facebook ads dark post 2

<div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>see online ad monetize</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>see neg attack ads</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>see scalps char assassination</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">yikes a buffer?! echo/escalator? // direct mail secret</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">youtube block on ~ vax not effective? mma</font></div><div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 3 23</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">nooooooooooooo!</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">timing seems odd in terms of dominion shitshow?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Biden's nominee to lead the Federal Communications Commission withdrew her name from consideration on Tuesday amid ongoing character assassination by right-wing media, lobbyists, and lawmakers.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Gigi Sohn told The Washington Post in an exclusive interview that the "unrelenting, dishonest and cruel attacks" that labeled her as "extreme" and "partisan" despite her moderate résumé forced her to turn down Biden's offer.</span></p><div id="story_page_incontent_p2_target" style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><ins class="adsbygoogle" data-ad-client="ca-pub-5155643920455169" data-ad-slot="6339868799" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true" style="background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-decoration-line: none; text-align: center; margin-bottom: 20px; display: block;" /></div><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"It is a sad day for our country and our democracy when dominant industries, with assistance from unlimited dark money, get to choose their regulators," Sohn said in a statement to the Post. “And with the help of their friends in the Senate, the powerful cable and media companies have done just that.”</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">[READ MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/ted-cruz-fox-news/" target="self" title="view post: Watch: Ted Cruz lashes out at Biden nominee for referring to Fox News as propaganda" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Watch: Ted Cruz lashes out at Biden nominee for referring to Fox News as propaganda</a></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But the criticisms of Sohn were not only coming from Republicans. The <b>Post </b>noted that United States Senator Joe Manchin (D-Wet Virginia) accused Sohn of harboring "partisan alliances with far-left groups," adding that "especially now, the FCC must remain above the toxic partisanship that Americans are sick and tired of, and Ms. Sohn has clearly shown she is not the person to do that."</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The Post further explained that "conservative groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars attacking Sohn as partisan and extreme, leading a campaign focused in states of several moderate Democrats, who were already on the fence on Sohn's nomination. 'Gigi Sohn is too extreme for the FCC,' read one billboard in Las Vegas, plastered with Sohn's face and a link to a website for the<b> American Accountability Foundation</b>, a group that has opposed Biden's nominees. The AAF and another conservative nonprofit, the Center for a Free Economy, placed more than $200,000 in Facebook ads opposing Sohn."</span></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The White House, meanwhile, respected Sohn's decision.</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">"She would have brought tremendous intellect and experience," Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, "which is why the president nominated her in the first place."</p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">rEAD MORE: <a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/05/gigi-sohn" target="self" title="view post: 'Infuriating': Telecom lobbyists spending big money to keep Gigi Sohn off FCC" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">'Infuriating': Telecom lobbyists spending big money to keep Gigi Sohn off FCC</a></p><p style="color: rgb(49, 49, 49); font-family: Georgia, sans-serif; font-size: 20px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The Post's full article is available <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/07/gigi-sohn-withdraws-fcc-nomination/" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="color: rgb(11, 13, 101); text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">here</a> (subscription required).</p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">sw 9 22</font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(253, 250, 243); margin: 0px 0px 0.5em; box-sizing: border-box;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">n</font><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">ews and Controversies</span></p><h3 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><span class="mw-headline" id="CRC_Among_Several_Conservative_Nonprofits_Funding_Climate_Science_Disinformation_Ads_on_Facebook"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CRC Among Several Conservative Nonprofits Funding Climate Science Disinformation Ads on Facebook</font></span></h3><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.5em 0px; line-height: inherit;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In October 2020, a report found that 51 <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Facebook" title="Facebook" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Facebook</a> ads questioning the credibility of climate science had been viewed over 8 million times in the first six months of 2020, despite the social media website's promise to prohibit ads debunked by third-party fact-checking organizations.<sup id="cite_ref-crcind_5-0" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Capital_Research_Center#cite_note-crcind-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">[5]</a></sup> <b>Nine right-wing nonprofits, including Capital Research Center, Clear Energy Alliance, <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Competitive_Enterprise_Institute" title="Competitive Enterprise Institute" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Competitive Enterprise Institute</a>, <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=CO2_Coalition" title="CO2 Coalition" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">CO2 Coalition</a>, <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Mackinac_Center_for_Public_Policy" title="Mackinac Center for Public Policy" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Mackinac Center for Public Policy</a>, <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Prager_University" class="mw-redirect" title="Prager University" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Prager University</a>, <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Texas_Public_Policy_Foundation" title="Texas Public Policy Foundation" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Texas Public Policy Foundation</a>, <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Turning_Point_USA" title="Turning Point USA" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Turning Point USA</a>, and <a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Washington_Policy_Center" title="Washington Policy Center" style="background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Washington Policy Center</a>, collectively spent $42,000 funding these advertisements</b>.</span><sup id="cite_ref-crcind_5-1" class="reference" style="line-height: 1em; unicode-bidi: isolate; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Capital_Research_Center#cite_note-crcind-5" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[5]</a></sup></font></p></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://cleancreatives.org/learn">https://cleancreatives.org/learn</a></font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Case studies of misleading campaigns:</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>United States: Exxon Exxchange</b></div><div><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Under the Biden Administration, the United States federal government has undertaken a number of climate policies that affect the business of major polluters, such as limiting fossil fuel extraction permits from public lands, re-instituting a ‘social cost of carbon’ for the purposes of environmental permitting, and rejecting the Keystone XL pipeline. In addition, they’ve backed major legislation that could transform the energy system to better address climate change.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>In response, energy giant ExxonMobil has aggressively targeted the Biden Administration through its “Exxchange” platform, which uses digital ads on Facebook to encourage Americans to oppose these measures.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Throughout 2021, Exxon has regularly been the top spender on climate issues across Facebook, and their total ad spending on the Exxchange likely extends into the millions of dollars. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 102);">Previously, Harris Media, a Texas-based PR firm that often works for far-right politicians in the United States and elsewhere has taken responsibility for managing the Exxchange project. </span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 102);">However, a coding error preserved on archive.org also reveals that PR giant Edelman has played a role in managing the site,</span> and likely other aspects of the campaign as well. A link on the preserved site includes a Microsoft SafeLinks URL containing the email address with an edelman.com domain. This SafeLinks URL could have only been generated by an Edelman employee and appears to have been mistakenly embedded in the site.<b> It demonstrates that Edelman has had direct control over the site and its content, at least up until May of 2021.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Edelman has not previously disclosed their work on this project.</span></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">lnx</font></div><div><p class="" style="margin: 1rem 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; letter-spacing: -0.208px; background-color: rgb(255, 205, 4); white-space: pre-wrap; hyphens: manual !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> “Exxchange” platform, which uses <a href="https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=all&ad_type=all&country=US&view_all_page_id=925007000949719&sort_data[direction]=desc&sort_data[mode]=relevancy_monthly_grouped&search_type=page&media_type=all" style="background-position: unset; background-size: unset; background-repeat: unset; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-thickness: 1px; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; white-space: initial; text-underline-offset: 0.2em; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; overflow-wrap: break-word; background-image: none !important;"><span style="overflow-wrap: break-word;">digital ads on Facebook</span></a> to encourage Americans to oppose these measures. Throughout 2021, Exxon has regularly been the top spender on climate issues across Facebook, and their total ad spending on the Exxchange likely extends into the millions of dollars. </font></p><p class="" style="margin: 1rem 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; letter-spacing: -0.208px; background-color: rgb(255, 205, 4); white-space: pre-wrap; hyphens: manual !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Previously, Harris Media, a Texas-based PR firm that often works for far-right politicians in the United States and elsewhere has <a href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/exxon-facebook-instagram-advertising-fracking-climate-fossil-fuels" style="background-position: unset; background-size: unset; background-repeat: unset; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-thickness: 1px; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; white-space: initial; text-underline-offset: 0.2em; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; overflow-wrap: break-word; background-image: none !important;"><span style="overflow-wrap: break-word;">taken responsibility</span></a> for managing the Exxchange project. </font></p><p class="" style="margin: 1rem 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; letter-spacing: -0.208px; background-color: rgb(255, 205, 4); white-space: pre-wrap; hyphens: manual !important;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">However, a coding error <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210517103748/https://www.exxchange.com/" style="background-position: unset; background-size: unset; background-repeat: unset; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: transparent; cursor: pointer; text-decoration-thickness: 1px; text-decoration-style: solid; text-decoration-color: currentcolor; white-space: initial; text-underline-offset: 0.2em; text-decoration-skip-ink: auto; overflow-wrap: break-word; background-image: none !important;"><span style="overflow-wrap: break-word;">preserved on archive.org</span></a> also reveals that PR giant Edelman has played a role in managing the site, and likely other aspects of the campaign as well.</font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">surveys what have YOU done? recycle eg up to 1 mill jobs at risk; tax hikes on mtg cost jobs [aa woman] take the pledge to support power of state ind = jobs...</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ad library</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=all&ad_type=all&country=US&view_all_page_id=925007000949719&search_type=page&media_type=all">https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=all&ad_type=all&country=US&view_all_page_id=925007000949719&search_type=page&media_type=all</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref 2</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><a href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/exxon-facebook-instagram-advertising-fracking-climate-fossil-fuels"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" color="#000000">https://inthesetimes.com/article/exxon-facebook-instagram-advertising-fracking-climate-fossil-fuels</font></a></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx pix gfx? italics</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">INVESTIGATION GOODMAN INSTITUTE CLIMATE</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Exxon Spends Millions on Facebook To Keep the Fossil Fuel Industry Alive</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Aided by a right-wing political consulting firm, the company is rallying supporters to fight for oil and gas interests at every level of government.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CHRISTINE MACDONALD<b> OCTOBER 20, 2020</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div>
</div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">https://inthesetimes.com/article/exxon-facebook-instagram-advertising-fracking-climate-fossil-fuels</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In January 2019, an outfit called Santa Barbara for Safe and Local Transport (SBSLT) began running social media advertisements for select California residents. SBSLT’s name and logo — showcasing distant green mountains, a sliver of blue ocean and a highway slicing through them — could be mistaken for that of a typical grassroots group or a governmental highway agency. In reality, SBSLT is part of a campaign by the giant oil corporation Exxon Mobil to change public sentiment about its offshore drilling in California’s Central Coast.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Exxon closed down its local offshore oil platforms in 2015, after a broken pipeline led to the catastrophic Refugio oil spill. Without that pipeline, Exxon has no way to move the oil it pumps from its offshore platforms. As a temporary replacement, the company wants to run oil trucks overland to refineries in central California. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Public support is not on Exxon’s side — a fall 2019 poll found 51% of county residents oppose Exxon’s trucking plan (compared with 32% supporting), and surveys show a majority of Californians oppose more offshore drilling — which might explain why SBSLT has paid for dozens of social media ads over the past two years. The ads have appeared on the screens of California Facebook and Instagram users around 3 million times, and often feature racially diverse school children and coverall-clad oil workers. The ads, of course, offer support for Exxon’s overland trucking plan. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors will decide Exxon’s local fate, likely next year, but the Santa Barbara ad blitz is just one front in Exxon’s digital politicking onslaught — with battles taking place nationwide. The strategy suggests Exxon is girding for a prolonged fight to secure its increasingly tenuous “social license” to operate, despite the dire predictions of how continued fossil fuel business-as-usual is transforming the planet.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[A December 2019 Facebook ad suggests that restarting ExxonMobil's Santa Ynez Unit off the California Central Coast would increase local school funding, due to Exxon's property tax contributions. Santa Barbara for Safe and Local Transport spent between $5,000 and $6,000 to promote this ad. Local activists dispute whether offshore drilling is a safe or reliable source of property tax revenue. (Source: Facebook Ad Library)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An In These Times investigation, supported by a year-long fellowship from the Leonard C. Goodman Institute for Investigative Reporting, examined 11,622 Exxon social media ads containing around 350 distinct messages that ran in the two-year period from June 1, 2018, to May 31, 2020, and appeared on U.S. Facebook and Instagram users’ screens as many as 265 million times. Facebook (which owns Instagram) has allowed access to the ads it serves through its Ad Library since May 2018, created by Facebook after a number of transparency scandals. In These Times used Python scripts made publicly available by Facebook Research to search and download Ad Library data, then developed custom scripts to analyze and aggregate regional and demographic data. (The full methodology is publicly available here.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Exxon has spent more than any other major corporation on “social issues, elections, or politics” Facebook ads</b> (outside of Facebook itself), and is the country’s ninth-largest buyer of such ads overall: $15.6 million from May 7, 2018, to October 8, 2020. Almost every other top spender is an organization related to presidential campaigning. The top 100 pages are primarily politicians, nonprofits and other mission-driven organizations: The only major corporation outside of Exxon, Facebook and Instagram is Goldman Sachs, which spent less than a quarter of Exxon’s total.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In These Times examined about $10 million of that Exxon ad spend, a potent complement to the more than $23 million Exxon reportedly spent to directly lobby lawmakers in 2018 and 2019, and the $203 million it spent on traditional TV, radio, print and outdoor ads from June 2018 to June 2020, according to data compiled by Kantar Media’s AdSpender.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Digital advertising is “a very powerful tool to accelerate a range of strategies and tactics that [Exxon] already ha[s]</b>,” says Edward Collins, director of corporate lobbying at InfluenceMap, a London-based organization that analyzes and reports on how corporations influence climate policies. Through Facebook, Exxon can target its ads to users related to a particular region, demographic or other variable, communicating directly with any Facebook user who fits the company’s profile of who might be easily persuaded. Using techniques typically seen from activist groups and political campaigns, the ads then ask viewers to sign petitions, take surveys and contact lawmakers in support of Exxon, on issues from fracking to trade. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In many ways, this type of ad campaign on social media is more akin to lobbying or political organizing than advertising, and Exxon has worked with right-wing consulting firm Harris Media, a frequent collaborator with Republican electoral campaigns. Some states do require social media campaigns to be reported as lobbying efforts. Exxon tells In These Times it discloses all of its lobbying activities as required, but experts say inconsistent laws and enforcement means those requirements are generally scant.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“The oil and gas industry is THE engine that powers America’s economy. Take action against ineffective, unnecessary regulations!”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The U.S. Department of the Interior is close to releasing the next iteration of its five-year offshore leasing plan. Opening these additional areas to drilling will enable the U.S. to access a greater portion of its significant energy resource potential.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">America’s resurgent energy industry has achieved something few thought possible a decade ago - we are the world’s #1 energy producer! SIGN YOUR NAME: Support America’s strong energy industry!</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“SURVEY: </b>The energy industry has been the backbone of America for decades. Do you think it’s important to keep our American energy industry strong? Sign your name today!”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Pipelines support more than 500,000 jobs in the United States. Defend them!”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Many of the Facebook and Instagram ads examined for this story include calls to action, such as a survey or petition. One of Exxon’s biggest campaigns, for example, told Facebook users to contact their lawmakers to support the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the successor to the North American Free Trade Agreemen</b>t (commonly known as NAFTA) that President Donald Trump ratified earlier this year. Through the new agreement, the oil industry successfully lobbied for special protection allowing it to circumvent Mexico’s court system and use international arbitration in the event of an investment dispute. The campaign even had its own form letter to email to lawmakers. Exxon spent as much as $1.3 million on the campaign ads, appearing on users’ screens as many as 21.4 million times. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Because Facebook only publicly reports ad impressions — the number of times an ad appears, including multiple views by the same person — it is unclear how many people actually acted on the campaign.</b> Facebook also only offers a range of spending and impressions for each ad, rather than an exact amount. For example, on Dec. 20, 2019, Exxon published a series of ads with the text, “Pipelines support more than 500,000 jobs in the United States. Defend them!” For each individual post, Facebook provides a range for spending (for instance, $300 to $399) and impressions (for instance, 7,000 to 8,000). (The lower range is not reported on some ads, so this article presents the upper range unless otherwise noted.)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even if people do not click an ad or sign a petition, Collins says, the ads “are probably still having an impact, especially if you are seeing it more than a few times — it’s like any other advertisement, after all.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">When users do click, they are often sent to one of Exxon’s digital organizing websites. Exxchange.com, for example, is Exxon’s “advocacy community portal” complete with its own app for smartphones. Before reaching a promised petition, however, users must offer up their personal contact information, building Exxon’s database of supporters.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Exxon declined to comment on how many people have signed up — Exxon says only that the Exxchange is “made up of energy supporters across the country” and “its broad membership is representative of the economic benefits of oil and natural gas in local communities across the nation.” But an ad that ran twice in March 2019 provides a clue. The ads are thank-yous for joining the Exxchange, suggesting they were served primarily to Exxchange members. According to Facebook data, the ads recorded 40,000 impressions, and more than 85% of those who saw the ad were older than 55. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Exxon posted two ads in March 2019 thanking users for joining the Exxchange. (Source: Facebook Ad Library)</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NationBuilder is a nonpartisan digital campaign startup company whose platform is the go-to technology for conservative and Republican causes, including the 2016 Trump campaign — and Exxchange.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NationBuilder (and similar companies favored by liberal causes) makes it quick and inexpensive for political campaigns to map detailed intelligence about, and maintain close contact with, supporters. These digital tools have transformed fundraising and get-out-the-vote efforts by giving organizers targeted information about registered voters in every state. According to Exxon, the oil company “is just one of a number of corporations, associations and nonprofits that utilize digital grassroots advocacy as a necessary communications tool.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Exxchange website is built on NationBuilder and was developed by an employee of <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Harris Media.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> That company is run by Republican consultant Vincent Harris, once dubbed in Bloomberg as “the man who invented the Republican Internet.” Harris presides over Harris Media in Austin, which develops digital campaigns from video to ghost tweets and text messages for clients. Harris emerged as an online savant during Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2012 primary race and has since continued his work with some of the most conservative Republicans in the country, including (briefly) the Trump 2016 campaign.</span></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Harris’ clients have included Secure America Now, which calls itself a nonpartisan group dedicated to bringing “critical security issues to the forefront of the American debate” and has counted among its board of directors former Republican Gov. Mike Huckabee and national security firebrand John Bolton. The Secure America Now website features, among other things, anti-immigrant rhetoric and a conservative podcast series with such guests as former Republican Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 102);">In another case, Exxon hired Harris Media for a campaign to help defeat an anti-fracking ballot measure in Colorado in 2018, known as Proposition 112</span>. The Exxon Mobil Colorado Issue Committee paid Harris Media $40,000 for that campaign alone, according to records on file with the Colorado Secretary of State, and paid Facebook as much as $20,000 to run the created ads. Those ads created more than a million impressions on targeted Colorado residents.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In another industry crossover, Rachel Cross, Exxon’s digital and social media advisor since April 2020, is a former Harris employee. Before that, she worked for Americans for Prosperity, a political arm of the Koch brothers. </b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Abroad, the U.K.-based nonprofit group Privacy International has called out Harris Media for its “virulent” online ads with “law and order” themes during a 2017 presidential campaign in Kenya, where at least 33 people were killed in election violence. The organization also documented Harris Media’s work for extreme right-wing parties in Germany and France and with Israel’s Likud government.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Lucy Purdon, acting policy director at Privacy International, says Harris Media is part of “<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">a whole ecosystem of companies that are all using this tactic of data collection, profiling and microtargeting in order to reach certain audiences.</span>” She adds, “There is no transparency and no accountability.” </b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Look, how do you build a database?” Harris told Politico in a 2015 profile, explaining his methods. “You build a database with enthusiasm. How do you build enthusiasm? With a message. How do you push a message? With social media.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In a 2018 presentation at a meeting of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, Harris lamented how progressive politicians and advocacy groups like Earthjustice were shaping the narrative around the oil industry on social media. On the subsequent slides he laid out the way to neutralize critics and rally support:</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Before an issue arises Find OUR people, recruit OUR people, and educate them”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“Using a bot to get physical address”</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Activate your folks with tangible advocacy actions to sort and segment the database ahead of an issue”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Harris Media did not respond to multiple requests for comment.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Exxon’s use of social media to lobby the public goes way beyond the rest of the industry.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As GOP digital strategist Mindy Finn explained to Politico: “[Digital organizing is] not just raw numbers. It’s analyzing and determining who those people [who are engaging] are and matching them back to voter profiles. … It’s not having the most Facebook likes and clicks, because the ‘who’ matters.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">While only age, sex and state information for each ad is provided by the Facebook Ad Library, Facebook allows ad buyers to target ads based on actual online behavior, in addition to self-reported characteristics like work and education. It can target using online shopping and browsing history, for example, and whether a person is likely to engage with conservative or liberal political content. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“With that kind of targeting,” Lucy Purdon says, “you don’t know what information has been gathered about you, from who, and how you’ve been targeted.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Facebook says it’s not a one-to-one match of an identifiable individual,” says digital technology critic Sara Watson, “but the more elements that you start to target against,” the closer you can get to identifying individual people. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b style="">Exxon’s social media approach is unusually brazen, according to Collins of InfluenceMap</b>. He tells In These Times that Exxon’s use of social media to lobby the public goes way beyond the rest of the industry, a claim supported by the company’s abnormally high spending on Facebook political ads.</font><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> Typically, such tactics would be used by political organizations or trade associations, not directly by corporations.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“It does feel novel that the ads would not be about the product but the interests of the company,” Watson says. She likens Exxon’s use of social media ads to the workings of “a Super PAC, but on a much more granular scale.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In the 11,622 Exxon ads examined for this article, on average, 16% of those who saw each ad were men older than 65, 16% women older than 65, and another 16% men between 55 and 64. In contrast, only about 15% were users 18 – 34 (of any gender).</b> Despite the fact that people older than 65 were a third of those who saw a typical Exxon ad, the group represents only 16% of the total U.S. population. Furthermore, younger people use social media more than older ones. Pew Research Center has used polling to track social media adoption for the past several years, reporting last year that 79% people 18- to 29-years-old are on Facebook and 67% use Instagram, compared to just 46% and 8%, respectively, of senior citizens. Although both Facebook and Exxon declined to comment on what filters Exxon uses to target its ads, this disproportionality suggests the ads are not being sent at random.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since Exxon’s primary business does not involve selling directly to individuals (the company decided to exit the gas station business in 2008), Watson says Exxon’s personal targeting could build a case for consumer protection, since “most consumers should not have a direct relationship with Exxon.” She adds, “So what right does Exxon have in collecting any consumer data at all, aside from aggregate information about consumer trends?”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Exxon declined to comment on how it uses individual data, but a few recent examples reveal how the oil industry as a whole is embracing the strategies Exxon has been relying upon.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Take the Texas controversy earlier this year over something called prorationing, the (now) rarely used government authority to regulate oil quotas to smooth out fluctuations in the U.S. oil market. The authority hasn’t been exercised in Texas since the 1970s, but this past spring, the Covid-19 shutdown led to an oil glut so large there was nowhere to store any more oil. The Trump administration ordered the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to fill “to the very top” in March, but his pro-oil policies weren’t enough to make up for the plummeting global demand. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Texas Railroad Commission considered limiting the number of barrels that oil companies could pump, but free marketeers — linked to the oil industry—succeeded in beating back that proposal.</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Multiple energy companies circulated the same anti-proration form letter, including Exxon. The American Petroleum Institute (API), which includes Exxon among its members, fielded an operation under the name Energy Citizens that used the same language. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>API used a similar playbook in a 2017 Pennsylvania campaign, bankrolling an organization called Citizens Against Nuclear Bailouts</b>. As revealed in a February Atlantic article, the group targeted residents with a barrage of Facebook ads, direct mail and phone calls. “Perhaps most surprising,” writer Robinson Meyer noted, “the industry has … actually borrowed tactics and ideas from climate activists.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It’s a really difficult question about what to do about” direct targeting of individuals with misleading information, says Kathie Treen, a Ph.D. candidate studying climate change misinformation at the University of Exeter, Devon, England. “It does raise all sorts of questions about freedom of speech and democratic rights. Is there a democratic right to be misinformed? Whose responsibility is it and who gets to say what counts, what is misleading and what isn’t, and whose responsibility it is to do something about it?”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Exxon sent the two ads featured above to social media users nearly 4 million times in April 2019. A year later, headlines about the company’s fortunes had taken a decidedly different turn. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Big Oil has fallen,” said May Boeve, 350.org executive director, in a triumphant statement emailed to the environmental group’s supporters August 25, the same day the Dow Jones Industrial Average kicked Exxon off its index. The Dow gave Exxon’s spot, which the company had held since 1928, to business software company Salesforce. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Bloomberg called it “a stunning fall from grace,” noting Exxon’s “particularly rapid shift in fortunes” during the lethargic Covid economy. Exxon’s removal came a few weeks after the company reported a second straight quarterly loss. In August, the company announced it would suspend payments to the pension funds of its unionized workforce, though it continued paying stockholder dividends.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Exxon was the most valuable company in the United States as recently as 2011, but its stock began losing value well before the pandemic. “I’m done with fossil fuels.,” declared Wall Street guru Jim Cramer on the show Squawk Box in January. “They’re done. They’re just done. We’re starting to see divestment all over the world.</b>” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As easily accessible oil reserves decline, Exxon and the entire fossil fuel industry is shifting toward lower-profit “unconventional” activities, such as fracking — the process of fracturing shale rock and capturing the oil and gas that gets pushed out.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">An August 2018 Exxon ad touts fracking.]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Clark Williams-Derry, an energy finance analyst with the progressive Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, says fracking has been “a complete and utter bust,” a “cash flow-negative” business with production costs so high they’ve driven many upstart independent drilling companies into bankruptcy.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“Are they moving into shale because shale is a great opportunity,” Williams-Derry says, “or is it that there is no better opportunity?” </b>He adds it’s only a matter of time before Exxon succumbs to competition from renewable energy companies and stockholders flee en masse.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Meanwhile, the oil industry is attempting to market fracking as a climate-friendly “bridge fuel” to ease the transition from coal and oil to renewables. But new research suggests natural gas might actually be contributing more to carbon emissions than coal—because of gas flaring from wells and leaky pipelines. According to a 2020 study, 3.7% of the methane produced in Texas’ Permian Basin (where Exxon has invested in fracking) leaks away and never makes it to market, more than twice the official EPA estimate for the region. Climate scientists have already determined that if just 3.2% of gas leaks it becomes worse than coal for climate change.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“It breaks my heart,” says climate scientist Peter Kalmus, “that we are basically skewing the planet’s future for the next 10 million years in exchange for a few more years of fracking, of fossil fuel CEOs raking in record profits. … It’s just madness.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Exxon’s local fights aren’t all winners, like the time it spent $16,000 on ads urging Louisiana residents to “take action” in its fight against the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board over extending expiring industrial tax breaks in January 2019. Those ads were shown more than half a million times, though the company lost the vote</b>.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But the trend is clear: Exxon turns to social media to push its national agenda and try to reverse its general waning public support. Exxon spent up to $1.4 million on social media ads promoting pipeline jobs, for example, appearing 40 million times over the two-year period investigated for this article and particularly targeting residents in states such as Michigan, where pipeline construction is controversial. Other ads pushed for offshore drilling in federal waters and the new trade agreement with Canada and Mexico.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">For ads that were posted with the same or similar text multiple times, this shows the mean number of impressions and mean spending for ads with that text.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In some states, political social media ads like Exxon’s may need to be disclosed as lobbying efforts. But many states — including Texas, where Exxon is based — have few rules or reporting requirements on social media spending. Even in states with regulations, enforcement is nearly non-existent. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Unlike direct lobbying efforts — in which Exxon would meet directly with lawmakers — “indirect” lobbying (also known as “grassroots”) generally refers to efforts that encourage other people to contact lawmakers, the types of campaigns that include petitions or that aim to influence public opinion about a ballot issue</b>. In some states, according to consulting firm State and Federal Communications, that definition includes ads on social media. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“There really isn’t data [about how much indirect lobbying goes on in the U.S.] because every state is different,” Elizabeth Z. Bartz, State and Federal president and CEO, tells In These Times.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In New York, for instance, social media posts are considered lobbying (and subject to regulation and disclosure) when the post includes a “lobbying activity,” takes “a clear position on the issue in question” and attempts to “influence a public official,” according to a tip sheet from State and Federal. As Exxon tells In These Times, it “complies with all applicable laws and regulations and our lobbying reports are publicly available and filed with the appropriate regulatory agencies and authorities. Where required, our reports to regulators and authorities disclose reportable grassroots lobbying activities.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">But disclosure is often not required.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Facebook and other platforms aren’t going to care about it until the public cares.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Quite frankly, grassroots lobbying is probably the lion’s share of lobbying that goes on at the federal and state levels — and it goes entirely unreported,” says Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist with the nonprofit group Public Citizen. <b>“As long as [lobbyists] don’t actually knock on the door in D.C. of a member of Congress, it’s not actually reported.</b>”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Reported or not, indirect lobbying is changing the corporate lobbying business, as illustrated by the 2019 annual report of the New York State Joint Commission. In New York state alone in 2019, 24% of registered lobbyists had expanded into indirect lobbying efforts, though only 1% engage exclusively in indirect lobbying. Out of a total of $16.8 million that lobbyists spent on advertising in 2019, digital advocacy and websites accounted for $3.6 million, surpassing the $2.9 million spent on print advertising.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Holman adds that the extent of Exxon’s social media operation “probably is evidence that [indirect lobbying] is far more prevalent today than it used to be. Social media now and the internet provide a perfect vehicle for deceptive advertising.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“Companies will do it until they can’t,” says Sara Watson. “Facebook and other platforms aren’t going to care about it until the public cares.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In the mid-2000s, there was an attempt in Congress to pass a federal <b>indirect lobbying</b> disclosure requirement, but it was beaten by what Holman describes as a massive astroturf campaign. Holman adds that similar proposals do exist, but whether they even have a chance depends on the outcome of the presidential election and “whether or not the Democrats are sincere” about reining in corporate abuses.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"I’m 24 and I worry every single day about what will become of my future if the oil companies keep drilling.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Even if legal disclosure requirements are passed, Watson says, “there are huge questions about the enforceability of these laws,” particularly when it comes to platforms like Facebook with a business model utterly reliant on targeted online advertising.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Since 2011, a coalition of more than 70 investor groups have pushed for more disclosure of all corporate lobbying efforts, submitting more than 400 lobbying proposals to dozens of companies in the past nine years. Only seven proposals have received majority votes, but the issue is gaining momentum. Multiple such proposals have been submitted to Exxon by the United Steelworkers, including one earlier this year. Exxon recommended shareholders vote against it. It failed to pass but will be resubmitted next year.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“ENERGY SURVEY: 94% of federal offshore acreage is off limits to development. Do you support expanding access to offshore energy production? Answer the survey today!”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In 2019, 58% of the oil refined in California was imported from other countries. Take action and support energy production and local jobs right here in California. Support American Energy in Santa Barbara County. Make your voice heard.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If you have not had a chance, don’t forget to submit your comment letter in support of ExxonMobil’s Interim Trucking Permit. They’re due by 12pm on August 31st!</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The address Facebook provides for Santa Barbara for Safe and Local Transport is the same address listed for ExxonMobil by the Santa Barbara South Coast Chamber of Commerce.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Exxon’s efforts to use social media to shore up public support are being put to the test in Santa Barbara. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The issue concerns Exxon’s Santa Ynez Unit (SYU), consisting of three offshore oil platforms off the Santa Barbara coast and an onshore processing facility at Las Flores Canyon. In 2015, the pipeline Exxon used to send oil inland to refineries — operated by the Plains All American Pipeline company — spilled 140,000 gallons of crude onto the coastline and into the ocean near Refugio State Beach. It wasn’t the first spill along this breathtaking stretch of Pacific Coast. The Santa Barbara Spill in 1969 was the largest single event in state history. Historians say it helped launch the modern environmental movement and the first Earth Day held the following year.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Without that pipeline, Exxon’s three offshore SYU platforms were retired. Exxon applied, in 2017, for a temporary trucking permit that would enable the company to reopen these wells. If approved, the company would run up to 70 trucks each day (about one every 20 minutes) on Central Coast roads from SYU to California refineries.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On August 12, the Santa Barbara County Planning Commission issued its long-awaited recommendations based on the environmental impact analysis on Exxon’s plan. A public hearing was scheduled for early September, but before that could happen, Phillips 66 announced it was closing its Santa Barbara County refinery — which Exxon had intended as its primary destination for the trucked oil. </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">A possible alternate path would be a longer route to the Plains Pentland Terminal in neighboring Kern County. In its environmental analysis, however, the commission had suggested Exxon abandon Pentland altogether “to limit truck travel, reduce air emissions, and reduce the likelihood of accidents resulting in spills due to fewer miles traveled.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The commission may still approve Exxon’s plan, however, and the next step would be a final decision from the Santa Barbara Board of Supervisors. Errin Briggs, supervising planner in the Planning Commission’s Energy Division, says the project is still feasible depending on what modifications Exxon makes to its proposal and that county officials will have to weigh the risks of the oil against area economic benefits.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Santa Barbara for Safe and Local Transport (SBSLT), meanwhile, launched in December 2018. SBSLT’s direct ties to Exxon are apparent. The Santa Maria Sun, a local newspaper, spoke to Exxon Mobil’s then-SYU asset manager for a profile on SBSLT, and reported that SBSLT is “a joint effort between ExxonMobil and interested Santa Barbara County community members”; the group’s website says it’s “Powered by Exxon SYU.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[Oil workers and protestors pack the Santa Barbara County Building May 6, 2019, at a hearing on Exxon’s application to truck crude oil through Santa Barbara County. (Gabriel Vargas / www.gabrielvargasdp.com)]</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The SBSLT website describes itself as “a coalition of residents and taxpayers, including local businesses, teachers, law and safety enforcement and ExxonMobil employees.” Exxon does claim support from several unions and business chambers, about 30 businesses and a half dozen local leaders, including some current and former elected officials. To date, SBSLT has spent more than $44,000 on social media advertising, and Exxon has spent more than $2 million in a variety of offshore drilling ads through its primary page.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“We need people to be realistic about the decisions that must be made to live here,” Bob Setbacken admonished other local residents in a comment thread last year on the SBSLT page. He is a retired Santa Barbara resident, according to his Facebook profile, but didn’t return a phone call requesting an interview.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>As of October 19, SBSLT’s Facebook page had only 408 likes and 422 followers in a county of 450,000. The page has drawn the ire of local residents. </b>“SYU is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” Santa Barbara resident Maureen McFadden writes May 22. Amy Foss, another commenter on the page, calls SBSLT “an oil company propaganda page, not a ‘community.’ ”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In October 2019, Facebook said in an online post that it would be adding more information about who is behind Facebook pages, including adding confirmed page owner information and verified city, phone number or website. In October 2020, the SBSLT page continues to be listed as a “community organization,” and under the “Page Transparency” section, it reads: “Santa Barbara for Safe and Local Transport is responsible for this Page,” making no reference to Exxon. But the address provided for SBSLT in the Facebook Ad Library is an ExxonMobil address.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“If we find a Page is concealing its ownership in order to mislead people, we will require it to show more information about who is behind it,” said a spokesperson for Facebook in an emailed statement. “We’re investigating if these Pages follow our rules.” </font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Beyond Facebook, opposition to Exxon’s Santa Barbara plans is fierce. The opposition has its own grassroots coalition of environmental and community groups, local government supporters and more than 80 businesses. They fear how another oil spill could impact the region’s tourism and fishing industries. Other locals complain the roads just aren’t made to truck that much oil.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In Santa Barbara, as it does across the country, Exxon hopes to turn the tide on its pumping, trucking and fracking through its laxly regulated social media lobbying efforts; its political consultants and campaign software; and its well-funded and heavily motivated supporters. Exxon’s $16-million ad spending spree underscores that the fight against the fossil fuel industry is far from over.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Stephanie Prufer, an oceans campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity, says she doesn’t think Exxon’s strategy will work for the company, especially among youth.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“I’m not surprised that Exxon is targeting the demographic that they are,” she says, referring to the fact that Exxon ads disproportionately appear on the screens of older social media users. “They know they are not going to be able to get the support of people who are afraid for their own futures. I’m 24 and I worry every single day about what will become of my future if the oil companies keep drilling.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">“The science is so clear,” she adds. “We need to keep oil in the ground. We need to end drilling on our coast, not revive it.”</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This article was supported by a grant from the Leonard C. Goodman Institute for Investigative Reporting. David DeMaris served as a technology consultant on this story. Juan Caicedo contributed fact-checking.</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">CHRISTINE MACDONALD is an investigative reporter and author, whose work focuses climate change, environmental sustainability and greenwashing. She was a 2019-2020 fellow with the Leonard C. Goodman Institute for Investigative Reporting.</font></div></div><div><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></div></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 9 22 cmn dr no lnx</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/09/january-6th-all-over-again/">https://www.alternet.org/2022/09/january-6th-all-over-again/</a></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Trailing badly in the polls with the presidential election less than a month away, far-right Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro is attempting to galvanize his supporters with incendiary rhetoric and lies about the integrity of the vote—and Facebook is supplying him with a megaphone to do so.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That's according to a new report released Monday by SumOfUs, a global group that's been tracking Facebook's failure to combat blatant disinformation on its platform ahead of Brazil's closely watched October 2 presidential election.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The report finds that<b> Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp—each owned by Meta—"are being used by Bolsonaro and his allies to push election lies and grow Brazil's own 'Stop the Steal' movement," a reference to former U.S. President Donald Trump's effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential contest.</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">That campaign culminated in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and observers fear that similar or far worse violence could occur in Brazil, where Bolsonaro has indicated he may not concede defeat and hinted at a coup attempt if his leftist opponent, former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, prevails.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"This is January 6th all over again—Meta is actively helping mobilize an online army in Brazil that's peddling conspiracy theories about the integrity of the election and threatening a violent coup," said Flora Rebello Arduini, campaign director for SumOfUs. "Regulators the world over need to take urgent action, or we'll only see these kinds of attacks on democracy intensify."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">SumOfUs says in the new report—titled Stop the Steal 2.0: How Meta Is Subverting Brazilian Democracy—that the tech giant is "profiting directly from" Bolsonaro's attacks on Brazil's electoral process, just as it did during the lead-up to the January 6 insurrection.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>During its investigation of Meta's content policies ahead of Brazil's high-stakes presidential contest, SumOfUs found:</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Multiple examples of Facebook ads that break the federal government's own pre-electoral advertising rules;</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">An ecosystem of posts and ads echoing the far-right's cry for a violent uprising on September 7th, peddling conspiracy theories about the integrity of the election and candidates, and attacking democratic institutions and public officials; and</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Surging levels of extremist rhetoric on WhatsApp and Telegram groups about staging a military coup, removing Supreme Court justices, and questioning the integrity of the electronic voting system.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Focusing specifically on large far-right rallies planned for this upcoming Wednesday—Brazil's independence day—SumOfUs found that a "relatively small sample of <b>16 ads related to antidemocratic rallies on September 7th... had racked up 615,000 [Facebook] impressions by 26th August 2022."</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"It illustrates again Facebook's role in pumping out violent and hateful content to large numbers of users," the group said. "One ad, which was taken down before the release of this report, features a military combat knife and gear with hashtags related to the 7th September rallies. It ran during the week of August 25th... Despite the ad takedown, an almost identical post remains up on the shop page 'Military Bazar' since August 23rd. SumOfUs has reported the post."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Ads on Facebook and Instagram in Brazil</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The organization also examined major group chats on WhatsApp, Meta's messaging service and the most popular social media platform in Brazil, and found abundant "pro-coup extremism."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"SumOfUs researchers monitored three WhatsApp groups between August 20-26th and were bombarded with messages about the September 7th rallies," the report notes. "One post compared the protests to Tahrir Square, citing the 18-day protest in Egypt in 2011 which ended in the overthrow of the government."</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Arduini argued the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> new research makes clear that "Meta has learned absolutely nothing since January 6 in the U.S."</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 102);"><b style="">"We are seeing ads that are pushing not just for a violent coup in the country, but also narratives discrediting the electoral processes in Brazil,</b>"</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Arduini told TIME.</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>In order to "change course and prevent a repeat of January 6 in Brazil and beyond," SumOfUs is urging Meta to strengthen its policies by:</b></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Beefing up its content moderation systems, </b>including by hiring more content moderators with sufficient understanding of the local political context; and providing them with fair pay and decent working conditions;</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>Improving its ad account verification process</b> so as to more effectively filter out accounts posting content that undermines the integrity of elections;</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Assessing, mitigating, and publishing the risks posed by their platforms to human rights in the countries in which they operate;</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Publishing details of the steps they've taken in each country and in each language to ensure election integrity;</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px;"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Increasing transparency by listing full details of all ads in the Meta ad library,</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> including intended target audience</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, actual audience, ad spend, and ad buyer;</span></font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Allowing verified independent third-party auditors to check whether the company is doing what it is saying, and to ensure it can be held accountable;</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Publishing its pre-election risk assessment for Brazil; and</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Responding to the 90+ Brazilian civil society organizations' policy recommendations in their report The Role of Digital Platforms in Protecting Electoral Integrity in the 2022 Brazilian Election.</font></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></p><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">"With tens of thousands expected to join anti-democracy marches in Brazil on September 7th, and Bolsonaro and his allies stoking support for an armed coup online, it is clear we are now at a crunch point," SumOfUs said. "Meta is failing to live up to its promises of protecting electoral integrity in Brazil."</font></font></font></font></p><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ok, not ads?</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/facebook-ad-algorithm/">https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/facebook-ad-algorithm/</a></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>Facebook pages run by state and local level Republican Parties <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/facebook-algorithm-gop-engagement-2018_n_62a150efe4b04a61734a072d" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">appear to have received more exposure and engagement than the same types of pages belonging to the Democratic Party,</a> new research finds.</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">On Wednesday, June 8, research was made public highlighting an apparent "gap in engagement growth 'unique to Facebook' between the GOP pages and their Democratic counterparts by 2019."</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>According to HuffPost, the findings also noted a distinct difference in the level of engagement for posts shared by both parties. Posts shared by local Republican Parties had “a doubling of the total shares” compared to Democratic posts.</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The authors of the study also weighed in with more details about their findings.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Regardless of Facebook’s motivations, their decision to change the algorithm might have given local Republican parties greater reach to connect with citizens and shape political realities for Americans,” the research authors noted.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"The fact that private companies can so easily control the political information flow for millions of Americans raises clear questions for the state of democracy," they added.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kevin Reuning, an associate professor at Miami University who also co-authored the study, took to Twitter with visual representations of their findings. With the visual, he tweeted about the <b>"weird patterns" in the data.</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"In 2018, local Republican parties on facebook started to receive substantially more attention than local Democratic parties did," he tweeted.
</font></font></font></p><div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2c552c4b9e52b6da7a609a0bc6ab6633" id="b3ec6" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="rm-embed-container rm-embed-twitter rm-loaded rm-off" style="position: relative; max-width: 550px; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><div class="rm-embed-holder" style="height: 100%; width: 100%; display: contents; align-items: start; position: relative; top: 0px; left: 0px;"><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; max-width: 550px; width: 549.988px; margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[twt graf]</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>In response to the research data reports, Meta spokesperson Dani Lever pushed back arguing the data “'doesn’t add up' to what Facebook’s 2018 change to prioritize 'meaningful social interactions' actually did for the platform,</b>" per HuffPost.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Writing to NBC News, Lever wrote, “The trends here instead seem to coincide with a divisive election cycle, and since the differences between political parties in the U.S. have been growing for decades, the idea that a change to Facebook ranking would fundamentally shift how people choose to engage with political parties is implausible."</font></font></font></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div></div></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">=</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/05/25/fossil-fuels-disaster-capitalism-russia-ukraine/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">https://the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">intercept.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">com</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">/2022/05</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">/25/fossil-fuels-disaster-capitalism-russia-ukraine/</span></a></font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">
</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small;"><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: 0.1em; box-shadow: white 0px 1px 0px, rgb(17, 17, 17) 0px 4px 0px; text-transform: uppercase;">BACK IN LATE 2021,</span> as Russian President Vladimir Putin began mobilizing troops at the Ukraine border, the fossil fuel industry got its foot soldiers ready too. With the threat of Russian aggression and subsequent sanctions looming, gas prices were on the rise, and the fossil fuel industry wanted the public to know that there was only one culprit: climate policy.</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“There are a lot of factors at play as to why energy prices are surging,” </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b>Mike Sommers, president of the American Petroleum Institute, or API,</b> </span><a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2022/03/08/api-ceo-mike-sommers-we-cannot-let-the-united-states-follow-the-same-path-as-europe.html" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">t</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">old CNBC</span></a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> at the time. “But certainly one of the key factors is that the Biden administration has made an effort to reduce production in the United States. One of their first acts, for example, was cutting off the <b>Keystone XL pipeline. One of their second acts was cutting up leasing and permitting on federal lands, and then they cut off access to ANWR,” referring to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge</b> in Alaska.</span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>He gave roughly the same interview every week for months.</b> On March 7, two weeks after the invasion of Ukraine, he repeated it again, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/video/how-russia-ukraine-fight-is-affecting-gas-prices/#x" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">telling</a> a CBS reporter, “You know, first they cut off the Keystone XL pipeline. Then they put a moratorium on leasing and permitting on federal lands and on offshore waters. And then they cut off supply from the Alaska natural national wildlife refuge.”</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">[no lnx]</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><b>that’s some consistent messaging! For the record, about 25 percent of fossil fuel drilling happens on public lands; the rest is entirely controlled by private companies. The fossil fuel industry is sitting on at least a decade’s worth of unused leases, so it’s unlikely that a lack of new leases has impacted current production or supply.</b></span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><b>The Keystone XL pipeline was intended to transport tar sands oil from Canada to export terminals in the Gulf of Mexico, where two-thirds of it was earmarked for non-U.S. customers.</b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> It was nowhere near functional when it was canceled: About 8 percent of the pipeline had been built, and TC Energy, the company behind the project, still needed to find $6.9 billion of the $8 billion construction cost to finish it.</span></span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><b>As for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, the holy grail for U.S. oil companies, it has been off-limits to oil drilling since 1977. For a brief moment in 2017, the Trump administration reversed that, but no major oil companies — no API members — even bid on leases. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">These are the only pieces of climate policy Sommers continuously referred to because they’re the only ones the Biden administration has actually managed to pass, but none of them have had any impact on the current supply of domestic oil and gas in the United States or the price at the pump.</span></span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><b>But the facts don’t matter if you’re the first one to frame a story and you repeat it often enough. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">A new report out this week shows that consistent messaging, coordinated messengers, and a massive advertising blitz combined to deliver major policy wins to the fossil fuel industry as early as two weeks from the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.</span></span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">“On February 24, within hours of Putin’s invasion, I was just watching these serious patterns emerge,” said Christina Arena, a public relations and climate disinformation expert<b>. Arena worked for the PR firm Edelman</b> when it handled the API account, so she knows a campaign when she sees one. “API and other trade associations were echoing similar talking points immediately, anti-Biden talking points, anti-renewable energy talking points.” That kind of consistency and media training takes months, not days, to prep, she said.</span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">That prompted Arena to reach out to InfluenceMap, a think tank that tracks the influence of corporate lobbying on climate policy. InfluenceMap teamed up with Media Matters for America and Triplecheck to look into what various fossil fuel interests were saying about Russia-Ukraine and how those messages were being amplified. The organizations’ resulting report pinpoints the top messages and messengers, and how they map to big policy wins.</span></font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Some of the findings are to be expected.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> API went big, as did Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The usual suspects amplified the industry’s messaging: Breitbart News, Fox News, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn.</span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">All told, API placed 651 Facebook ads</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> from the end of January to April 1, reaching more than 19 million people</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>.</b></span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> On February 24, the day of the invasion, API and its network got busy. </b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"><b style="">“There’s a huge peak where we get to 100 fossil fuel misinformation posts that yielded over</b><b style=""> 5 million likes</b><b style="">, comments, and shares</b>,”</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> Arena noted.</span></span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><b>[“I think you could call it a disinformation-driven heist of public policy.”</b></span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>But there are some less expected findings too. After battling gas bans for two years, the gas side of the industry seems to have fully embraced the fact that the climate movement doesn’t see it as its friend anymore</b>. Gas entities that joined the party include the American Gas Association (a trade group for gas utilities), Hess Corp., and Sempra Infrastructure.</span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><b>The types of messages were also a surprise. After a decade or so of greenwashing, the fossil fuel industry is going full culture war.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The report finds three key messages across hundreds of social media posts and media appearances: American fossil fuel production ensures freedom and national security; high gas prices are caused by climate policy, and the solution is more drilling; and climate change is something only liberal “woke” elites care about.</span></span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><b>There’s also a push to convince people that some kind of Green New Deal-adjacent policy is in place and that is what’s driving up gas prices. “I think you could call it a disinformation-driven heist of public policy,” Arena said.</b></span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">And there’s the timeline, and the dividends this campaign has paid to the industry. By mid-March, the Energy Department was starting to grant permits to increase the volume at some liquid natural gas export terminals</span>. “So that’s two weeks maybe from the start of the crisis,” said Faye Holder, the lead author of the InfluenceMap report. “We’ve seen a heavy, heavy use of social media, both in advertising and organic content. <b>And then they’re feeding off of media too. A lot of the things that are retweeted by API, for instance, are Mike Sommers on Fox News.”</b></span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">By March 25, Biden was announcing a U.S.-European Union liquefied natural gas deal that the Trump administration had tried and failed to get done: 15 billion cubic meters in 2022, with a standing order for 50 billion cubic meters a year until 2030. “That’s just a little over four weeks. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">That’s a very short interval,” Arena said. “And I feel that interval should alarm lawmakers. It should alarm people in the climate community. That’s disaster capitalism.”</span></span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">---</span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;">some lnx</span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...but there are some less expected findings too. After battling gas bans for two years, the gas side of the industry seems to have fully embraced the fact that the climate movement doesn’t see it as its friend anymore. Gas entities that joined the party include the American Gas Association (a trade group for gas utilities), Hess Corp., and Sempra Infrastructure.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The types of messages were also a surprise. After a decade or so of greenwashing, the fossil fuel industry is going full culture war. The report finds three key messages across hundreds of social media posts and media appearances: American fossil fuel production ensures freedom and national security; high gas prices are caused by climate policy, and the solution is more drilling; and climate change is something only liberal “woke” elites care about.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">There’s also a push to convince people that some kind of Green New Deal-adjacent policy is in place and that is what’s driving up gas prices. “I think you could call it a disinformation-driven heist of public policy,” Arena said.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">And there’s the timeline, and the dividends this campaign has paid to the industry. By mid-March, the Energy Department was starting to grant permits to increase the volume at some liquid natural gas export terminals. “So that’s two weeks maybe from the start of the crisis,” said Faye Holder, the lead author of the InfluenceMap report. “We’ve seen a heavy, heavy use of social media, both in advertising and organic content. And then they’re feeding off of media too. A lot of the things that are retweeted by API, for instance, are Mike Sommers on Fox News.”</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">By March 25, Biden was announcing a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/03/25/fact-sheet-united-states-and-european-commission-announce-task-force-to-reduce-europes-dependence-on-russian-fossil-fuels/" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box;">U.S.-European Union liquefied natural gas deal</a> that the Trump administration had tried and failed to get done: 15 billion cubic meters in 2022, with a standing order for 50 billion cubic meters a year until 2030. “That’s just a little over four weeks. That’s a very short interval,” Arena said. “And I feel that interval should alarm lawmakers. It should alarm people in the climate community. That’s disaster capitalism.”</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">---</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; letter-spacing: 0.01em; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 1em; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5; hyphens: auto;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.2px;"><a href="https://influencemap.org/report/US-Oil-and-Gas-and-the-War-in-Ukraine-19009" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://influencemap.org/report/US-Oil-and-Gas-and-the-War-in-Ukraine-19009</a></span></font></font></font></p><h3 style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 0.2rem; line-height: 2rem; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">How the US oil/gas sector is using the war in Ukraine to undermine Paris-aligned climate policy</font></font></font></h3><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="box-sizing: border-box;">See coverage in <a href="https://www.barrons.com/news/oil-gas-firms-use-ukraine-war-to-resist-climate-efforts-report-01653451507?tesla=y" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation;">Agence France-Presse</a>, <a href="https://www.forbesmiddleeast.com/industry/energy/us-oil-and-gas-industry-capitalizing-on-ukraine-war-to-resist-clean-energy-transition-efforts" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation;">Forbes Middle East</a>, <a href="https://www.desmog.com/2022/05/24/oil-gas-industry-ukraine-climate-policy-influencemap/" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation;">DeSmog</a>, and <a href="https://theintercept.com/2022/05/25/fossil-fuels-disaster-capitalism-russia-ukraine/" rel="nofollow" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: transparent; touch-action: manipulation;">The Intercept</a></span><br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This research details an active effort from the US oil and gas industry use the war in Ukraine to advocate for long-standing policy asks relating to the continued expansion of oil and gas. The research looks at the month following the invasion of Ukraine on the 24th February 2022. This has happened across social media, traditional media, public presentations, investor calls, and direct interactions with America’s policymakers. This lobbying behavior mirrors that seen from the oil and gas industry following the COVID-19 crisis.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The industry appears to be using a number of key narratives to push its pro-fossil fuel agenda, many of which appear to include misleading claims or misinformation. These narratives include blaming the Biden Administration's climate policies for the increase in gas prices, calling for the development of more US oil and gas to lower gas prices and increase energy security, promoting LNG as a clean solution to the US's 'allies'.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">These narratives are being used to push for a long-term role for oil and fossil gas in the energy mix and appear to be targeted towards specific policy demands. These include advocating for policies which encourage new and/or increased oil and gas production, and rolling back previous climate policy decisions that limited the production of oil and gas or required climate considerations in new projects.</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">While calling for policies to increase the production of oil and gas, the oil and gas industry continues to actively oppose a number of state level policies designed to reduce the need for fossil fuels. These include opposing fossil gas bans in new buildings and electric vehicle mandates.</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>---</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>report</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>ex</b>ecutive Summary :</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">This research details an active effort from the US oil and gas industry to use the war in Ukraine to advocate for long-standing policy asks relating to the continued expansion of oil and gas. This has happened across social media, traditional media, public presentations, investor calls, and direct interactions with America’s policymakers. This research focuses on the month following the invasion of Ukraine on February 24th, 2022.  </font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The main actors identified in this briefing are the</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> American Petroleum Institute</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">, American Gas Association, National Association of Manufacturers, US Chamber of Commerce, and Consumer Energy Alliance</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. The lobbying evidence collected covers letters to policymakers, large social media advertising campaigns, and public statements by CEOs. The latter of which also includes speeches and media comments from company CEOs and presidents such as Mike Wirth from Chevron and Ryan Lance from ConocoPhillips.  </span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The research identifies several key narratives used by the industry to push a pro-fossil fuel agenda during this period.</b> Some of these narratives, particularly those about the causes of the current crises appear to include misleading claims or elements of misinformation. These narratives include: o That the Biden Administration's climate policies have caused a decrease in the supply of oil and gas, leading to high gas prices. A similar narrative used is that the Biden Administration's policies have undermined US energy independence, making America reliant on foreign oil. Both narratives have been found to be misleading by AFP fact-checker. </font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> o <b>That the way to fix gas prices and increase energy security/independence is to increase the supply of US oil and gas, which can be achieved through favorable government policies. </b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> o That LNG is a clean, low-carbon source of energy that can help transition the energy mix and achieve emissions reduction goals. This claim has previously been regulated against by advertising authorities in the UK for containing misleading claims. Moreover, increasing the production of oil and gas is at odds with the advice of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its latest report "Mitigation of Climate Change". </font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"> InfluenceMap has seen these narratives used by CEOs of major oil and gas companies in the US, particularly during CERAWeek, a major energy conference. For example, Ryan Lance, CEO...</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">conocoPhillips, stated that “poor energy policy, poor regulatory policy […] rapid push to renewable </font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">energy and a maligning of the of fossil fuel industry" has led to the increase in gas prices.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> These narratives have also been heavily pushed on social media. For example, between February </font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">4th and March 31st, 2022, the<b> American Petroleum Institute created and ran an ad campaign </b></font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">through its astroturf group, Energy Citizens</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">,</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> which consisted of 233 individual ads that were seen </span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">roughly<b> 19.6 million times, equivalent to around 10% of all US users of Facebook</b> (Q1 2022). All of </font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">these ads promoted 'American-made energy' or 'energy independence'. </font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>These narratives are being used to push for a long-term role for oil and fossil gas in the energy mix.</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The companies and industry associations identified in the research appear to have targeted the </font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">following policy issues: </font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">o Introducing measures that encourage new and/or increased oil and gas production. </font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">o Rolling back previous policy decisions that limit the production of oil and gas or introduce </font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">considerations for climate change in approval processes for oil and gas production. </font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">o Opposing current state-level policies that would reduce the need for oil and gas and </font></font></font></p><p style="margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">alleviate pressures stemming from demand for oil and gas. </font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Recent wins for the US oil and gas industry resulting from this lobbying include the rollback of the </font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">FERC's proposal to consider climate change when permitting new gas projects on March 24th </font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">2022, and the approval of two new LNG export terminals on March 16th 2022.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.5rem; padding: 0px;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></p></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">may or may not be signif that these bad msg went out on soc med b/c all does? my question is cd stefanik also use for fundraising?  pols get less/no scrutiny by moderators? dark post // direct mail b/c no filter/pushback</span></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large">
</span></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 5 22</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">in</font><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> a blunt column for the<b> conservative Bulwark, Cato Senior Fellow Cathy Young</b> raged against the spread</span><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"> </span><a href="https://morningshots.thebulwark.com/p/the-replacement-theory-and-terrorist?s=r" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" text-decoration-line="text-decoration-line" none="none" opacity="opacity" transition="transition" color="color" s="s" ease="ease" background="background">of the so-called "replacement theory" </a><span style="font-family: " times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb">that played a major part in prompting an 18-year-old white man in New York to go on a shooting rampage Saturday afternoon in a Buffalo-area grocery store situated in a community that is reportedly 80 percent black.</span></font></font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">As Young put it, <b>"Those who follow the news know that this is far from the first time “replacement theory” has figured in the ravings of a mass shooter,</b>" before adding, "We know these ideas are floating out there. We also know that, disturbingly, “replacement theory” is being mainstreamed on the right," the columnist specifying Fox News host Tucker Carlson who has repeatedly claimed that Democrats are trying to "replace" Americans with immigrants.</font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">As Young notes, two prominent Republican lawmakers have also taken up the "replacement theory" banner, with<b> Rep Matt Gaetz (R-FL) tweeting</b>, "The Left/Media think of replacement solely on race/ethnicity terms. I don't at all. Democrats failed voters who relied on them to run their states/cities. Now they are importing new voters. That is my argument. <b>Those reading more into it are projecting their own bias."</b></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Add to that, Rep. Elise</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> </span><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Stefanik (R-NY), who Young explained, ".. jumped on the bandwagon as well with a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/rep-stefanik-claims-in-ads-that-democrats-are-seeking-a-permanent-election-insurrection-by-providing-pathways-to-citizenship/2021/09/16/7372011a-16eb-11ec-a5e5-ceecb895922f_story.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">Facebook ad</a></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> claiming that the Democrats were going to use amnesty for illegal immigrants to 'overthrow our current electorate and create a permanent liberal majority in Washington.'</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>"</b></span></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"This is hateful, stupid, paranoid nonsense," she wrote before adding, <b>"It is also, need I point out, the epitome of collectivist 'identity politics' the right sometimes likes to deplore in its progressive guises."</b></font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Noting that a recent poll shows that a <b>third of Americans "agree </b>at least somewhat that 'There is a group of people in this country who are trying to replace native-born Americans with immigrants who agree with their political views,'" Young wrote, "In a sane and decent political climate, both media figures and political figures on the right would quickly and emphatically disavow “great replacement” as un-American, race-baiting nonsense. Which means … don’t hold your breath."</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"That was a joke. Cue bitter laugh," she lamented.</font></font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">You can <a href="https://morningshots.thebulwark.com/p/the-replacement-theory-and-terrorist?s=r" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="blank" class="rm-stats-tracked" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">read more here</a>.</font></font></font></p></div><div><p style="margin-top: 8px; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></p></div></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">afmp api big 4:</font></font></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Image</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Facebook ads</span> by Energy4Us prompted more than 3,300 of the 12,000 public comments on the administration’s rollback proposal</b>, a Times analysis showed.</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Credit</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">More than 3,300 of the 12,000 public comments that D.O.T. has made public contain language identical to that petition, an analysis of the files showed.</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">The campaign was a product of the fuel and petrochemical manufacturers trade group, widely known as AFPM. However, neither the Facebook ads nor the site identified the industry group. Instead they name a group called Energy4US, which describes itself as “a coalition of consumers, businesses and workers” promoting affordable energy.</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Energy4US has close ties to the industry group. According to internet domain records, Victor Adams, listed as an AFPM web manager, registered Energy4Us.org in 2015 using his work email address. Energy4US lists the group as a coalition member, along with about 50 other groups including energy interests, labor groups, a sheriff’s association and even a recreational fishing alliance.</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The AFPM board includes representatives from Exxon, Chevron, Phillips 66, Marathon and Koch Industries</b>. The companies all referred queries to the group.</font></font></font></div></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">atl mo</font></font></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">...</font></font></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Because of the long timelines involved in actually building zero-carbon infrastructure—it can take several years to permit, construct, and connect a solar or wind plant to the power grid—the bill almost certainly represents the country’s final chance to meet those 2025 goals, Jesse Jenkins, a mechanical-engineering professor at Princeton, told me. <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“We’re already talking about 2022 spending, which leaves just three years ’til 2025. If this bill doesn’t pass now, the window to move the needle has closed,” he said.</span></font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>
</b></font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>“It’s either this [bill] or no federal policy, and that means that we would miss the 2025 Paris goals, and the 2030 ones too, probably,” he said.</b></font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The Business Roundtable is one of the leaders in the fight against the bill</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">. It has dispatched C-suite executives to meet with lawmakers, and it has orchestrated an expansive opposition campaign that includes TV and radio commercials, in-person lobbying, and</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> more than $<b style="">150,000 in Facebook ads displayed to users in purple states. In one such ad, the group warned that the reconciliation bill would be “bad for Montana workers and the economy.”</b></span></font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">If a worried Montanan went to see who ran that ad, a list of the Business Roundtable’s well-credentialed members was only a few clicks away. It includes Tim Cook, the Apple CEO; Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google’s parent company; Doug McMillon, Walmart’s president and CEO; and the leaders of Target, Nike, 3M, and more.</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><b>The Business Roundtable says that it opposes the bill because it would raise taxes on companies and some high-income spending.</b> “Congress has unnecessarily tied climate action with $1 trillion in tax increases on job creators, which we strongly oppose, and trillions in non-climate-related spending,” Joshua Bolten, its president and CEO, told me. “There is no policy reason to link strong action to address climate change with unrelated, harmful tax policy and substantial spending, which would not only worsen Americans’ already dangerous debt burden but also undercut the competitiveness of the U.S. economy, businesses, and workers.”</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">It’s true that Democrats are pursuing their entire domestic agenda in a single bill, as a procedural move to avoid some of the strictures of the Senate filibuster, which Senate moderates such as Joe Manchin of West Virginia have said that they will not alter. Because that move can only be used several times at most during a session, the party’s program has been crammed into one piece of legislation.</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">But while the substance of the Business Roundtable’s concern seems to dwell on the reconciliation bill’s new tax measures, the group is not distinguishing between its climate programs and its tax measures in its advertisements.<b> Its intent is to kill the partisan reconciliation bill while preserving the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which does not contain the same robust climate policies.</b></font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div style="font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The reconciliation bill’s tax provisions—which would finance some of the climate spending—are also opposed by ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute, a fossil-fuel trade group</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">. Those oil giants have run hundreds of thousands in Facebook ads </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">opposing the reconciliation bill’s tax hikes, according to Axios....</span></b></font></font></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx twt</font></font></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/facebook-and-instagram-have-allowed-and-profited-advertising-pushing-false-ukraine-us">
</a></font></font></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/facebook-and-instagram-have-allowed-and-profited-advertising-pushing-false-ukraine-us">https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/facebook-and-instagram-have-allowed-and-profited-advertising-pushing-false-ukraine-us</a></font></font></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font></font><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Facebook and Instagram have allowed and profited from advertising pushing the false Ukraine-US biolabs conspiracy theory</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">WRITTEN BY ALEX KAPLAN</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">PUBLISHED 03/16/22 </div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Meta has repeatedly allowed -- and profited from -- ads pushing a false conspiracy theory about biolabs in Ukraine which has been linked to both Russian propaganda and supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory. The ads, which have run on Facebook and Instagram, both owned by Meta, violate the platforms’ misinformation rules.</b></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, a QAnon-supporting Twitter account helped spread a false conspiracy theory that the attack was undertaken to target U.S.-linked labs working to create bioweapons. In reality, the labs are focused on detecting diseases, and the conspiracy theory has its roots in a longstanding Russian disinformation effort. The false claims have spread online and among QAnon supporters, and the Russian government has invoked the conspiracy theory to defend the invasion.</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A review by Media Matters found that since the invasion began, Meta has profited from the conspiracy theory by allowing at least nine ads to run on Facebook or Instagram pushing some form of the conspiracy theory, including an ad from Chinese state-controlled media. Meta’s rules explicitly prohibit ads that “include claims debunked by third-party fact checkers,” and at least one such fact-checker that Meta has partnered with, PolitiFact, has debunked the conspiracy theory. Although several ads were removed after Media Matters flagged them on Twitter, some are still running. Below is a rundown of all the ads we have found:</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">One ad on Facebook, from China’s official state press agency, features a video with a narrator saying, “With reports emerging about the U.S. running bioweapons lab in Ukraine, Syrian experts said the U.S. policy of setting up such labs in other countries poses risk to world security.”</span></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Facebook biolabs ad Chinese state media</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">One Facebook ad, in French, featured a man pushing the claim and sharing a map of Ukrainian biolabs that apparently came from a QAnon-supporting Gab account.</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Facebook biolabs ad1</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Another Facebook ad featured a video of a woman at a prayer service saying, “As we wind up, I want us to pray for Ukraine. Really, I don’t know who is right or wrong. We may be saying, you know, I saw … <b>something from another prayer group, but they were saying that there are U.S. biolabs in the Ukraine.”</b></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Another ad, for Instagram, falsely claimed that “Russia found over 30 biological labs (with evidence of bioweapons) in Ukraine formed by the Pentagon in areas bordering Russia.”</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Facebook biolabs ad2</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">An additional Instagram ad featured the (false) text “Pentagon Funded Bio-Weapons Labs in the Ukraine” and a video pushing the conspiracy theory, with a narrator saying, “For years now, Russia has made verifiable claims that the U.S. is running secret biological weapons labs around their borders.” The narrator also says that they are “reporting for Infowars,” a site whose content has been banned from Meta’s social media platforms.</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Facebook biolabs ad3</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Yet another ad, on Facebook, features a video of a woman saying about Ukraine, “There’s biolabs there, they’re talking about in the news today. The U.S. has them there. And so there are strategic reasons why Ukraine is important, which I understand, and I can understand why the civilians in Russia would understand where their leader’s coming from.”</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">One ad on Facebook features a video of a man saying, “They’re actually saying that the biolabs exist,” adding that he does “believe they do” exist. Another man agreed with him, saying, “I believe they do too. Because somebody is trying to get it out, and somebody is trying to bury it.” </div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Another ad, whose listing in the Facebook ad library specifies the range paid for it to run, ran for a day on Facebook and Instagram. The ad featured a video of a man saying there is “some evidence of U.S. involvement in the biolabs found there in Ukraine” and attacking PolitiFact for its debunk of the conspiracy theory, saying the outlet is a “propaganda arm of the progressive left.” This means Meta made money from an ad not only pushing the conspiracy theory but also explicitly attacking one of its third-party fact checkers. And the same account ran another ad on Facebook and Instagram (whose listing in the Facebook ad library also specifies the range paid for it to run) featuring a video with the same man saying the House of Representatives passed a bill that “includes an astonishing $15 billion to Ukraine, you know, so that we can protect our investment in Ukrainian biolabs.”</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Facebook biolabs ad4</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Meta is not the only company to have made money off of this Russian and QAnon-connected disinformation. YouTube has also monetized multiple videos pushing the same conspiracy theory.</b></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">THE LATEST</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Facebook and Instagram have allowed and profited from advertising pushing the false Ukraine-US biolabs conspiracy theory</div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">03/16/22 11:59 AM EDT</div></div></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb"><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div style="font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">AHA  note </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">// direct mail  dark posts neg ads</span></font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">ref</font></div><div style="font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">no lnx</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Pharmaceutical industry likely to shatter its lobbying record as it works to shape Democrats’ spending bill</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>A years-long battle over prescription drug prices reaches its apex as the industry spends tens of millions to alter the plan.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">By Yeganeh Torbati and Jonathan O'Connell </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>November 5, 2021 </b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>In September, Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) began noticing mailers arriving at homes across his district, including his own and that of his parents, with an alarming message. The mailers alleged that Kim was intent on preventing Medicare patients from getting the drugs they needed.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">That was news to Kim, who has made lowering seniors’ health-care costs and expanding their access to Medicare a signature issue. The mailer, along with a slew of digital ads and text messages, was sponsored by a group called A Healthy Future, LLC, and claimed that Kim and other New Jersey Democrats wanted to cut off “access to lifesaving medicines” and shift Medicare money into other social safety-net programs.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Soon after the mailers landed in New Jersey mailboxes, Kim’s office began receiving calls from puzzled constituents.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>“I’ve been attacked before, but I’ve never seen one as egregious as this one in terms of ‘Andy Kim’s trying to cut Medicare</b>,’” Kim said. “That’s just so absurd, and I actually think that has affected how the district has responded.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Watershed or watered down? Democrats’ drug pricing deal leaves many unsatisfied.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Kim was certain the attacks were coming from the pharmaceutical industry, but it was hard for him to be sure. A Healthy Future’s website includes no contact information, and a message to its Facebook page went unanswered. But a nonprofit group called <b>A Public Voice listed A Healthy Future </b>as being under its control in its 2018 and 2019 tax filings and described the LLC’s primary activity as “supporting a vibrant health care system.”</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A Healthy Future and its anonymous funders, it turned out, had fought previous efforts in Washington to reduce the cost of prescription drugs. According to Google digital ad data, A Healthy Future also paid for ads in fall 2020 arguing against a Trump administration attempt to address prescription drug costs.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Brian Newell, a spokesman for PhRMA, the pharmaceutical industry’s chief lobbying arm, when asked whether the organization had ever had any financial or other relationship with A Healthy Future or A Public Voice, said: “Like most industries and associations, PhRMA engages with groups and organizations that have a wide array of opinions and priorities, including those who do not want the government to come between patients and their medicines.” DENIAL NON-DENIAL ~ WATERGATE b&wOODWARD</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The ads targeting Kim and others were one strand of a massive, months-long advertising, lobbying and political donation blitz undertaken by the pharmaceutical industry and its allies, perhaps the strongest of all corporate voices in Washington, to kill a Democratic proposal to lower the cost of prescription drugs by empowering the federal government to negotiate their prices.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>That provision to control drug prices became a focal point of the $1.75 trillion spending package Democrats are trying to move through Washington.</b> The measure was in, then out, then watered down, going through a fierce ping-pong of backroom negotiations that is likely to continue once the Senate considers the bill in coming weeks.</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Pharmaceutical industry lobbyists defended their effort, alleging that the Democrats’ proposal would stifle research. They also said many other groups poured millions of dollars into the other side of the debate.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“As we’ve said repeatedly, our advocacy has focused on delivering solutions that will lower what patients pay out of pocket for prescription medicines, while opposing reforms that would ultimately leave patients trapped in a broken insurance system, restrict access to lifesaving medicines, and destroy the development of new treatments,” Newell said.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The influence campaign at times worked through groups whose funding sources are hidden. At least 20 different advertisements were run on television and online across the country. The advertisements were augmented by a campaign by<b> PhRMA, which spent nearly $23 million on lobbying through the first nine months of 2021, according to data compiled by OpenSecrets, which tracks corporate spending and political influence. That puts PhRMA on track this year to beat its own spending recording of $29.3 million in 2019.</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“The intensity right now of <b>K Street</b> and the deployment of lobbying and dark money is extraordinary,” said Nick Penniman, chief executive of Issue One, which advocates for transparency in Washington. “It is a frenzied state right now.”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The intense effort is reflective of just how much many companies have at stake in the Democrats’ evolving tax-and-spending bill. This article, which is based on interviews, documents and lobbying and ad spending data, offers a window into the efforts one sector took to shape the bill, much of which was crafted in secret.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The drug pricing provision agreed to by House Democrats this week does not go as far as many Democrats including Kim had hoped. But it still delivers reforms that could cut costs for millions of Americans by<b> capping out-of-pocket spending for seniors at $2,000 a year, capping insulin costs, preventing price increases that exceed the rate of inflation, and allowing Medicare to begin negotiating prices for some drugs.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“What we’re trying to do is defying one of the most powerful special-interest lobby groups in Washington, D.C.,” Kim said. “The fact that we were able to get something that will meaningfully help people was important.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Other industries, including tobacco and electric vehicles, have worked aggressively to pare down or reshape parts of the bill in their favor, too. But the effort to fight back on drug-price increases stands out because of the enormous scope of the campaign waged by the pharmaceutical industry and its allies, which have derailed similar proposals for the past two decades, despite how popular many of the changes are with voters, according to polling data.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“They’re the Goliath,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of OpenSecrets. She said that aside from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, of which pharmaceutical firms are members, the industry had spent more than any other by a wide margin so far this year, deploying so many lobbyists — 1,600 — that they outnumber members of Congress 3 to 1.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The industry made $90.6 million of political contributions during the 2020 election cycle, according to OpenSecrets,<b> 61 percent of that to Democratic candidates and groups.</b></span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>The industry’s focus on drug pricing has increased dramatically in recent years as the issue became more top-of-mind for voters. In 2012, lobbyists registered to work on the issue of “drug prices” 69 times for 20 different clients. In 2021 so far, they have filed to lobby on the issue 1,192 times for 242 different clients</b>, according to OpenSecrets data.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">While the industry lobbies on many different issues in a given year, the Democratic bill H.R. 3 that would have given the government more expansive power to negotiate drug prices was the bill PhRMA cited most often for lobbying; the bill appeared in its reports 35 times so far this year,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> OpenSecrets found.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Research by Patients for Affordable Drugs Now, which advocates for lower prices, found that PhRMA and its allies spent at least $26.5 million on television and digital ads attacking proposals on price negotiations between July and early November. <b>That included $2.7 million spent by PhRMA, but also $4.5 million in ads by the 60 Plus Association,</b> which bills itself as a conservative version of AARP and<b> did not respond to a request for comment.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Also lining up behind the effort was th<b>e American Action Network, </b>a major conservative nonprofit advocacy group, with $7.9 million in ads. PhRMA gave the American Action Network $4.5 million in 2019, along with $75,000 to the 60 Plus Association, according to tax filings.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) holds one of Congress’s most competitive seats,</b> having wrested it from Republican control in 2018 and narrowly winning reelection in 2020. She shaped her campaign around a platform of tackling rising health-care costs and has maintained focus on that issue, inviting a Type 1 diabetes patient with sky-high insulin costs to be her guest at the 2020 State of the Union address.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">According to data tracked by Patients for Affordable Drugs Now, the American Action Network funded an ad in Slotkin’s district starting in August that accuses Democrats of pushing a <b>“socialist </b>health-care plan to control what medicines you can get.”</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">
</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Her office is now accustomed to fielding calls from constituents who see ads like that one on television, Slotkin said.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“We can really tell the first couple of days those ads run because that’s when we’ll see a spike in the number of people calling our office,” she said. “We literally write a response that our staff can use to forcefully push back and try to contradict the purposeful misinformation.”</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>
</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Asked about the accuracy of the advertisement targeting Slotkin, American Action Network spokesman Calvin Moore reiterated its message, saying such proposals amount to “socialist price controls” that could limit development of new prescription drugs. “Stifling innovation to this degree has profound consequences,”</b> Moore said.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Many of the backers of these efforts are difficult to identify because of rules allowing anonymous funding of political groups. A Public Voice, which described itself on its 2018 and 2019 tax forms as the “direct controlling entity” of <b>A Healthy Future, is based in Thornville, Ohio. </b>It listed nearly $5 million in contributions in 2018, though it declined to name its donors, and spent the money on consulting, marketing and funding conservative causes across the country. That year, its donations included $240,000 to <b>Fund for a Working Congress, a political action committee that supported Republican candidates, and $370,000 to Ohio First PAC, which supported a challenge by Republican James B. Renacci against Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A voice mail left at a number listed on tax filings for A Public Voice received no response. Documents filed with the state of Ohio show that the e<b>ntity originally formed in 2012 as Protect Your Vote Ohio and show its registered agents as lawyers with Langdon Law, a Cincinnati-area law firm known as a nexus for “dark money” groups on the right.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">David Langdon of Langdon Law did not respond to an email and voice mail requesting comment.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The approximately 20 digital and television video ads compiled by Patients for Affordable Drugs Now and reviewed by The Washington Post warned viewers about an array of crises that could befall them should Congress allow Medicare to negotiate prices for drugs, among them that the industry could no longer develop new medications, that the government would limit access to prescriptions, that Medicare would be cut or that millions of jobs would be lost.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“They call it negotiation, but it really means government decides what medicines I can get,” says “Sue,” a<b> woman labeled in one ad as a diabetic from Ohio.</b></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">“Imagine a future in which a vaccine for covid-19 was never discovered,” says a voice in another spot.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Pro-industry advertising ran during opinion shows on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC, as well as during college football games, according to the advertising data firm iSpot</b>.tv.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Once the drug cost proposal was added to President Biden’s larger legislative package, some advertising took direct aim at Democrats’ spending priorities. One claimed the proposal called for “gutting Medicare” in exchange for “pie-in-the-sky special-interest kickbacks.” It depicts House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) riding atop an animated unicorn, she and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) sliding down rainbows, and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) at a dessert buffet. Another depicts the proposal as a shell game that “loots Medicare.”</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Jayapal says Democrats almost have the votes to pass Build Back Better</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) described her frustration with lengthy negotiations on the Build Back Better act in an interview with The Washington Post Nov. 5. (Zach Purser Brown/The Washington Post)</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Previous presidents, including Barack Obama and Donald Trump, vowed to pass bills to lower prescription drug costs, only to see their efforts die on Capitol Hill, in part because of a relentless lobbying blitz.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>When Montana’s Brian Schweitzer</b> ran for Senate in 1999, he elevated his long-shot campaign by busing senior citizens to Canada so they could illegally buy drugs at lower prices.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">He got his first taste of the pharmaceutical lobby shortly afterward, when he said television ads started attacking him for trusting medicines made in other countries. He said in his case, the attacks helped make his political career. “Virtually everybody in America has a friend or family member who is taking that expensive medicine,” he said.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.)</b> holds another<b> competitive seat, representing an Allentown, Pa.</b>, district that narrowly favored Biden in the 2020 election. She said that as she began supporting drug price reform early in her career, lobbyists began relentlessly calling her office, even though she had vowed not to take corporate PAC donations.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“If they’re calling me nonstop, imagine what they’re doing to those who actually do take their money,” she said.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">During the most recent negotiations, Wild began receiving <b>automated emails from constituents </b>worried they wouldn’t be able to get their medicines if the government could negotiate prices. <b>But on Sunday she joined 14 colleagues from other competitive districts, including Kim and Slotkin, to urge Democratic leadership to deliver on their promise to reduce drug prices.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">She said she knows what comes next.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">“I am quite certain that because I have been so outspoken on this issue, that I am going to face an attack ad,” Wild said. “<b>I have an idea for what it could be, but I don’t want to tell you in case they see it. I don’t want to give them any ideas.”</b></div></div></div><div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">----</font></div></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large" background-color="background-color" rgb="rgb" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">SEE UMBERTO ECO DEF OF FASCISM ON SCHIZO ENEMY:</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/facebook-ads-tucker-carlsons-hungary-vs-soros-documentary-have-been-viewed-millions-times" style="text-decoration-line: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/facebook-ads-tucker-carlsons-hungary-vs-soros-documentary-have-been-viewed-millions-times</a></font></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div style="font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="" /><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style=""><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">NO LNX PIX TWT</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div style=""><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Facebook ads promoting Hungary vs. Soros: The Fight for Civilization -- the season finale of Tucker Carlson’s Fox Nation “documentary” series -- have garnered more than 5.2 million impressions.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><b style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">A new Media Matters analysis has found that Fox Nation -- the streaming service for Fox News “superfans” -- has run at least </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">56 ads since January 27 promoting the episode, which relies on antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> to attack George Soros,</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> the Hungarian-born billionaire philanthropist and Holocaust survivor. <b>T</b></span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>he ad data is not available through the Facebook Ad Library because Fox Nation isn’t running these promotions as political ads, </b>which is the only type Facebook’s Ad Library archives or provides data for. However, <b>external data from Pathmatics </b>reveals that Fox Nation spent more than $48,000 on the ads, earning more than 5.2 million impressions.</span></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Hungary vs. Soros is the latest installment in the “Tucker Carlson Originals” series, which has a shameful record of using shock and awe tactics to push antidemocratic propaganda.</b> Despite Tucker Carlson’s white nationalist brand, the streaming service has heavily relied on the prime-time host to promote and grow the platform. </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style=""><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 102);"> “</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">documentary</span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 102);">” </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">calls upon antisemitic stereotypes to demonize Soros and puff up the far-right nationalist government of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has embraced authoritarian tactics and faces reelection in April. Carlson simultaneously pushes many of the same talking points about Soros that Orbán used in his 2018 election campaign. As my Media Matters colleague Nikki McCann Ramirez noted, </span><b style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Carlson portrays Soros in the series “as an insidious, unseen political kingmaker who seeks to destroy the national sovereignty of Hungary and transform its culture by leveraging his money and control of the media" against a backdrop of menacing synth chords and black and white images of Soros.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Facebook is allowing Fox Nation to run ads promoting Hungary vs. Soros despite its authoritarian and antisemitic undertones. In fact, Fox Nation has run at least 56 ads related to the episode, with at least 44 still active at the time of publication. (The other 12 ads are no longer shown in Facebook’s ad library.) </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The ads, which have been seen millions of times by Facebook users, include one of four texts that attack Soros for “unchecked political power” and/or praise Orbán for being Soros’ “newest foe.” Additionally, all the ads link to Fox Nation’s website, where users can subscribe to watch it.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Fox Nation_Hungary vs. Soros_ads_2</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Fox Nation_Hungary vs. Soros_ads_1</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Some of the ads also include a promotional 15-second video of the episode.</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">CitationFrom the February 11, 2022, Facebook ad from Fox Nation</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Before Fox Nation started running paid advertisements for Hungary vs. Soros, several Fox Facebook pages shared posts promoting it, including pages associated with The Five, Tucker Carlson Tonight, and Fox Nation.</b></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>It was also repeatedly promoted on Fox News itself, not only on Carlson’s show, but also during his interviews on The Five and Fox & Friends. </b>The Fox News website featured an ad for it on its homepage and published an article on the piece. Fox Nation also sent out a promotional email that said, “George Soros is waging cultural and political warfare on the West, but he’s met his match in Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.” </div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">
</div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">The right-wing fixation on Soros is a problem across the Fox brand. According to a transcript analysis from Kinetiq video database,<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);"> Fox News mentioned “Soros” a total of 435 times between January 1, 2021, and February 8, 2022, with the coverage ramping up starting in November.</span> With Facebook’s long history of profiting from the spread of harmful content, it is unsurprising that the platform is enabling the promotion of this production to millions.</div></div><div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-size: small;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">i assume :</font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/573610-koch-backed-group-launches-7-figure-ad-blitz-opposing">https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/573610-koch-backed-group-launches-7-figure-ad-blitz-opposing</a></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">the hill no lnx</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Koch-backed group launches 7-figure ad blitz opposing $3.5T bill</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Americans for Prosperity (AFP), an advocacy group backed by GOP mega-donor Charles Koch, launched a multimillion-dollar ad campaign Thursday attacking Democrats’ $3.5 trillion social spending package.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The connected TV, radio, direct mail and online ad blitz argues that the bill would lead to more government control and higher inflation. It will target 25 Democrats, including moderates who have expressed reservations about the $3.5 trillion price tag such as Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.).</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>“A government takeover of our economy is a fundamental departure from the spirit of entrepreneurialism we’ve relied on for generations to drive prosperity, and there’s only one outcome — unmitigated economic disaster that will be difficult to reverse,” AFP President Tim Phillips said in a statement.</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In recent months, AFP has orchestrated an extensive effort to oppose both Democrats’ reconciliation package and the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, which it argues doesn’t make sufficient changes to regulations needed to improve roads and bridges</span>.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The group’s most recent ad campaign comes as House Democrats prepare to vote on the infrastructure bill Monday. Democratic leaders say the bill must be passed alongside the party-line spending package that invests in climate, child care and other Democratic priorities.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">The Democrats’ reconciliation package has come under fire from business lobbying groups and conservative organizations over its proposed tax increases on large corporations and wealthy individuals, as well as its measure to allow the federal government to negotiate the price of prescription drugs. </font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday announced a six-figure ad campaign urging moderate House Democrats to oppose the $3.5 trillion bill after warning that it would revoke endorsements for Democrats who vote for the measure.</b></font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>The National Federation of Independent Business, a GOP-aligned small business group, also launched a six-figure ad campaign</b> Wednesday urging Rep. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa) and Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) to vote against the reconciliation bill.</font></p><p><font face="Times New Roman" size="4">Senate Budget Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has punched back at the campaigns to sink the spending packages filled with Democratic priorities.</font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font face="Times New Roman" size="4"><b>“This is what oligarchy and a corrupt political system are all about," he tweeted in response to a corporate lobbying blitz announced last month.  "The rich and large corporations get richer, and their lobbyists do everything possible to protect their wealth and greed. Not this time."</b></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></p><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></p></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/facebook-letting-trumps-pac-run-ads-implying-he-true-president">https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/facebook-letting-trumps-pac-run-ads-implying-he-true-president</a></font></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Less than nine months into his suspension on Facebook, former President Donald Trump is using his political action committee to run ads on the platform containing election misinformation, including claiming “the election was tainted” and implying that Trump is “the true president.” </font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">In June, Facebook announced Trump’s <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/facebook-should-permanently-ban-trump" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">suspension</a> from the platform for at least <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2021/06/facebook-response-to-oversight-board-recommendations-trump/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">two years</a>, citing his “acts of incitement” and claiming the suspension would “be significant enough to be a deterrent to Mr. Trump and others from committing such severe violations in future.” <a href="https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/facebook-enabling-trumps-pac-fundraise-platform-despite-his-two-year-suspension-inciting" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">That same month</a><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 204, 102);">, Trump’s Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, a joint venture between his Make America Great Again PAC and his <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-fundraising-save-america-pac-contesting-election-results/story?id=74128659" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">newer</a> <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/06/donald-trump-save-america-pac-has-85-million-on-hand-ahead-of-midterms.html" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">Save America l<b>eadership PAC</b></a><b>,</b></span><b> </b>started sponsoring Facebook ads. </font></font></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Kyle Tharp’s <a href="https://fwiwnewsletter.substack.com/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-image: initial; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; transition: box-shadow 0.15s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration-line: none; box-shadow: rgba(25, 118, 210, 0.5) 0px -1px 0px inset;">newsletter</a> FWIW, which tracks digital spending and strategy in politics, reported on September 24 that the latest ads from Trump’s PAC attempt to undermine the U.S. election process and contain misinformation about the 2020 election, even suggesting that Trump is “the true president.”...</font></font></p></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></div><div times="Times" new="New" roman="Roman" font-size="font-size" large="large"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">an 621</font></font></div><div><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to Politico, Republican lawmakers <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/28/spray-and-pray-biden-republicans-496660" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">are ruffled by nearly every decision President Joe Biden makes</a> — and they're spending a lot of money to make sure the public knows it.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Over the last three months, Republicans and affiliated groups and committees have spent nearly $2.5 million trying to paint Biden and his priorities in a negative light," Politico reports. "That's more than three times what they've spent on Facebook ads targeting other leading Democrats — from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and former President Barack Obama — and issues like socialism, fake news, and 'defund the police' combined."</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"Americans deserve to know the compounding failures of the Biden administration, which the mainstream media continues to ignore," Republican National Committee spokesperson Emma Vaughn told Politico.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">According to the report, Democrats see Republicans' ad rollout as an example of the "spray and pray" strategy which involves trying to "weaken the president before the midterms."</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">Despite Republicans' efforts, the White House has given them very little energy or attention.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">"We are laser focused on putting an end to the virus, on improving the lives of Americans, and on getting our economy back up and running," deputy press secretary Chris Meagher said.</font></font></p><p style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/28/spray-and-pray-biden-republicans-496660" target="blank" style="text-decoration-line: none; opacity: 1; transition: color 0.25s ease 0s, background 0.25s ease 0s, opacity 0.25s ease 0s;">You can read the full report here.</a>
</font></font></p><div class="around-the-web" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><div class="from-your-siteheadline" style="font-weight: 700; text-transform: uppercase;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES</font></font></div><ul class="around-the-weblist" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline-block; width: 589.446px; list-style: none;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" /></font><li class="from-your-siteitem"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.alternet.org/2021/04/john-cornyn/" class="from-your-sitelink" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" open="Open" sans="Sans" sans-serif="sans-serif" style="text-decoration-line: none; 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</font><p><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></p></div></div></div></div></div>