Sen. Elizabeth Warren has made busting the Big Tech trust a plank of her campaign platform — but the Massachusetts Democrat is spending big on Facebook ads, according to a report from the Daily Caller.
The anti-corporate senator spent $2 million on Facebook ads for her presidential campaign in the past year, more than any other Democrat.
“Too much power”
In March, Warren declared war on Big Tech as she announced a plan to break up Silicon Valley conglomerates like Amazon, Facebook, and Google. The Democrat said that Facebook and similar companies had acquired “too much power over our economy, our society, and our democracy” in advertisements at the time.
“Today’s big tech companies have too much power — too much power over our economy, our society, and our democracy,” Warren said. “They’ve bulldozed competition, used our private information for profit, and tilted the playing field against everyone else. In the process, they have hurt small businesses and stifled innovation.”
Facebook removed, then restored, ads that Warren published on the platform attacking the company in March. Afterward, Warren slammed the censorship as further proof that Facebook has too much power.
“Curious why I think [Facebook] has too much power? Let’s start with their ability to shut down a debate over whether [Facebook] has too much power,” she tweeted. “Thanks for restoring my posts. But I want a social media marketplace that isn’t dominated by a single censor.”
Spending big bucks
It may be a testament to that power that Warren, despite publicly attacking Facebook, is investing big in the company. According to the Daily Caller, Warren’s campaign spent about $2 million on Facebook ads from May 2018 to May 2019.
Most of that advertising was for Warren’s 2020 bid, the Daily Caller reported, citing Facebook’s ad archive. A screenshot shows that just over $1 million went to Elizabeth Warren for President and roughly $200,000 went to the Elizabeth Warren Presidential Exploratory Committee.
According to the Daily Caller, Warren spent more money on Facebook ads in the past year than frontrunners Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT), who are polling in first and second, respectively. Warren has shot to third place in the Democratic primary, according to RealClearPolitics, overtaking Sen. Kamala Harris (CA).
Hypocrite?
To be fair to Warren, few, if any, genuine competitors to Facebook and Twitter currently exist. In the absence of competition, companies like Facebook still command great control over American politics.
But Warren, while going further than most Democrats to attack Big Tech, has spent more than any other Democrat on Facebook ads. And even as she invests heavily in Facebook, Warren recently bought a large billboard advertisement in the heart of Silicon Valley attacking Big Tech.
Warren has been a trendsetter in the crowded Democratic primary fight, launching proposals for slavery reparations, abolishing the Electoral College, and breaking up Big Tech into the mainstream. The senator has also built traction with a populist, anti-corporate message that echoes President Donald Trump’s emphasis on the harm done to the American worker by globalization.
Sounding a lot like Trump, Warren declared this week that she would pursue an agenda of “economic patriotism” as she railed against “free trade” and “multi-national corporations” for leaving American workers out to dry. Warren seems to be angling for working-class voters in Trump country that Democrats lost in 2016.
But will it be enough to overcome Trump, who is also spending big on Facebook ads — more than any Democratic candidate since December? Only time will tell.
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