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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me
@whotargets.me
3.5K followers 2.2K following 780 posts
On political ads, transparency and what's right for democracy. Go to https://whotargets.me/download to get involved, check out https://trends.whotargets.me for data on >100k digital political advertisers. Newsletter: fulldisclosure.whotargets.me
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 3h
Yes, transparency rules are good, but they are a challenge in a time when the wider dominance of the platforms as a means by which people get a lot of information seems unending.
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 4h
E.g. you're a local politician who wants to reach people in your patch. Shoot a quick video, buy some ads that target the 10 postcodes you represent. That's more hit and hope without ads.
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 4h
We wrote a long piece on up and downsides here. The biggest problem is people spend 10s of hrs a week on social media, and so most political speech is now algorithmically governed. Ads were *something* of a counterweight to that.
fulldisclosure.whotargets.me/p/how-and-wh...
How (and why) to fix political ads in the EU
Meta follows Google (and TikTok and Microsoft) and leaves the EU political advertising market. The damage will be significant.
fulldisclosure.whotargets.me
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 6h
The Conservatives are running a number of new digital ads promoting ideas announced at their conference - leaving the ECHR, abolishing stamp duty, cutting tax by £5,000 for first jobs all getting an airing. www.facebook.com/ads/library/...
whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 6h
Labour also runs "Reform Revealed", which attacks Farage's party's record in local government. Welsh Labour also runs ads going after Reform. It's something of a truism in British politics that Labour is too scared to go after Reform, but in their ads, they do it nearly every day.
whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 6h
But this fragmentation and uncertainty is far from ideal for the regulation, which says it "aims to contribute to the proper functioning of the internal market for political advertising and to support open and fair political debate". If that's the test, it's off to a bad start.
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 6h
Of course they will still buy some digital ads. Some smaller ad services will provide political advertising (and may do very well as a result). There will also be growth in influencer marketing, as well as shadier forms of amplification, designed to get platform algorithms to promote content.
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 6h
Digital campaigns will have to work out what to do. After a decade or so of relative stability (buy social media ads to reach the audiences you want) they will no longer have the option.
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 6h
Europe's new Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising rules kick in today. They set standards for ad labelling, spending disclosure and ad targeting. Unfortunately, thanks to Meta and Google deciding to leave the EU pol ads market, the effect of the regulation is very uncertain.
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 1d
And also, a number of "Labour is the patriotic party" type ads (this one is a greatest hits of sporting moments, music icons, full English breakfasts and union jacks, soundtracked by Come on Eileen by Dexy's). www.facebook.com/ads/library/...
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 1d
Labour has launched a number of attack ads targeting Reform and Nigel Farage. Goes after the party on health costs, racism allegations and being "recycled Tories".
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 2d
Many of the ads pushed people towards more direct forms of communication with the party and its satellites, designed to replace the loss of paid advertising, which Fidesz has dominated (around 80% of total spent since 2023) in Hungary for many years.
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 2d
In Hungary, it looks as if Meta's decision to end political advertising in Europe (announced late July) led to a significant increase in activity by Fidesz and its supporters/allies.
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 3d
bsky.app/profile/whot...
whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 3d
They've now changed their EU ad library too:
- No specific searches for political ads
- Only "all time" spending reports available (to Oct 3rd)
- No audience tab/targeting data
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 3d
To clarify - this is about paid ads. Those groups would be all organic/algorithmically recommended content.
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 3d
Apologies for the confusion earlier. Some of the ad library pages initially weren't loading correctly, and it looked as if all the data had been removed.
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 3d
If that's right, it's a bit better than Google's approach (who deleted their equivalent data). The historical record of what campaigns said, how much they spent and roughly to whom, is still there (for now at least).
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 3d
They've now changed their EU ad library too:
- No specific searches for political ads
- Only "all time" spending reports available (to Oct 3rd)
- No audience tab/targeting data
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 3d
The ads are still there - trying to work out what's changed and why it was so buggy for a bit there.
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 3d
Deleted the thread, as the ad lib was behaving oddly, and need to document the changes properly.
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 3d
We had been trying the last few days (since Google removed theirs), but their API is so slow and rate limited it was impossible.
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 3d
They stopped accepting ads, but we're 🤷 as to why they (and Google) felt they needed to delete historical data (malicious compliance?). Here's their announcement: about.fb.com/news/2025/07...
Ending Political, Electoral and Social Issue Advertising in the EU in Response to Incoming European Regulation
Update on October 6, 2025 at 10am PT: As of today, political, electoral and social issue adverts are no longer able to be delivered in the EU. Originally
about.fb.com
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 3d
Their API returns: "Political ad searches for countries in the European Union aren't available."
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 4d
There are real trade-offs. Most political ads aren't bad, and this change likely helps bad actors more than it protects democracy. Lots more about that here:
fulldisclosure.whotargets.me/p/how-and-wh...
How (and why) to fix political ads in the EU
Meta follows Google (and TikTok and Microsoft) and leaves the EU political advertising market. The damage will be significant.
fulldisclosure.whotargets.me
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whotargets.me
Who Targets Me @whotargets.me · 4d
Meta ends (at least for now) political ads in the EU today. Per their ad library data, they've run nearly 11,000,000 different political, social and issue ads in the EU since 2018 and made around €800m from them.
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