The biggest conservative spenders on Facebook political ads aren’t Republican politicians

Newsmax, Ben Shapiro, and PragerU are spending heavily on Facebook ads to misinform voters with right-wing content

According to Facebook’s Ad Library, the biggest conservative spenders on political ads in the past month have not been Republican politicians or advocacy groups, but right-wing media outlets. Newsmax, Ben Shapiro, and Prager U have collectively spent over $1.26 million since March 4th on ads that Facebook has categorized as political: 

Facebook Political Ad Spending, March 4th - April 18th

Newsmax: $517,392

Ben Shapiro: $421,497

PragerU: $329,730

Here’s a look at some of their recent ads, which are mostly geared at aggressively promoting their shows, selling memberships or subscriptions, or spreading far-right red-meat content:

While the above ads are included in the transparency library, we don’t know how much The Daily Wire, The Daily Caller, Breitbart and others have spent on similar advertising, or to whom their ads are being shown, because Facebook recognizes them as legitimate media companies and doesn’t categorize all of their ads as political. 🙄That’s despite those outlets receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from Republican national party committees. Below are some recent conservative media ads that Facebook does not consider political: