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> It used to be that all of your advertising was public, so it was possible to see what promises are being made, what kind of terminology is being used, etc. et
by brandonmenc 8y ago
> It used to be that all of your advertising was public, so it was possible to see what promises are being made, what kind of terminology is being used, etc. etc. In the Facebook era you can hyper-target your ads to only show to a small subsection of people, without anyone knowing what you're saying.
If say, before the 1990s, a national candidate sent out targeted mailers to some little town in flyover country, no one would have ever seen them.
We're in a similar but imo potentially not much worse situation because if anything it's easier to publicize that it happens.
It seems strange to you because the person getting a targeted ad is in the next room over instead of next voting district, but it's the same principle.
- jonhendry18 8y agoThe problem here is that the targeted ad could be something from an unidentified source that is designed to make the recipient more receptive to certain messages. Xenophobic propaganda, etc. Later the "legit" advertising could be more effective on those people.
- wadkar 8y agoNo, I don’t suppose we’re in a similar situation. In your example, the mailer would leave a paper trail or more importantly one would expect such a mailer to disclose who’s sending them. Secondly, the scale and efficiency with which one could target was rather limited. Specifically, the candidate would have a hard time not only “targeting” the right audience but also find it rather impossible to customize the content of the mailer to individual recipient. It is not based on the same principle - one involves human actors and associated inefficiencies and “unscalability” while other involves mindless robots over zealously bombarding “targeted” audience with deception and lies.