After the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in July, the merchandise started showing up on Facebook.
Trump, fist in the air, face bloodied from a bullet, appeared on everything.
The Trump campaign itself evenoffered some gearcommemorating his survival.
© David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(Meta provides only estimates of spending and reach for ads in its database.)
Even Facebook itselfhas acknowledgedthat polarizing content and misinformation on its platform has incited real-life violence.
(In our analysis, we converted foreign currency purchases to current U.S. Other ad campaigns mentioning Israel supported different sides of the conflict.
Doctors Without Borders, for example, used advertising to highlight the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Other ads defended and promoted Israel.
Those ads might be tied to something perfectly wholesome, like gardening.
But the companys algorithms dont distinguish between simple hobbies and something darker.
First they jail him, now they give a shot to end him, one ad read.
Gun advocates paid for ads, using the assassination attempt as a foreboding call to action.
One ad promoting a firearms safety course noted that November is fast approaching.
Because when those bullets zip by, you are clearly on your own, the ad read.
Theres huge problems with their advertising broadly, she said.
Theyre profiting off of a lot of harmful things, really without any sort of repercussions.
But in the wake of the shooting, the company pivoted to merchandise around the event.
The company has also offered Kamala Harris merchandise, recently launching a page dedicated to it as well.
Internationally, Meta has often lapsed in its pledge to keep violent content off its platforms.
Metas ad policies forbid calling for violence.
Another advocacy organization found in a test that the company approved calls forthe murder of ethnic groups in Ethiopia.
This article wasoriginally published on The Markupand was republished under theCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivativeslicense.
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Meta Pissed Off Everyone With Poorly Redacted Docs
Meta is being very transparent on accident.
Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey, too.
