Today Twitter’s decision to ban political adverts takes effect. Online political advertising is under scrutiny like never before during this General Election campaign. While offering a potentially positive medium through which to engage citizens in the General Election, concerns have mounted over the past year at the potential for online advertising to be used for sinister purposes. Over recent weeks commentators have shown how campaigners have used personal data to target advertising messages to specific groups of voters online, resulting in detailed analyses of campaigners’ targeting strategies. Facebook has faced criticism for not doing the same, but has moved to increase advertising transparency.
And this week Google became the latest company to announce changes to online political advertising, with a different approach.
Google’s plans announced yesterday will limit political campaigners’ ability to target messages at certain types of audience. Now, election-related adverts across Google-owned sites and advertising spaces, including its search engine and YouTube, will only be able to be targeted by age, gender and location.
