When you mark your campaigns as a special ad category, several targeting options and placements are excluded. Detailed email data targeting options such as race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, health, political preferences and certain behavioral data cannot be applied. Furthermore, you cannot exclude people based on age, gender or specific demographic characteristics. Local targeting may only be used for local elections. What can you target? Broader age groups, broad interests, custom audiences (if GDPR-proof), lookalikes (based on non-sensitive data) and engagement targeting.
Meta, the parent company of
Facebook and Instagram, among others, has announced that it will stop fact-checking on its platforms in the United States. A decision that seems to have been taken mainly to please Trump. The justified indignation about this revolves around the extra space that this creates for hate speech and discrimination. Although this decision is limited to the US for the time being, it raises questions about how social media platforms deal with their responsibility.
In Europe, we fortunately have the Digital Services Act (DSA), which obliges large online platforms to email database compliance guide protect users from disinformation. In the US, Meta will replace fact-checkers with a system similar to that of Platform X, namely Community Notes . But whether that is sufficient is already being investigated by the European Commission.
While I completely agree with all the fuss, I still wonder why we seem to be so surprised by these developments?
Big Tech follows the political wind
Meta’s choice does not come out of the blue. Like other Big Tech companies, it is a commercial company that has to make a profit and caseno email list adapt to new circumstances. That could be a new competitor, or a changing political wind. In an article I wrote for Frankwatching in 2012, I already stated that “Facebook goes with the flow”. We see this pattern again and again.
Meta has been sharpening its business model over the years to make more profit. Even if that means that consumer confidence or public values come under pressure. As I wrote 13 years ago:
To say that Facebook is no angel seems an understatement. In addition to accusations of tax evasion, Facebook has a knack for flouting privacy rules. This includes accusations about facial recognition and the retention of deleted photos. Facebook users are also tracked even after they log out.