The point stands that political ads on broadcast stations are regulated and those on social media are not. That is problematic. However, FCC regs seem to allow stations to charge different prices based on the “class” of the placement. Not sure what the right social media equivalent of “class” would be. Seems reasonable that it might include targeting and campaign objectives. Which we don’t know in this case. So seems a stretch to imply that FB is charging a higher price for equivalent ads. They may be, but IMO the authors don’t have sufficient evidence based on what they could access.

> A candidate shall be charged no more per unit than the station charges its most favored commercial advertisers for the same classes and amounts of time for the same periods.

https://www.fcc.gov/media/policy/statutes-and-rules-candidat...

My assumptions would be for a given type they would get the lowest price. e.g. on-peak vs off-peak pricing would be two (2) different plans and ask different prices of which both could be lowest for that given specification.

For TV, based on time-slots, location, etc there are normally different tiers that have a range based on type of ad, length, play count, etc. I would imagine for each of these tiers a candidate would pay the lowest possible for each tiers' bracket.