> the effect is that each candidate spends tons of money on it, fighting each other I've been following Brexit since 2016 and my impression from the materials/

> the effect is that each candidate spends tons of money on it, fighting each other I've been following Brexit since 2016 and my impression from the materials/research available is that microtargeting via social networks is in fact cheaper than the "analog" campaigning. Let alone money spent on political ads are easier to dodge and thus not even report as campaign spending. But in any case microtargeting being cheaper is the reason it's being increasingly used in politics. Now taking the price into account, I'm not so sure energy consumption is greater for digital campaigns compared to the "analog" ones: consider rallies, talks other events that have a similar impact to microtargeting. That is not to say digital campaigning is better in any sense of the word, it is scary because it can be far more manipulative (take Brexit as an example), just that the carbon footprint argument is not very convincing to me in this case.