Congress
Sherrod Brown says Facebook ‘glitch’ cost campaign money, votes
Ohio Democratic Senate nominee Sherrod Brown said Sunday that a “technical glitch” with Facebook’s advertising platform caused around half of his campaign ads on the site to suddenly “go dark with no notice.”
“For the past 48 hours, half of our ads have been unable to reach grassroots supporters and voters,” Brown said in a post to his Substack that both detailed the snafu and served as a fundraising appeal. Brown estimated the issue was costing his campaign “thousands and thousands of dollars — and potentially thousands of votes.”
Andy Stone, a spokesperson for Facebook parent Meta, confirmed in a statement that “an error over the weekend impacted the delivery of ads for several advertisers, including the Brown campaign.”
“All of the Brown campaign’s ads have since been restored,” Stone said. “We apologize for the error.”
Neither Brown nor Stone immediately responded to followup questions about whether the Brown campaign would receive a reimbursement for the glitch.
A tally of Meta advertising data for Brown’s political account shows he has spent over a half-million dollars with the company across multiple campaigns. Brown, a former senator, is mounting a comeback against Republican Sen. Jon Husted.