Facebook privacy drive may crimp some political campaigns

Michael Cornfield, a George Washington University political scientist who leads a research project on social media in campaigns, said the public focus on Facebook and privacy is probably transitory and will have little impact on upcoming elections.

“Data privacy has not been a big issue because few people see it costing them personally,” he said.

Cornfield said he expects campaigns to use the Facebook Live video platform and increase use of artificial intelligence to target voters.

Facebook has also promised labels and verification for ads on hot-button political issues which are not for specific candidates. But it may have trouble living up to that pledge, said Young Mie Kim, a University of Wisconsin professor who led research on 2016 Facebook political ads.

Kim said many disputed 2016 ads were “dark” posts by anonymous groups, shown only to small numbers of users without mentioning a candidate’s name.

“It is incredibly difficult to define an issue ad — even policymakers do not completely agree on this,” she said.

“Facebook will have a very difficult time defining what are political ads.”