A key Democrat on the Federal Election Commission has stepped up her attacks on microtargeted political ads praised for letting campaigns reach minority groups ignored in mass advertising blitzes.
Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, taking a shot at Facebook’s decision to allow microtargeting, hit a Washington Post column that called the practice “cost-effective.”
She dismissively tweeted, “It’s amazing to me how #microtargeting is largely being justified on grounds that it’s ‘cost-effective.’ You know what else is cost-effective? Child labor. Dumping sewage into rivers. Fraud.”
She added, “Just because something is cost-effective does not necessarily make it a good idea.”
It’s amazing to me how #microtargeting is largely being justified on grounds that it’s “cost-effective.”
You know what else is cost-effective? Child labor. Dumping sewage into rivers. Fraud.
Just because something is cost-effective does not necessarily make it a good idea. https://t.co/2lJotJsFBY
— Ellen L Weintraub (@EllenLWeintraub) January 9, 2020
The Post column from Henry Olsen argued that microtargeting lets campaigns reach ignored minorities.
“Minorities of all types recognize that their interests and beliefs are often underserved and ignored by a majority that does not share them. Microtargeting makes it cost-effective for political actors to address those concerns. This is true for the left and the right: The trans community can get ads addressing their concerns just as easily as the religiously orthodox can addressing theirs. Microtargeting enables diversity of opinion by letting like-minded minorities organize cost-effectively. As such, it should be lauded, not blasted,” said the column posted Thursday.
Journalism professor Jeff Jarvis posted on Medium, “Without targeting, we are left with mass media — at the extreme, Super Bowl commercials — and the people who can afford them: billionaires and those loved by them. Without targeting, big money will forever be in charge of commerce and politics. Targeting is an antidote.” He cited several ads, including one promoting the “National Trans Visibility March.”
Weintraub, the former chairwoman of the FEC, has written that microtargeting instead can be used for bad purposes. She wrote in the Post in November, “It is easy to single out susceptible groups and direct political misinformation to them with little accountability, because the public at large never sees the ad.”
But some on both sides said the effect of limiting microtargeting of campaign ads is limiting free speech, especially for campaigns that aren’t rich.
Former FEC Chairman Lee Goodman, a champion of new technology and online speech, said, “Microtargeting helps American citizens communicate their political ideas effectively in a democracy.”
And he was critical of efforts to curb it. “Comparing free speech to sewage says all you need to know about the value Commissioner Weintraub places on First Amendment rights,” he told Secrets.
