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Content Type: Video
In recent years, the use of online political campaigning has gained significant traction, with regulatory bodies often struggling to catch up. The unregulated use of political ads can pose threats to transparency, and all the more so when online platforms fail to play their part.
We at PI, together with ELSAM, are investigating the reach, effectiveness and impact of regulation by social media platforms and electoral authorities on online political advertising. Our research has shown…
Content Type: Video
Nos últimos anos, o uso de campanhas políticas online ganhou força significativa, com os órgãos reguladores muitas vezes lutando para se atualizar. O uso não regulamentado da propaganda política pode representar ameaças à transparência, ainda mais quando as plataformas online deixam de cumprir a sua parte.
A PI, juntamente com o InternetLab, está investigando o alcance, a eficácia e o impacto da regulamentação por plataformas de mídia social e autoridades eleitorais na…
Content Type: Video
In recent years, the use of online political campaigning has gained significant traction, with regulatory bodies often struggling to catch up. The unregulated use of political ads can pose threats to transparency, and all the more so when online platforms fail to play their part.
We at PI, together with InternetLab, are investigating the reach, effectiveness and impact of regulation by social media platforms and electoral authorities on online political advertising. Our research has…
Content Type: Examples
Following the Trump re-election campaign's "block" purchase of Youtube homepage ad space - known as its masthead - in early 2020, Youtube has announced that it will be “retiring” reservations for full-day advertisements on its coveted homepage ad spot beginning in 2021, a change it said it communicated to advertisers earlier this year.
Instead, advertisers will only be able to buy that spot on a per-impression basis, making it harder for a single advertiser to dominate the…
Content Type: Examples
The Trump re-election campaign reportedly purchased advertising space on the Youtube homepage for early November, ensuring that Trump-affiliated political ads will be featured prominently on the platform prior to Election Day on November 3rd.
Ads on the Youtube masthead (as the video on top of the homepage is known) benefit from wide exposure and visibility. While the amount spent by the Trump campaign in Youtube advertising in the key dates prior to the election is unclear, masthead…
Content Type: Examples
On Election Day, there were some reports of Facebook users not seeing the "Why am I seeing this ad" information tab on political ads appearing on their newsfeeds.
Affected users were shown an error message stating "You can't use this feature right now. We limit how often you can post, comment or do other things in a given amount of time in order to help protect the community from spam. You can try again later. If you think this doesn't go against our Community Standards let us know…
Content Type: Examples
Less than a week before the election, the Democratic Party reported that Facebook's social media advertising systems had prevented the campaign from running some ads, allegedly resulting in the loss of more than $500,000 in potential campaign donations.
According to Facebook, the flaws resulted from a change in its political ads policy for the final week of the campaign. The policy change was intended to prevent political advertisers from uploading new ads in the week…
Content Type: Video
The incorporation of new technologies to electoral processes is a phenomenon with a global and exponential growth. Despite its benefits, online campaigning is not without challenges, and can pose threats to transparency and equity in electoral competition. Given the role of elections as foundational pillars of the democratic system and a key gateway for the exercise of fundamental civil rights, these implications must be assessed with care and through specific tools.
We at PI, together…
Content Type: Video
When exposed to online political ads, individuals are usually - though not always - able to reliably identify the political actors behind the ad. However, there is little transparency in relation to the targeting mechanisms operating behind some of the ads - an users are rightly concerned.
Behind the social media curtain, political actors avail themselves of data collected through a range of sources to infer additional data about their voters. This…
Content Type: Guide step
Twitter plays an increasingly important role as a space facilitating democratic engagement, debate and dissent. However, Twitter's track record in relation to protecting people's data has in some instances fallen short of expectations. In August 2019, for example, Twitter revealed that it had shared with advertisers the data of users who had opted-out of personalised ads. More recently, Twitter admitted that data which had been given by users for safety security purposes had been "…
Content Type: Guide step
Like other tech platforms, TikTok (which is owned by ByteDance) makes most of its money from advertising. TikTok allows advertisers to target ads on the basis of custom or lookalike audiences, namely targeting users on the basis of pre-defined characteristics.
The screenshots below outline some of the steps you can take to minimise the data you share on TikTok.
1. Once signed into the app, click on the three bars in the upper right-hand corner.
Content Type: Guide step
See the below screenshots to learn how to reduce targeted ads on Instagram.
Generally though, it’s tough to minimise targeted ads on phones because ads can be delivered based on data from the device level (such as what operating system your phone is using or based on unique numbers that identify your phone), browser level (what you search for within a browser), and within the apps you use. An app could target ads at you based on your location (tied to your unique device id number(s)) for…
Content Type: Guide step
Facebook can be an important tool for individuals to spread messages and ideas around the globe. For these reasons, it’s not possible for some people to simply stop using Facebook. However, we continue to be very concerned about the company’s conduct.This guide shows you how you can minimise the usage of your data for advertising recommendations on Facebook.1. Go to facebook.com and log in
Content Type: Guide step
Google is enormous and is expert at accumulating data. Its main source of revenue is advertising. The company dominates search, has a dominant web browser Chrome, owns YouTube (and many other companies), is the designer/develop of Android, the operating system that runs on nearly 75% of global smart phones.Below is a set of steps you can take if you wish to minimise ad targeting when using Google.1. Go to gmail.com and sign in
Content Type: Explainer
Recently the role of social media and search platforms in political campaigning and elections has come under scrutiny. Concerns range from the spread of disinformation, to profiling of users without their knowledge, to micro-targeting of users with tailored messages, to interference by foreign entities, and more. Significant attention has been paid to the transparency of political ads - what are companies doing to provide their users globally with meaningful transparency into how they…