I think the problem is more in microtargeting than in anything else. Once upon a time, advertisers would struggle to create an ad campaign that had broad appea

I think the problem is more in microtargeting than in anything else. Once upon a time, advertisers would struggle to create an ad campaign that had broad appeal, that was disseminated broadly. Think Budweiser Frogs and other superbowl commercials. Now a campaign can be targeted to divorced white men over 40 whose ex's have remarried and consist of allusions to the false fact that jerks like your ex's new husband drink Miller, therefore you should drink Bud. What is bad is with A_B testing, machine learning and low cost targeting, the process of creating those campaign gets easier. When applied to politics it gets even worse. Because now you can target your racists message to just the racists, and your wholesome family message to soccer moms, safe in the knowledge that these contradictory messages will never been seen by the wrong audience thanks to Facebook et. al. So of course ads for tactical gear are going to show up next to insurrection posts by the kookitariat and ads for homesafety will show up next to cat picture posts by soccer moms - even if it is the same company selling the same products.