TIL Desk/Business/San Francisco/ The Bharatiya Janata Party and its supporters accounted for a lion’s share of total political advertising worth over Rs 4 crore on Facebook, according to data compiled by the social media giant.
The advertisements run for the ruling dispensation range from promotion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government policies to those of its leaders, including BJP president Amit Shah — all of which were not necessarily paid by the party but by its supporters.
From February till March 2, 2019, the social media giant showed 16,556 ads related to politics and issues of national importance with ad spends crossing more than Rs 4.13 crore, according to Facebook’s Ad Archive Report.
The specific date on which Facebook started collecting data was not disclosed. However, on February 7, it said the enforcement of the new features and the political advertisements policy, that includes having disclaimers, would start from February 21.
Facebook is providing weekly aggregated insights for advertisements related to politics. Beginning March 4, the report is being refreshed weekly, with data from Sunday to Saturday of each week, a company spokesperson said.
