In a huge and unfair advantage to the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook promoted the party’s advertisements at 29% less price than the amount paid by its arch-rival Congress during 10 elections between February 2019 and November 2020 (22 months), allowing it to reach a wider audience than opposition parties.
Part three of a year-long investigation conducted by Kumar Sambhav of The Reporters’ Collective (TRC) and Nayantara Ranganathan of ad.watch, a research project that studies political ads on social media, and published by Al Jazeera has revealed that Facebook showed a BJP ad on average one million times but charged only Rs 41, 844 from the party, its candidates and affiliated organisations.
On the other hand, the report discovered that the social media giant charged the Congress, its candidates and affiliated organisations Rs 53,776 on average to show one ad for the same number of times.
— source newsclick.in | 16 Mar 2022