Going Micro to Go Negative? Targeting Toxicity using Facebook and Instagram Ads

Spreading uncivil negative campaign messages is a "high-risk, high reward" campaign strategy since certain voters are more likely to be swayed by negative messaging whereas other voters are more inclined to feel sympathy with the attacked. At the same time, advertising platforms boast of their ability to deliver ads to highly targeted audiences. Uncivil negative ads, in particular, could be optimized to narrowly target citizens because such ads are likely to appeal to only a particular subset of voters. However, campaigns may also try to outsource their uncivil ads to outside groups to avoid potential backlash. To study whether such optimizations are occurring, we retrieve all online advertisements that were placed on Facebook platforms (incl. Instagram) in the seven months before the US 2020 election. We perform logistic regression and find that, counter to our expectations, ads with a narrower audience are less likely to be uncivil than ads targeted at a broader audience. However, we do find that ads from outside groups (like super PACs and non-profits) are more likely to be uncivil. We discuss the findings in light of this evidence and reflect upon future research regarding microtargeting uncivil negative messages on online platforms such as Facebook.