The spot was too controversial for TV. And, now, the biggest social media platform has pulled it too.
Facebook on Monday pulled down advertisements from President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign that sought to fire up conservative voters in two midterm battleground states with an ad deemed “racist” by major television broadcasters.
The company’s decision came after CNN, NBC, and Fox News had all pulled down the ad, which features a convicted cop-killer who was deported multiple times before he shot and killed two California sheriff’s deputies, and was released as a video by the Trump campaign last week.
Facebook soon followed suit. “This ad violates Facebook's advertising policy against sensational content so we are rejecting it. While the video is allowed to be posted on Facebook, it cannot receive paid distribution,” wrote a spokesperson for the company in an emailed statement.
The spokesperson said the ad violated the company’s policy against “sensational content” in advertisements. That policy prohibits “shocking, sensational, disrespectful or excessively violent content” in paid ads. “This includes dehumanizing or denigrating entire groups of people and using frightening and exaggerated rumors of danger.”
The ad, which features a convicted cop-killer who was deported multiple times before he shot and killed two California sheriff’s deputies, was released as a video by the Trump campaign last week. The spot seeks to pin the blame for those murders on immigrants generally along with Democratic policymakers who favor more lax immigration laws. Luis Brocamontes, the criminal at issue, was in fact arrested and released in 1998 by the office of then-Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio, whom Trump pardoned of a misdemeanor criminal offense this year. Brocamontes last entered the country illegally during the George W. Bush administration.So, @NBCNews @CNN @facebook have chosen to stand with those ILLEGALLY IN THIS COUNTRY. Instead of standing with LEGAL IMMIGRANTS and those that follow our laws. The #FakeNewsMedia and #PaloAltoMafia are trying to control what you see and how you think. STOP THE CARAVAN!
— Brad Parscale (@parscale) November 5, 2018
“America cannot allow this invasion. The migrant caravan must be stopped,” the Trump campaign’s 30-second ad declares. “President Trump and his allies will protect our border and keep our families safe.”
The ad aired during Sunday Night Football on NBC. And Facebook advertising data showed that the Trump campaign spent between $27,000 and $94,000 promoting the ads on that platform. A total of between 2.8 million and 5 million Facebook users viewed them before they were removed, according to that data.
By Monday afternoon, NBC had announced it would no longer be airing the spot. Fox News had too. And Facebook’s decision came soon thereafter.
The announcements infuriated Brad Parscale, the manager of Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. Facebook and the TV networks that pulled the ad “have chosen to stand with those ILLEGALLY IN THIS COUNTRY. Instead of standing with LEGAL IMMIGRANTS and those that follow our laws,” he wrote in a Monday afternoon tweet.
The Trump campaign had promoted the video through two-dozen Facebook ads purchased on Sunday and Monday.The campaign, notably, only targeted voters in Arizona and Florida with the Facebook ad. Those are two swing states, with large Hispanic populations, where Republicans hope to win two crucial U.S. Senate elections on Tuesday.