The Ethics of Political Advertising on Social Media

Abstract

This essay delves into the new frontier of political advertising on social media. The subject is both timely and provocative, becoming an important research area as Facebook forms a crucial arena for political news delivery, gathering, and processing. Riding on this wave, the Brexit campaigns in 2016 and the U.S. presidential election in 2016 were largely won online. However, academic research has mainly focused on whether or not the usage of social media contributed to the outcome of the campaigns, but less so on the increasing money that political organizations have been spending on social media advertising. It is essential to look at both sides of the online political advertising phenomena to better understand the potential impacts. This essay takes an in-depth look at some of the first recorded political advertising campaigns on Facebook in the first half of 2019 in the U.S. The central scope focuses on ethical concerns surrounding the use of micro-targeted political ads on social media. Data analyses from the primary texts of the political ads accompany the essays, which are coded following the guidelines drawn up by who was behind a study conducted on the Cambridge Analytical scandal find polarizing hate speech employing techniques of disinformation, as well as divisive questioning and others. Finally, make an evaluation of the regulatory framework of political ads and the lack thereof in the most important cases.

Keywords ethics, political advertising, social media, micro-targeting, disinformation, regulation, Facebook, campaigns