Microtargeting, privacy, and the need for regulating algorithms

Political microtargeting is an increasingly popular, privacy-invasive technique that is used to persuade or mobilize citizens. When privacy is understood as a means to protect individual citizens from undue influence, it is clear that social platforms’ microtargeting tools by design circumvent the protection that privacy is meant to offer. Microtargeting on social platforms is delegated to ad delivery algorithms that are opaque, proprietary, and ill-understood. In this chapter, I first discuss how microtargeting threatens privacy. I then present a short history on microtargeting and privacy regulations, after which I focus on how microtargeting works on Meta and Google. Finally, I discuss efforts to regulate and safeguard citizen privacy.