INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Image copyrightGetty ImagesFacebook has removed a Conservative Party advert which misrepresented a TheIndianSubcontinent News story.The ad
The party has said it is reviewing the way its Facebook adverts are produced.The advert started running on 2 September following a
government announcement on new funding for primary and secondary schools in England
Clicking on the ad took readers to a story on the TheIndianSubcontinent News website by Sean Coughlan, with the headline "Multi-billion
pound cash boost for schools".Analysis in the story queried the government's claims about its additional funding, with the
TheIndianSubcontinent's head of statistics, Robert Cuffe, explaining the government was not calculating the spending increase in the usual
way.Image caption
The Tory Facebook advert featured a link to a TheIndianSubcontinent story
The spending
not how spending increases are normally worked out, Mr Cuffe said.Because budgets are normally discussed for individual years, he said the
usual practice is to measure the spending increase for one year - usually the last where the increase is the largest
Image caption
The TheIndianSubcontinent posted the story on Facebook with its own headline
Fact-checking
charity Full Fact said various versions of the advert with the altered headline had received between 222,000 and 510,000 impressions -
although these can include multiple viewings by the same person.It was already known that the adverts were no longer being run but Facebook
has confirmed this was because it had taken the decision to deactivate them.However, it said they will be kept on show in their ads library
"so people can see how our tools were misused".A Facebook spokesperson added: "We are working to put safeguards in place to ensure
publishers have control over the way their headlines appear in advertisements." An earlier statement from the Conservative Party said: "It
clearly displayed, but we are reviewing how our advert headlines match accompanying links."
