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The Effects of Political Advertising on Facebook and Instagram before the 2020 US Election

Author

Listed:
  • Hunt Allcott
  • Matthew Gentzkow
  • Ro’ee Levy
  • Adriana Crespo-Tenorio
  • Natasha Dumas
  • Winter Mason
  • Devra Moehler
  • Pablo Barbera
  • Taylor W. Brown
  • Juan Carlos Cisneros
  • Drew Dimmery
  • Deen Freelon
  • Sandra González-Bailón
  • Andrew M. Guess
  • Young Mie Kim
  • David Lazer
  • Neil Malhotra
  • Sameer Nair-Desai
  • Brendan Nyhan
  • Ana Carolina Paixao de Queiroz
  • Jennifer Pan
  • Jaime Settle
  • Emily Thorson
  • Rebekah Tromble
  • Carlos Velasco Rivera
  • Benjamin Wittenbrink
  • Magdalena Wojcieszak
  • Shiqi Yang
  • Saam Zahedian
  • Annie Franco
  • Chad Kiewiet de Jonge
  • Natalie Jomini Stroud
  • Joshua A. Tucker

Abstract

We study the effects of social media political advertising by randomizing subsets of 36,906 Facebook users and 25,925 Instagram users to have political ads removed from their news feeds for six weeks before the 2020 US presidential election. We show that most presidential ads were targeted toward parties’ own supporters and that fundraising ads were most common. On both Facebook and Instagram, we found no detectable effects of removing political ads on political knowledge, polarization, perceived legitimacy of the election, political participation (including campaign contributions), candidate favorability, and turnout. This was true overall and for both Democrats and Republicans separately.

Suggested Citation

  • Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow & Ro’ee Levy & Adriana Crespo-Tenorio & Natasha Dumas & Winter Mason & Devra Moehler & Pablo Barbera & Taylor W. Brown & Juan Carlos Cisneros & Drew Dimmery & Deen Free, 2025. "The Effects of Political Advertising on Facebook and Instagram before the 2020 US Election," NBER Working Papers 33818, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:33818
    Note: IO PE POL
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D90 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - General
    • L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media
    • O33 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Technological Change: Choices and Consequences; Diffusion Processes

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