Facebook Says False Flag Election Ads Don’t Break Its Rules

A shady political group that’s previously received money from Elon Musk is running Facebook ads made to look like they’re coming from supporters of Kamala Harris, while promoting things the vice president doesn’t actually support. The ads are deceptive, to say the least, but a new report from the Washington Post makes clear Facebook is aware of the deception in the ads and doesn’t think it’s a big deal.

The Facebook ads are clearly an effort to anger and energize Republicans, claiming that Harris supports things like a ban on gas-powered cars, the complete abolishment of U.S. borders, and mandatory gun buy-back programs. The ads also falsely claim Harris wants to make sure that undocumented immigrants are registered to vote.

“The Biden-Harris DOJ successfully challenged Virginia’s ‘non-citizen’ voter removal program and won!” one of the ads reads. “This ensures that no undocumented immigrant is unjustly stripped from voter rolls.”

The Facebook ads are made to look like they come from a group called “Progress 2028,” a play on the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025—the action plan if Donald Trump is able to retake power. The ads even read “paid for by Progress 2028,” when Facebook users see them in their feed. But the group Progress 2028 is fake, according to Open Secrets. The actual organization running the ads is a dark money group called Building America’s Future, which receives donations from Elon Musk, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal. And Facebook doesn’t seem to think this is a problem.

A spokesperson for Meta, which owns Facebook, highlighted the company’s efforts at transparency since the 2016 election that saw Trump win against Hillary Clinton.

“This type of political advertising isn’t new and has been found across the media landscape for decades,” Ryan Daniels told Gizmodo by email. “By adding a disclosure label and making ads publicly available in our Ad Library, Meta brings a level of transparency to political advertising that far exceeds that of any other platform where these ads have run.”

Facebook isn’t the only medium where political groups try incredibly shady tactics without any transparency, of course. For instance, Building America’s Future is also running its false flag campaign through text messages in Pennsylvania. But it’s the fact that Facebook users only see a fake name like Progress 2028 without any hint to which organization may actually be behind it that presents a real problem.

Musk has become quite an influential figure in the world of politics in recent years. He started throwing millions at right-wing political groups in 2022, and even started his own political action committee, America PAC, to help get Trump and other Republicans re-elected. Musk, whose companies have benefited from billions of dollars in government contracts and subsidies, is slated to become the head of a new “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) if Trump retakes the White House.

However, it’s unclear how frequently Musk gives money to so-called dark money groups like Building America’s Future, which don’t have to disclose their donors. Musk’s donations to the group only became public knowledge earlier this month thanks to an article in the Wall Street Journal, which reports Building America’s Future has ties to Republican consultants Phil Cox and Generra Peck.

Gizmodo tried to reach Elon Musk through his companies Tesla and X but did not receive a response. We’ll update this post if we hear back.