Good newsletter from Mark Scott on the need to calm down (at least a bit) on the threats to elections from generative AI.
politico.eu/newsletter/dig…

We've just relaunched our website. Everything looks nicer, is better organised and loads much faster. whotargets.me

Biggest Meta advertiser for forthcoming elections in the UK in the last month? It's the Electoral Commission, who spent £236,000 on voter registration/voter ID awareness campaigns. In the same period, they've spent 5x more than the Conservatives (£48k) or Labour (£41k).

Meta ad spend in the West Midlands Mayoral race over the last month. Andy Street (Conservative) trying to fight political gravity vs. Richard Parker (Labour).

At this specific moment, the Tories' Meta ads are all attack, all the time.

The Conservatives have spent £5k on Meta ads attacking Labour's 'driving tax'. The ads mention London's ULEZ (but appear to be targeting England and Wales more broadly). They're primarily reaching older supporters and have been seen more than 1.5M times.

Another reminder of the value of paid ads (versus organic content) to political parties. They can keep hammering the same lines again and again and again, and because the issue was already covered, no-one's going to cover it again, giving them free rein to keep saying it.

Interesting because it's looking to exploit the idea the Conservatives committed to scrapping NI, without saying how they'll pay for it, or replace it, long after the news has stopped talking about it. bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi…

Interesting Labour ad - a video featuring Betty Smith, 87, who talks about 'seeing on the news' that the Tories are 'interfering with National Insurance' and that her 'state pension is at risk'. facebook.com/ads/library/?i…