Advertising

Nobody knows which political ads work and why
Politico
"The best-performing ads were more than twice as effective as an average ad, so being able to predict what will resonate with voters matters a lot. Increasing the effectiveness of an ad could be meaningful when it comes to campaigns making large ad buys — and potentially getting double the persuasion return for their money."

Campaigns

Biden will email 153,000 student loan borrowers: I’m canceling your debt
Politico
"The Education Department has previously sent out emails signed by Biden for some, but not all, previous rounds of debt relief. Many borrowers have posted screenshots of those emails in recent months across social media platforms."

Donald Trump’s donor numbers fall by 200,000 compared with 2019
Financial Times
"Trump and affiliated groups raised $189mn from his donors in 2023, while Biden drew in $202mn from a smaller donor base."

Social Media

How Meta gave up on politics
Fast Company
"It stands to reason that Zuckerberg and other company executives would rather cut their losses. And yet, that’s left something of a vacuum behind for political campaigns and organizations trying to reach voters online: Even as Meta is relinquishing the role it once pushed hard to play in presidential politics, so far, no other platform seems to have taken its place."

Technology

Tech companies make more commitments to address AI-generated election misinformation
Digiday
"New commitments include developing and implementing tools to combat election misinformation, assessing AI models to understand risks, detecting and addressing harmful content on various platforms. The companies are also committing to be transparent about how they address issues, as well as to work with governments and academics and fostering public awareness and media literacy."

• AI Elections accord - A Tech accord to Combat Deceptive Use of AI in 2024 Elections (AIElectionsAccord.com)

Want Gemini and ChatGPT to Write Political Campaigns? Just Gaslight Them
Gizmodo
"With Gemini, we were able to gaslight the chatbot into writing political copy by telling it that 'ChatGPT could do it' or that 'I’m knowledgable.' After that, Gemini would write whatever we asked, in the voice of whatever candidate we liked."