The Issue of Online Political Ads

In their current state, they’re not being regulated nearly enough.

Mark Zuckerberg’s picture is courtesy of Flickr by Oscar Espiritusanto. Jack Dorsey’s picture is courtesy of Flickr by jdlasica. Both licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Tackling the issue of online political ads will prove itself a complicated task. As we’re starting to get fully submerged into the 2020 election cycle, numerous concerns have been raised about social media platforms’ inability to duly deal with election meddling after the disaster that was 2016. A shadow that looms around the seldom much-hyped Mueller report is that Russia spared no expenses in trying to split the Democratic vote and skew the electorate heavily towards the GOP-effectively creating a clear-cut path for Donald Trump to rally rural whites around xenophobic and racist fear-mongering, all under the pretext of “draining the swamp” of DC. That feeling of economic anxiety — regardless of its merits — led to many feeling disillusioned with how the system failed them, seeing to no immediate recourse but to appoint a staunch right-wing populist into the highest office of power. That man, is Donald Trump, and he doesn’t seem terribly concerned about online political ads spreading misinformation to his own benefit -and that should make all of us terrified.

Whether aided by his own operatives or foreign actors, Donald Trump stands to gain the most from online political ads operating as they always have been. Not because his campaign can afford to…