Other platforms such as TikTok have prohibited political advertising, though candidates are increasingly using the sites directly as megaphones. Attempts by Congress to legislate for more accountability have all succumbed on the rock of Republican intransigence in the US Senate. The Honest Ads Act, a bipartisan bill backed by the Brennan Center that would make digital ads subject to the same disclosure rules as broadcast TV and radio, was included in the Freedom to Vote Act that failed to overcome a Republican filibuster in January. Advertisement In the absence of central regulation, outside groups can distribute extreme or false messages with impunity. Citizens for Sanity, the Super Pac created by former Trump advisers, blasted out an advert last month attacking Biden’s immigration policy. It was viewed 600,000 times over nine days by voters in the border state of Arizona. “Who is Joe Biden letting in?” its female narrator asks. “Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats have erased our southern border and released a record number of illegal immigrants into the United States, all at your expense.” The ad goes on to warn about a “giant flood of illegal immigration” that was “threatening your family”. It accuses Biden of allowing drug dealers, sex traffickers and violent predators into the country, one of whom raped a little girl. “She was three years old,” the narrator says. The Poynter Institute’s factchecking unit, Politifact, reviewed the ad. It found that the immigrant who allegedly sexually assaulted a three-year-old girl had been in the US since at least 2011; he has been behind bars since February 2020 – almost a year before Biden entered the White House. Politifact rated the advert “False”.