When accusations were flying at Facebook for allegedly helping spread fake news about the 2016 US election, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded by saying the idea that Facebook had any serious impact on the election was a "crazy" one.
But Facebook had apparently been proudly documenting the influence it had on politics, and even reportedly had a section in the "Success Stories" tab on its business site that showed how much of a role the platform had played in elections around the world, according to the Intercept.
Facebook has taken the tab down after the 2016 election controversy, but links to the "success stories" it had touted remain online.
One story Facebook cited looked at how the social media site helped Florida Gov. Rick Scott get elected to his position in 2011. The page states that Scott was hoping to reach a wider Hispanic and Cuban audience, and was able to do so through targeted Facebook ads that often targeted people following the 2010 World Cup that was going on at the same time as Scott's campaign.
One of Scott's strategists, Andrew Abdel-Malik, said the ads were invaluable for the campaign.
"Facebook Ads provided us with unique targeting capabilities to look beyond broad demographics and specifically target messages in English and Spanish to specific groups of Cuban, Puerto Rican and other descent," he said, according to Facebook's page. "This allowed us to reach different sub-groups of Hispanic voters in ways that were simply not feasible on TV and radio."
According to Facebook, the ads led to a 22% increase in Hispanic support for the campaign.
Another "success story" concerned the the Scottish National Party's victory in the 2015 UK elections. Following the failed Scottish independence referendum in 2014, the party wanted to personalize its message, and harness its limited but growing grassroots support.
The director of Industrial News Media, Kirk J. Torrance, summed up how important Facebook was for achieving the party's eventual electoral victory.
15-03-2018 - Vidéo Mark Zuckerberg /
