Facebook Pulls Sharpe Ads Ahead Of Tuesday’s Election

NEW YORK – Facebook disabled Libertarian Candidate For New York State Governor Larry Sharpe’s paid advertising after it was flagged for “unusual activity” over the weekend.

Larry Sharpe for Governor Media Director Zach McClanahan told WNYNewsNow that since 2016 the social media giant has been trying to make election campaign advertising more clear although at the same time it is making it harder for third parties to be heard.
“I’m sure if Cuomo’s Campaign called into Facebook, Facebook would figure out how to get them there,” said McClanahan. “Now that Mark Zuckerberg was in front of Congress he knows that he better not make the politicians mad.”
McClanahan said in many cases Facebook has been known to ban pages and not give a reason. In this case, McClanahan believes that an algorithm pulled down the ads after one was reported by political adversaries.
“They might unban it today to be honest, I think they will say ‘oh this wasn’t a good idea, especially before election day, this makes us look bad, sorry about that guys, our fault,'” said McClanahan. “What I really think happened is people reported our ad because they don’t like us and so they got so many reports they disabled our ads, which happens in politics because the opposite side hates you so much they will just report your ad for no reason.”
Since the ads were pulled McClanahan posted in multiple Libertarian groups on Facebook who he said boosted interaction on their pages.
“Libertarians don’t just take that sitting down, we don’t just say oh, you banned me, oh no, we’re done, we say you wanna try to silence us we will be one thousand times louder, ” said McClanahan.
In total McClanahan said Sharpe has reached millions online unlike the Molinaro and Cuomo Campaigns.
Facebook has since re-published the ads as of early Monday afternoon.