Well-publicized debates over Cambridge Analytica and foreign influence campaigns after the 2016 presidential election brought attention not only to the lack of regulation addressing political advertising online but also the increasingly central role that digital advertising platforms play in US elections. During the 2016 cycle, there was little awareness of what campaigns were capable of or what platforms allowed regarding paid political content. Heading into the 2020 US presidential election these are now central concerns.
Below, we document the policies and advertising targeting capabilities of major, easily-accessible digital advertising platforms across over a dozen categories.
In the downloadable report we outline five key takeaways from this research and detail what they mean for future US elections. This report focuses on the facts and issues that we do not often see being discussed or acknowledged adequately in journalistic, academic, and other research.
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