Spot the technique

A Media Literacy Week challenge with real 2026 political ads. Each day from Monday, October 26 to Friday, October 30: two ads, one from each side, built around the same persuasion technique. Pick the techniques you see, then check them against what Semblen found.

A technique is about wording, not about whether an ad is true or a side is right. Semblen's labels are a second opinion, not the answer key: disagreeing with one, for a reason, counts. Teachers: the classroom lesson builds a class period around it.

The challenge starts Monday, October 26. A new pair of ads opens here each morning (US Eastern).

The ads come from the public ad archives (Meta Ad Library and campaign YouTube channels) and are shown as they ran. See every ad in a race on the race pages, or paste any text into the analyzer.