Over the last decade, social media has become a primary source of political content and news for many voters and their growing influence on elections highlights the importance of third-party monitoring. To be confident at the ballot box, voters should be assured that these platforms responsibly manage and report political ads.

We spoke with Sam Jeffers, co-founder of Who Targets Me (WTM), an independent organisation aiming to make online political ads more transparent. WTM has been Liberties’ technical partner in our 2024 EP elections monitoring project. Sam discussed WTM’s tools, the challenges of tracking digital campaigns, and the broader impact of social media on political discourse.

Building Social Media Transparency Tools

Who Targets Me offers various transparency tools. The Who Targets Me browser extension, their flagship tool, crowdsources political ads from Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter and collects their targeting data. With the browser extension, researchers “can see through the eyes of volunteers what people are seeing in [different] demographics”, rather than relying on tech giants’ self-reported data from public ad libraries. Sam calls it “the baby” that founded the organisation. Another of their main tools, Trends, “tracks spending targeting and messaging using data from ad libraries”, rather than from users themselves. Analysing data from Trends along with the WTM browser extension allows for comparisons between content reported on ad libraries and content shown to real users in practice.

How Political Systems Impact Targeting Strategies

Since WTM’s tools are active in over 50 countries, their research often finds staunch differences in advertising strategies depending on specific political contexts. In the US, only a few key swing states are seen as truly influential in elections, prompting candidates to rely on geographic targeting for the brunt of their advertising using so-called ‘custom lists’. In a more proportionally representational system like Germany, precise targeting matters less, so parties and candidates tend to use simpler methods.

In addition to strategic factors, much of the contrast in targeting strategies between countries comes down to cultural and legislative differences. As Sam explained, “the US just doesn't have data protection law in the way that Europe does. Some countries in Europe have a combination of strong beliefs in data protection law, and also historic and cultural reasons for not gathering big lists of political supporters and opponents.”

Microtargeting: The Risks of Personalised Political Messaging

Sam noted that microtargeting was especially prevalent in the recent US presidential election, where location-based targeting was used to target “zip codes with large numbers of Jewish voters or large numbers of Arab voters with specific and often opposing messages about the policies on Gaza”. This instance provides a relevant case for the potential dangers of microtargeting, as voters could have completely contrasting interpretations of a political campaign, depending on the campaign’s assumptions of what type of messaging they would find most favourable. Rather than audiences choosing candidates based on their true ideologies, campaigns can strategically embrace or discard political views based on which voters they expect to reach.

Looming Questions About the Future of Political Media

The impact of money in politics is growing hand-in-hand with the digital revolution, especially in countries where funding has historically played less of a role. As European campaigns in particular find effective strategies for advertising through social media, increased funding for these operations will likely follow. Sam explained, “if you look at the spending patterns on advertising in the US, they're quite consistent. You don't see so much of a big spike in the days before an election because the spending is just so high all the time. In Europe, there's a lot of space to go for [spending] to get bigger.”

Ensuring True Transparency

Social media’s political ad reporting is often incomplete or flawed due to mistakes and intentional malfeasance. “Some advertisers knowingly avoid verification,” Sam notes, including foreign actors and candidates who reject reporting processes. WTM’s tools help identify unmonitored ads and hold platforms accountable. As Sam puts it, “you should hope that these platforms do a good job of publishing political advertising, but you should be able to audit and verify that they are actually capturing the things they should be capturing. We run a browser extension that allows us to check user data against the ad libraries. It is really good at showing the ads that people actually see.”

Social media’s growing role in politics demands transparency and accountability. WTM’s innovative tools and global research shine a light on hidden advertising practices. By empowering voters and fostering accountability, their work promotes a future where technology serves democracy, not manipulation.

More resources from this project

Who tries to influence your vote on Facebook?

Polish Elections and the Rising Tide of Social Media

Who Owns Your News? Exploring Shifts in Spanish News and Elections

French Regulations Restrict Political Ads, Yet the Far-Right Surge

Bulgaria’s 2024 EP Elections: From Problematic Targeting Techniques to Regulatory Gaps

How Hungary’s Media Landscape Reinforces State Power