Recent reports revealed that the 2020 US Presidential election campaign is targeting younger voters. These campaigns are using digital platforms to reach out to younger voters, especially first-time voters, revealed the new report.
Facebook for political campaign
The social media giant, Facebook, which gained hatreds from all over the world due to the Cambridge Analytica scandal is now facing investigation after someone stole data of 29,000 Facebook employees. As reported by Axios, this social media platform has become the primary option for electoral candidates to push advertisements. The report stated that Facebook makes it easy for political parties to buy ads targeted to different groups.
It should be noted that since March, among all the candidates Bernie Sanders and Mike Bloomberg have collectively spent the largest amount of their Facebook ad budgets targeting Gen Z, youngsters aged around 13 and 24 as well as the millennials, people between 25 and 44. However, the US President Donald Trump and former US Vice President Joe Biden are not trying to make spend political dollar online targeting young generation.
Reaching out through Snapchat
It should be noted that another popular platform, Snapchat reaches a much younger demographic than its rivals such as Facebook and Instagram. Axios report stated that the campaign for Trump and an affiliated PAC have given a total of $43,955 in 2019 for the Snapchat ads. Another, candidate Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend spend the same amount of money on Snapchat to target college students.
Axios stated, "While the spend on Snapchat is dwarfed by the millions spent by Democratic candidates on Facebook and Google ads, the data provides insight into how candidates are targeting young and first-time voters."
Misleading Facebook Ads
While discussing Facebook ads, recent blunders over the platform must be mentioned. There are many researchers and Facebook users who found thousands of misleading ads before the UK election.
It should be noted that while Twitter announced in October that it has banned political ads on the platform, the rival social media contender Facebook ruled out any possibility of putting a ban on such ads before an election.
Researchers at fact-checking non-profit firm, First Draft revealed that in UK 5,000 of the 6,749 ads paid for by the Conservatives contained references to 40 newly built hospitals, In reality, Conservatives' spending plans for the next Parliament had allocated funding only for six hospitals to be upgraded by 2025. False claims were also made on the cost of Labour's spending plans.
Traditional media ads
Here it should be mentioned that unlike online platforms, in US, traditional media organizations like broadcast media, such as the TV networks NBC or CBS, are obliged to carry any ad for a candidate for federal office, but the cable companies have the authority to reject ads they deem as false.
