Facebook to show who buys political ads

[Igel]

5. The outplay may not be what's desired.

A lot of the "political" ads were issue ads. At what point does campaigning for issues become political?

Oh. You want to make sure Congressfolk know that the People for Perfect Planets is against forced use of a pro-biotic diet for facilities serving juvenile simians? Well, that's political. Or not. Do you think it's common sense or not common sense.

One "political agent" of the Russians was a community activist who accepted money from a US-based group with no obvious ties to Russian money for a program he had long thought was a good idea. If he'd done the same thing with "clean" money he'd be a hero; as it was, turns out that progressive activist was, for many, a Russian dupe. That's what happens with guilt by association.

The guidelines may boil down to, "If you support a candidate, it's a political ad." That's easy to verify.

But what if you support an issue, nothing more? Does it matter that you supported the issue for the year before the election campaigns began and continued the support?

Even worse, what if you do something like highlight BLM's role in trying to secure equality before the law(-enforcers) and your ad is promoting a protest rally? Is that political and suddenly the group paying for the ad is subject to public scrutiny? Does that mean donors to the group should be public knowledge?