* KMOV TV followed up on my Monday blog post about a Facebook ad which claimed Sen. Andy Manar voted for the ComEd nuclear bailout which, the ad claimed, would cause layoffs in his district…

An Illinois state senator says Facebook refused to take down a recent political ad despite his claims it contained false information.

“There was little if anything I could do about it,’ said Andy Manar, a Democrat from Bunker Hill.

Manar says the ad, from the Christian County Republican Party, ran for several weeks on Facebook stating Manar had voted for a bailout of nuclear power plants. Manar had voted on the bill, but voted no.

“We did get though to Facebook and I’m going to paraphrase their response,” he said. “It’s not their job to match votes of public officials up to news stories that are promoted on their platform.” […]

“What’s most alarming is there’s a financial incentive for Facebook to allow lies, blatant lies, about the record of public officials to be told because the more provocative the lie, the more money they make on advertising,” he said.

Manar ran into more problems when Facebook rejected his response ad because it had violated Facebook’s policy of using another ad’s content.

* So did the Decatur Herald & Review…

A Republican challenger for state Sen. Andy Manar’s seat said he took down a factually incorrect ad on Facebook, but it’s unclear whether the ad is still reaching local voters when they log on to the social media site.

“I think it was up there for a few days … when I found out that it was not accurate, I had it taken down,” said Seth McMillan, a Republican who announced he is running against Manar and chairman of the Christian County GOP. […]

Manar said he saw the ad still appearing on his personal Facebook account as recently as last week, after McMillan said the ad had been removed.

When McMillan explained the process of how his organization removed the ad, he described what Facebook calls a “boosted post.” This type of advertising allows the operator of a public page, like the Christian County Republicans, to pay Facebook to show the post on more people’s news feeds. […]

But McMillan said he was not sure if his organization also paid for another type of Facebook ad that’s meant to show up on the sides of the social media site, and if so, whether it had been deleted.

* Meanwhile…

Fritz Kaegi has a mysterious problem: He’s running for Cook County assessor against a powerful politician, but someone has hijacked his online identity. […]

He’s just filed a legal action against GoDaddy, Facebook, Twitter, Crowdpac and others because someone created fake online web accounts in his name to raise campaign cash and connect with supporters. […]

The sham websites appeared shortly after Fritz announced he would challenge incumbent Assessor Joe Berrios, chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party.

A recent fake tweet mentions “orgies,” and a press release dated Aug. 29 says Kaegi was out talking about his campaign “with a deadly hurricane raging in Texas.”

“It’s creepy,” says Kaegi’s wife, Rebecca. “My children’s names and faces are on the fictional website.”

The Joe Berrios campaign denies involvement.