Four months after the U.S. election, Facebook has lifted its political ads ban, following Google’s move last week.

Broadly, Facebook is reducing political content on its platform, only 6% of what people in the U.S. see in their newsfeed is political. But it doesn’t distinguish between political and social issue ads. That’s caused a lot of turmoil.

The question is, what impact has this had on advocacy groups wanting to get their message to the new administration? 

“The last four months have been an important time for political groups to begin building their fundraising infrastructure for the cycle ahead,” said Jake Sticka, vp of client strategy at the Democratic firm Rising Tide Interactive.

Facebook’s absence has not made that easy.

Elsewhere, the media and marketing industry is figuring out the fallout from Google’s clarification that, no way, will it support alternative email-based identifiers outside of its Privacy Sandbox. And boy, there are plenty of questions.

People I’ve spoken with so far aren’t that surprised Google wants to play with itself. That doesn’t make its swipe at the way competitors operate any less chilling. 

“[Email-based identifiers are] the lifeblood of the Trade Desk,” one publishing exec told me. “So this may have been a direct strike against them and not just a shrapnel blow.” 

Stay tuned for more follow-ups on the outcomes and implications. Drop me a line on what we’re missing.  

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Thanks for reading and have a great week!

Lucinda

Lucinda.southern@adweek.com 

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