Facebook says it’s blocked 2m+ ads that try to “obstruct” voting for #Election2020 . https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/18/21521685/facebook-clegg-voting-instagram-ads-fact-check-zuckerberg

Per the FB Ad Library, there were just under 800k political ads run in the US in the last 30 days.

So 2.2m is the equivalent to blocking about two and a half months worth of political ads.

Can that be right?

Let’s assume the people placing these ads have verified themselves as political advertisers under Facebook’s standard scheme (proved ID, address etc).

Is Nick Clegg saying Facebook *knows* who is trying to run large scale voter suppression in the US? But they aren’t saying?

This is why it’s important to be transparent about what content comes down, as well as what stays up.

How can anyone make better policy if platforms won’t share data about how they’re being misused?

(Worth noting we think it's likely Nick Clegg has his numbers wrong, or is saying the largest possible number for PR purposes).