In 2020, Oil Majors Spent At Least $9.6 Million On Facebook Ads That Tracked Political Events

[hatrack]

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A new report makes the case that the oil and gas industry is trying to sell you a story — one that casts these companies as paragons of sustainability and seeks to delay policies that would address climate change. Last year, the oil and gas industry spent at least $9.6 million on ads on Facebook’s U.S. platform, according to an analysis by the think tank InfluenceMap. Just over half of this spending came from one company, ExxonMobil. “The oil and gas industry is engaging in this really strategic campaign using social media and the tools available, particularly these targeting tools on Facebook, to reach a really broad audience pretty easily,” said Faye Holder, program manager at InfluenceMap.

The report looked at roughly 25,000 of these ads, analyzing their messages and whom they were targeting. The decision to focus on Facebook ads, which represent only a fraction of the oil industry’s wider campaign to influence the discourse on climate change, was made for data reasons. “We just looked at Facebook,” Holder said. “That is because the other social media platforms don’t even offer this transparency.”

Oil companies have long sought the help of public relations whizzes to burnish their reputations, painting themselves as environmental champions, plastering their logos all over science museums and jazz festivals, and even hiring Instagram influencers to tout the merits of gas stoves. In recent years, climate advocates have honed in on ways to counter these tactics — launching a campaign demanding that PR firms drop fossil fuel clients, for instance, or trolling oil companies on social media. Some climate groups have decided to fight fire with fire, recently funneling $1 million directly into anti-oil advertisements.

The oil industry’s more recent ads use subtler messages than outright climate denial to undermine action on global warming, such as portraying natural gas as a green fuel source and arguing that decarbonization would make energy unaffordable. Last year, companies’ Facebook ad spending soared when it looked like the federal government might do something to address rising emissions. For example, spending jumped dramatically last summer when then-presidential candidate Joe Biden released his climate plan, and stayed high until after the November election.

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https://grist.org/accountability/report-oil-companies-spent-10-million-on-facebook-ads-in-2020/

[Scrivener7]

1. And Facebook is their enabler.

[SergeStorms]

2. And then their algorithms target....

people with even more right-wing bullshit. Facebook is, down to their very core, an evil enabler of every right-wing cause they can dream up, and the right uses that to their distinct advantage.

As you can tell, I view Facebook with the same disdain as dog shit on my shoes.