News Item

The weirdly specific filters campaigns are using to micro-target you | MIT Technology Review

The NYU Ad Observatory released new data this week about the inputs the Trump and Biden campaigns are using to target audiences for ads on Facebook. It’s a jumble of broad and specific characteristics ranging from the extremely wide (“any users between the ages of 18-65”) to particular traits (people with an “interest in Lin-Manuel Miranda”). Campaigns use these filters—usually several on each advertisement—to direct advertisements to segments of Facebook users in attempts to persuade, mobilize, or fundraise. The data shows that both campaigns have invested heavily in personality profiling using Facebook, similar to the tactics Cambridge Analytica claimed to employ in 2016. It also shows how personalized targeting can be: campaigns are able to upload lists of specific individual profiles they wish to target, and it’s clear from the study that this is a very common practice.

[…]

Source: The weirdly specific filters campaigns are using to micro-target you | MIT Technology Review