Washington is a strange city. You’re confronted with billboards for things normal humans can’t buy, like fighter jets. Small groups of lobbyists cluster in corners of office buildings and swap inside information in hushed tones. And there are the invites. Loads upon loads of invites to seminars and open-bar events and celebrations, all for obscure reasons. Washington trades on these invites. While at a glance they can seem confusing or meaningless, they typically have an ulterior motive. You can build a story around the real and sometimes insidious reasons for the gathering. The Prospect gets a lot of these emails, and each week, we’re going to share one of them with you, and take you inside what might be going on behind the scenes.
Screenshot
Facebook has had a tough year, with its top executives repeatedly hauled before Congress and multiple investigations from state and federal regulators. But it has an ace in the hole: Lawmakers need Facebook to advertise their political campaigns. That’s now truer than ever, with Twitter deciding to ban political advertising and Google just yesterday limiting micro-targeting for political campaigns.
It means that Facebook has a symbiotic relationship with members of Congress up for re-election. Maybe they’re devising privacy rules and engaging in investigations, but sooner or later, politicians will dump millions of dollars into Facebook’s lap with the hopes of running successful ad campaigns. It could tend to blunt the edge of their work. And consider this invite as Facebook letting the political class know about it.
This event, scheduled for this evening for Capitol Hill staff, includes food and drink of course, and a panel with Facebook’s Global Elections director, head of Security Policy, and Civic Integrity Engineering director. They’ll discuss how Facebook and Instagram are working to protect the 2020 elections, and their steps to prevent election interference and “the spread of misinformation.” But it seems to me the real intention is to inform lawmakers and staff about “products and features we build to connect people with government officials and accurate voting information,” as well as “our ads authorization process.” There’s even an “Ask Me Anything” booth to quiz Facebook staff one-on-one.
The bright line between governing and campaigns is not as bright as you think. The people who will hear about how Facebook political ads work could impart that wisdom back to the campaign people who need the information. And even if they don’t, they’ll know the importance of a Facebook campaign to their boss’s future prospects as a member of Congress. They may be thinking about that when they write legislation or recommend to their boss whether to vote for something.
This event, as fun-sounding as it may be, also serves as Facebook giving a warning. They’re saying, in effect, “Nice election you got there; would be a shame if something happened to it.”
Do you have a ridiculous D.C. invite you want to share? Email us at DCinvites@prospect.org
