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In plain English, this means more people who don’t “like” your page or follow your presence on the websites will be able to view your posts – a critical tool for high-powered candidates and other social media influencers to get their messages out.
In competitive political campaigns, that blue checkmark can be critical.
“Facebook downgrades any posts or ads by pages without that verification, regardless of content,” Cory Alpert, a political consultant who specializes in social media campaigns, wrote in an email to the Star-Tribune. “For some races, that doesn’t really matter. In super-local races where ads aren’t that important and candidates are relying on a small, intimate group of supporters, that downgrading is negated by the community around it.
“As candidates move up the ballot, and it becomes more of a struggle to get attention on social media, other campaigns are likely to have verified pages,” he added. “Thus a candidate can quickly have a lower footing.”
Some candidates around the state, however, have reported numerous issues in getting verified. While consultants for Republican U.S. Senate candidates Cynthia Lummis and Robert Short wrote in text messages they’ve had few problems working with Facebook, a number of other Senate candidates say they’ve faced numerous challenges. Joshua Wheeler, a Republican, said in an interview with the Star-Tribune that it took him five months to ultimately get his advertisements verified, and since, has more than doubled his following despite running the longest campaign in the state. Merav Ben-David, a Laramie-based Democrat running for Senate, says she’s been denied credentials from Facebook despite raising the third-largest amount of funds in the race and hiring a private consultant to handle the issue.
