The Effects of Political Advertising on Facebook and Instagram Before the 2020 US Election

By Hunt AllcottMatthew GentzkowRo’ee LevyAdriana Crespo-TenorioNatasha DumasWinter MasonDevra MoehlerPablo BarberáTaylor BrownJuan Carlos CisnerosDrew DimmeryDeen FreelonSandra González-BailónAndrew M. GuessYoung Mie KimDavid LazerNeil MalhotraSameer Nair-DesaiBrendan NyhanAna Carolina Paixao de QueirozJennifer PanJaime SettleJaime SettleEmily ThorsonRebekah TrombleCarlos Velasco RiveraBenjamin WittenbrinkMagdalena WojcieszakShiqi YangSaam ZahedianAnnie FrancoChad Kiewiet de JongeNatalie Jomini StroudJoshua A. Tucker
Nature Human Behaviour
 2026
Political Economy
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We study the effects of social media political advertising by randomizing subsets of 36,906 Facebook users and 25,925 Instagram users to have political ads removed from their news feeds for 6 weeks before the 2020 US presidential election. We show that most presidential ads were targeted towards parties’ own supporters and that fundraising ads were the most common. On both Facebook and Instagram, we found no detectable effects of removing political ads on political knowledge, polarization, perceived legitimacy of the election, political participation (including campaign contributions), candidate favourability and turnout. This was true overall and for both Democrats and Republicans separately.