WASHINGTON — The online advertisement for Donald Trump supporters was clear enough: Click here and receive a free Trump 2024 flag and a commemorative coin. All in exchange for filling out a short survey and providing a credit card number for the $5 shipping and handling fee.
“You will receive two free gifts when you participate in this short poll in support of Trump,” the ad’s narrator says.
The ad — which appeared on Facebook, YouTube and other platforms — did not mention the $80 that would later appear on credit card statements. Those who clicked on it were scammed.
Political ads on social media are one of the best ways for candidates to reach supporters and raise campaign money. But as a new report from Syracuse University shows, weak regulations around online advertising and haphazard enforcement by tech companies also make ads a major source of election misinformation — and a tantalizingly easy way for scammers to target victims.
“There is very little regulation on the platforms,” said Jennifer Stromer-Galley, the professor who led the research for the ElectionGraph Project at Syracuse University. Institute for Democracy, Journalism & Citizenship“It leaves the American public vulnerable to misinformation, disinformation and propaganda.”
Stromer’s research examined more than 2,200 Facebook or Instagram groups that ran ads featuring one of the presidential candidates between September and May. Collectively, the ads cost nearly $19 million and were viewed more than 1 billion times.
Data related to the ads (and made public by Meta, the owner of Facebook) show that both right- and left-leaning ads targeted older voters more than younger ones. Right-leaning ads were more likely to target men, while progressive ads were more likely to target women.
In general, conservative-leaning organizations bought more ads than progressive-leaning groups. Immigration was the top issue in right-leaning ads, while the economy dominated progressive ads.
Many of the ads featured misleading information, or deepfake videos and audio of celebrities supposedly crying during a speech by former First Lady Melania Trump. Stromer-Galley noted that falsehoods in ads about urban crime and immigration were particularly prevalent.
While most of the groups paying for the ads were legitimate, others seemed more interested in obtaining a user’s personal financial information than promoting a specific candidate. Through a partnership with the data science firm Neo4j, Stromer-Galley discovered that some pages shared common creators or ran nearly identical ads. When one page disappeared — perhaps removed by Facebook moderators — another quickly sprang up to take its place.
Many of the pages sold Trump-related merchandise such as flags, hats, banners and coins or advertised fictitious investment schemes. The real motive was apparently to obtain a user’s credit card information.
The ads promising a free Trump flag were placed by a group called the Liberty Defender Group. Emails sent to several company addresses were not answered, and a phone number for a company representative could not be found. One website associated with the group has gotten out of politics and now sells devices that claim to improve the energy efficiency of homes.
Meta removed most of the ads and pages from the network earlier this year after researchers noticed their activity, but the ads are still visible on other platforms. The company says it prohibits scams or content that could disrupt the functioning of an election and removes ads that violate its rules. The company also urges users not to click on suspicious links or provide personal information to untrustworthy sources.
“Do not respond to messages asking for your password, social security number, or credit card information,” the company said.
The Trump campaign, which has no known ties to the network, did not respond to a request for comment.
The Syracuse researchers were only able to study ads on Meta platforms because other companies don’t make such information public. As a result, Stromer-Galley said, the public is left in the dark about the true extent of misinformation and scams being spread on social media.