Facebook Ends On-Site Help To Political Campaigns

Reuters reports:

Facebook Inc said on Thursday that it would no longer dispatch employees to the offices of political campaigns to offer support ahead of elections, as it did with U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2016 race.

The company and other major online ad sellers including Alphabet Inc’s Google and Twitter Inc have long offered free dedicated assistance to strengthen relationships with top advertisers such as presidential campaigns.

Brad Parscale, who was Trump’s online ads chief in 2016, last year called onsite “embeds” from Facebook crucial to the candidate’s victory. Facebook has said that Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton was offered identical help, but she accepted a different level than Trump.

Gizmodo weighs in:

Facebook and other major digital advertising platforms like Twitter and Google often offer important clients extra help when it comes to maximizing advertising spending, targeting, and messaging. When that client is selling laundry detergent, few objections are raised.

But when the client is running for office, the situation looks a lot worse. When the client is Donald Trump and his digital director says Facebook’s tools and support were critical to his victory, well, that’s probably going to piss off a majority of Americans.