Speaking of FB ad targeting in elections, I was recently surprised to learn that an advertiser can give FB a specific list of names of people they want to target.<p>I learned that because I own a handful of shares of Arconic, which is a company in the midst of a hostile takeover attempt. I was rather curious how FB figured that out... but both sides know my identity, and apparently whatever I agreed to when I opened a brokerage account included giving my identity to companies I invest in, and them giving it to activist investors, and the company/investors giving it to social networks.<p>My understanding is that in the US at least, it's common for both parties to attempt to maintain complete databases of all voters, so it's feasible for them to select individual ad targets themselves and just give FB the names.
One of the weird things (for Americans) about UK elections is the really tiny amount of money involved, because almost all advertising is banned or spending-restricted. Everyone gets a free mailshot and a 10-minute TV slot or two (party political broadcast), but you don't get tons of attack ads on TV, "PACs", or even paid billboards.<p>Facebook is very different. There was apparently a lot of very sophisticated targeting going on for Brexit.<p>(There are a number of conservative MPs under investigation by the police for violating spending limits, plus a developing story about money laundering from HSBC: <a href="https://www.thecanary.co/2017/04/28/breaking-dark-money-hsbc-conservatives-2010-election/" rel="nofollow">https://www.thecanary.co/2017/04/28/breaking-dark-money-hsbc...</a> )
Associated Guardian article on the tool: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/03/free-software-reveal-facebook-election-posts-targeted-chrome-extension" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/03/free-soft...</a>
It's not immediately obvious what the utility of this plugin is. They say it can show me who's targeting me with ads on Facebook... well, can't I just go to Facebook to find this out?<p>I'm not saying there isn't any utility, but I don't think it's obvious enough from reading the front page of the site.
People install extensions that have access to things like "all data on Facebook.com" <i>far</i> too easily from complete strangers on the internet :/
The use of targetted ads during elections was the reason I quit facebook<p>I had read an interview the one of the UKIP social media guys talking about that US company that provided services to the leave campaign. he shut his own facebook down after hearing about how it worked
Now I may be being cynical, but as an advertiser, couldn't this project be just as easily an attempt to backwards construct targeting by competitors of companies and politicians?