a panel of experts could help Facebook sidestep criticism of bias by political groups, two of the people said. The company has been blasted in recent years by conservatives, who have accused Facebook of suppressing their voices, as well as by civil rights groups and Democrats for allowing political misinformation to fester and spread online. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, does not want to be seen as the sole decision maker on political content, two of the people said.Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, testified remotely in April about social media’s role in extremism and misinformation. Via ReutersFacebook declined to comment.If an election commission is formed, it would emulate the step Facebook took in 2018 when it created what it calls the Oversight Board, a collection of journalism, legal and policy experts who adjudicate whether the company was correct to remove certain posts from its platforms. Facebook has pushed some content decisions to the Oversight Board for review, allowing it to show that it does not make determinations on its own.Facebook, which has positioned the Oversight Board as independent, appointed the people on the panel and pays them through a trust.The Oversight Board’s highest-profile decision was reviewing Facebook’s suspension of former President Donald J. Trump after the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol. At the time, Facebook opted to ban Mr. Trump’s account indefinitely, a penalty that the Oversight Board later deemed “not appropriate” because the time frame was not based on any of the company’s rules. The board asked Facebook to try again.In June, Facebook responded by saying that it would bar Mr. Trump from the platform for at least two years. The Oversight Board has separately weighed in on more than a dozen other content cases that it calls “highly emblematic” of broader themes that Facebook grapples with regularly, including whether certain Covid-related posts should remain up on the network and hate speech issues in Myanmar.A spokesman for the Oversight Board declined to comment.Facebook has had a spotty track record on election-related issues, going back to Russian manipulation of the platform’s advertising and posts in the 2016 presidential election.Lawmakers and political ad buyers also criticized Facebook for changing the rules around political ads before the 2020 presidential election. Last year, the company said it would bar the purchase of new political ads the week before the election, then later decided to temporarily ban all U.S. political advertising after the polls closed on Election Day, causing an uproar among candidates and ad-buying firms.The company has struggled with how to handle lies and hate speech around elections. During his last year in office, Mr. Trump used Facebook to suggest he would use state violence against protesters in Minneapolis ahead of the 2020 election, while casting doubt on the electoral process as votes were tallied in November. Facebook initially said that what political leaders posted was newsworthy and should not be touched, before later reversing course.The social network has also faced difficulties in elections elsewhere, including the proliferation of targeted disinformation across its WhatsApp messaging service during the Brazilian presidential election in 2018. In 2019, Facebook removed hundreds of misleading pages and accounts associated with political parties in India ahead of the country’s national elections.Facebook has tried various methods to stem the criticisms. It established a political ads library to increase transparency around buyers of those promotions. It also has set up war rooms to monitor elections for disinformation to prevent interference.There are several elections in the coming year in countries such as Hungary, Germany, Brazil and the Philippines where Facebook’s actions will be closely scrutinized. Voter fraud misinformation has already begun spreading ahead of German elections in September. In the Philippines, Facebook has removed networks of fake accounts that support President Rodrigo Duterte, who used the social network to gain power in 2016.“There is already this perception that Facebook, an American social media company, is going in and tilting elections of other countries through its platform,” said Nathaniel Persily, a law professor at Stanford University. “Whatever decisions Facebook makes have global implications.”Internal conversations around an election commission date back to at least a few months ago, said three people with knowledge of the matter. An election commission would differ from the Oversight Board in one key way, the people said. While the Oversight Board waits for Facebook to remove a post or an account and then reviews that action, the election commission would proactively provide guidance without the company having made an earlier call, they said.Tatenda Musapatike, who previously worked on elections at Facebook and now runs a nonprofit voter registration organization, said that many have lost faith in the company’s abilities to work with political campaigns. But the election commission proposal was “a good step,” she said, because “they’re doing something and they’re not saying we alone can handle it.” More