OREM — Four new billboards along I-15 may be causing commuters through Utah County to glance up, do a double-take, and think to themselves, “I’ll have to Google that later.”
And that’s exactly what the group behind the digital billboards — which feature the slogan “Trump-Zuckerberg 2020” alongside photos of the president and tech mogul — wants Utahns to do.
The signs were paid for by The Really Online Lefty League (or TROLL), a California-based PAC, in response to recent reports that President Donald Trump hosted a previously undisclosed meeting with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook board member Peter Thiel at the White House in October.
It’s the organization’s latest stunt to raise awareness of what they see as problematic practices and behavior from Facebook and its founder, especially when it comes to political advertising standards. The decision to make a statement “in the real world” — rather than via the internet — was an intentional attempt to reach an audience who may not already be following the story online, TROLL treasurer Adriel Hampton told the Deseret News.
So why Utah? It’s nothing personal against the Beehive State, Hampton said. The group chose to put the billboards in Orem and Spanish Fork because of their proximity to Facebook’s new Eagle Mountain data center, which is set to be completed next year.
The group also has tentative plans to place billboards in California, where Facebook is based, and right outside of Washington, D.C.
“I don’t want to single out Utah,” Hampton said. “I’m a huge respecter of the state as being one of the least corrupt American states and also as being much more independent than a lot of the partisan states.”
Hampton added that he considers himself to be “nonpartisan” and is not affiliated with any political party.
But recent events, especially the undisclosed dinner between Zuckerberg — “one of the richest and most powerful people in the world, creator of the most successful communications platform ever invented” — and the president of the United States, have made the importance of transparency “abundantly clear,” Hampton said.
“It boggles my mind that you wouldn’t just say, ‘Hey, we had dinner together,’’’ Hampton said. “That’s how an open democracy works, and (instead) we’re having secret meetings between heads of powerful corporations and heads of state.”
It isn’t the first time TROLL has created a fake advertisement to make a statement about the social media giant. Last month, the group ran a Facebook ad falsely claiming that Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, had endorsed the Green New Deal. They created the ad after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., questioned Zuckerberg about his company’s decision to not fact-check some political ads during a congressional hearing.
“Could I run ads targeting Republicans in primaries saying that they voted for the Green New Deal?” Ocasio-Cortez asked Zuckerberg during the Oct. 23 hearing.
“Congresswoman, I don’t know the answer to that off the top of my head,” Zuckerberg replied. “I think probably.”
The TROLL ad ran successfully on Facebook until it was flagged by a fact-checking group hired by the social media platform, CNN reported, at which point Facebook canceled the ad. The fake video was allowed to remain on the site, but under certain conditions; one of those conditions was that users were alerted of the fact-check flag before sharing the video.
But the billboards in Utah are intended to reach “a different kind of audience” than an online campaign, Hampton said Friday.
He isn’t sure how long the billboards, which cost $50 a day, will remain up. But while they’re active, the PAC hopes they pique people’s curiosity.
“I hope they’ll Google it when they get home,” Hampton said.