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Online Political Microtargeting: Promises and Threats for Democracy
Frederik J. Zuiderveen Borgesius, Judith Möller, Sanne Kruikemeier, Ronan Ó Fathaigh, Kristina Irion, Tom Dobber, Balazs Bodo, Claes de Vreese
TL;DR
Online political microtargeting uses personal and behavioural data to tailor political advertisements, creating both democratic opportunities and risks. This paper maps its promises and threats through legal and social-science analysis, then discusses possible regulation under freedom-of-expression constraints. It concludes that microtargeting may improve relevance, reach, and campaign efficiency while also enabling manipulation, privacy harms, fragmented public debate, and difficult regulatory choices.
Problem
Online political microtargeting may improve political communication but also threaten privacy, public deliberation, and democratic accountability, creating a need to assess its promises and risks.
Method
The paper combines legal and social-science perspectives to examine microtargeting’s practice, democratic promises and threats, and possible European policy interventions.
Results
Microtargeting may provide more relevant advertising, reach otherwise difficult-to-reach citizens, support efficient campaigns, and increase issue knowledge, while also enabling manipulation, privacy threats, and fragmented public opinion.
Takeaways & Limitations
Microtargeting presents simultaneous democratic benefits and risks, so policy responses must account for both its potential value and its possible harms.
Takeaways & Limitations
The paper states that definitive policy advice is premature because the precise workings and effects of online political microtargeting remain unclear.
Abstract
from arXiv · showhide
Online political microtargeting involves monitoring people's online behaviour, and using the collected data, sometimes enriched with other data, to show people-targeted political advertisements. Online political microtargeting is widely used in the US; Europe may not be far behind. This paper maps microtargeting's promises and threats to democracy. For example, microtargeting promises to optimise the match between the electorate's concerns and political campaigns, and to boost campaign engagement and political participation. But online microtargeting could also threaten democracy. For instance, a political party could, misleadingly, present itself as a different one-issue party to different individuals. And data collection for microtargeting raises privacy concerns. We sketch possibilities for policymakers if they seek to regulate online political microtargeting. We discuss which measures would be possible, while complying with the right to freedom of expression under the European Convention on Human Rights.
1. Introduction
Online political microtargeting combines voter data research with personalised political advertising to tailor messages to individual interests and vulnerabilities. The paper examines its democratic promises and threats, drawing on legal and social-science perspectives focused mainly on Europe and the US.
- Online political microtargeting uses voter information to identify persuadable individuals and match messages to their interests and vulnerabilities.Modern online marketing techniques are presented as making targeting more tailored and potentially more effective.
- Microtargeting involves collecting information about people and using it to show them targeted political advertisements.The advertisements may adapt their issues, format, and language to individual needs and interests.
- The practice could increase political participation and voter knowledge, but it could also enable misleading one-issue presentations and raise privacy concerns.
- The paper asks what online political microtargeting is and what promises and threats it presents for democracy.It combines legal and social-science insights and focuses mostly on European countries and the United States.
2. Online political microtargeting
Online political microtargeting is a data-driven form of personalised political communication that uses online behavioural, demographic, consumer, and lifestyle information to target narrow voter groups. Originating most strongly in the United States, it is increasingly attracting European parties, consultants, and data providers.
- Online political microtargeting tracks or analyses voter data to deliver personalised messages to individual voters or narrow categories.The paper also describes it as political behavioural advertising based on tracking online behaviour.
- Political parties use microtargeting to identify likely supporters and select policy stances or mobilising messages matching targeted voters’ interests.
- In the United States, integrated voter platforms, commercial data, social-media analysis, and mobile applications have driven increasingly sophisticated data-driven campaigning.
- US parties and intermediaries hold detailed voter information, enabling more refined online political marketing than traditional canvassing.
- US companies offer politicians services that use large voter datasets and personality predictions to tailor advertisements across online platforms.Cambridge Analytica claimed to have collected up to 5,000 data points on over 230 million American voters.
- European adoption remains less developed than in the United States but is expanding through emulation, consultants, voter databases, and data brokers.The UK Conservatives and other European parties invested in microtargeting capabilities and external expertise.
3. Promises
The paper identifies potential benefits of microtargeting for citizens, political parties, and public opinion. Tailored online messages may reach otherwise disengaged voters, help campaigns target resources, and broaden the issues discussed during elections.
- Microtargeting may increase participation and political knowledge by delivering relevant information and mobilising citizens.
- 3.1 Citizens: Targeted advertisements can connect specific audiences with agenda points relevant to their interests rather than exposing everyone to the same mass message.
- 3.1 Citizens: Tailored political advertising may prompt politically uninterested citizens to seek information and perhaps vote.The paper illustrates this possibility with a young citizen who encounters a targeted message on Facebook.
- 3.1 Citizens: Online targeting may reach citizens who avoid television news and newspapers, potentially increasing their political interest and electoral participation.
- 3.2 Political parties: For parties, microtargeting promises relatively cheap, efficient, and effective communication, including access for smaller campaigns that cannot afford television advertising.
- 3.2 Political parties: A party adopting microtargeting first may gain a temporary advantage by concentrating personalised communication on likely supporters in competitive constituencies.
- 3.3 Public opinion: Microtargeting may diversify campaigns by exposing voters to niche policy topics and helping them focus limited attention on personally important issues.
4. Threats
The paper identifies threats from microtargeting for citizens, political parties, and public opinion. These include privacy invasion, manipulation, exclusion, unequal campaign resources, intermediary power, distorted policy perceptions, and weaker public deliberation.
- 4.1 Citizens: Data breaches can expose sensitive personal information collected for political targeting.The paper cites a 2017 breach involving data on almost 200 million US citizens.
- 4.1 Citizens: Political parties could manipulate engagement by tailoring information to voters’ vulnerabilities, including through misleading or false messages.
- 4.1 Citizens: Targeted dark posts can suppress opponents’ turnout while remaining invisible to people who are not targeted.
- 4.1 Citizens: Different voters may see different one-issue versions of the same party, producing biased perceptions and reducing transparency about its broader platform.
- 4.1 Citizens: Campaigns may ignore groups considered unlikely to vote or unnecessary to win, leaving them less informed about elections.
- 4.1 Citizens: Microtargeting can threaten citizens through large-scale data collection, privacy invasion, manipulation, and exclusion from campaign communication.The paper notes that data collection remains a privacy threat even if targeting is ineffective.
- 4.2 Political parties: Professional microtargeting can be expensive and may advantage larger, better-financed parties over smaller or newer parties.
- 4.2 Political parties: New intermediaries such as platforms and data consultancies may gain gatekeeping power, while older media intermediaries lose resources for roles such as fact checking.
5. Nuancing the threats
The paper argues that online political microtargeting’s threats should not be exaggerated in Europe because legal, electoral, financial, and informational conditions constrain its reach. These factors do not eliminate the threats or guarantee fair data use.
- 5.1 Legal system: The absence of a general US data-protection law and the larger US data-broker industry help explain the greater prevalence of microtargeting there.European law makes it harder to lawfully obtain personal data from data brokers.
- 5.1 Legal system: European data-protection rules make political microtargeting more difficult than in the US, although compliance and enforcement remain imperfect.Political-opinion data receive especially strict protection, while transparency and consent requirements may still fail to inform people adequately.
- 5.2 Electoral systems and campaign budgets: Majoritarian electoral systems make some votes especially valuable, whereas many European systems reduce the incentive to target voters as narrowly as US campaigns do.In the US, campaigns may concentrate on swing states because those votes can decide the election.
- 5.2 Electoral systems and campaign budgets: European campaigns generally have lower budgets than US campaigns, limiting their capacity to deploy expensive microtargeting at comparable scale.The 2016 Clinton and Trump campaigns had total budgets of about $1.4 billion and $957 million, respectively.
- 5.3 Voters do not live in digital bubbles: Voters continue to encounter political information through television, conversations, and other non-targeted sources, which may mitigate filter-bubble effects.The paper therefore concludes that microtargeting brings serious threats, but those threats should not be exaggerated.
6. Regulating online political microtargeting
The paper examines how online political microtargeting can be regulated while respecting freedom of expression under the European Convention on Human Rights. It presents transparency, further research, expenditure limits, and possible bans as options, but emphasizes unresolved legal and empirical questions.
- Freedom of expression: Online political microtargeting appears to fall within freedom of expression because it involves publishing information to influence voters.Political advertising and the means of transmitting or receiving political information are also protected under Article 10.
- Freedom of expression: Political speech receives the highest level of Article 10 protection, so restrictions require strict scrutiny and convincing justification.The Court generally allows little scope for restrictions on political speech, which must be narrowly interpreted.
- Freedom of expression: The Court’s case law is mixed: TV Vest rejected a general advertising ban as applied to a small party, while Animal Defenders upheld a total ban on political television advertising.TV Vest emphasized the party’s lack of alternative ways to reach the public; Animal Defenders accepted concerns about abuse and electoral protection.
- Freedom of expression: Rules on online political microtargeting must respect freedom of expression, although statutory control of public debate may be justified to protect the electoral process.The Court has recognized that electoral-period risks to pluralist debate and democracy can be especially acute.
- Evidence and policy uncertainty: Definitive policy advice remains premature because the precise workings and effects of online political microtargeting are unclear.The paper calls for more research, including normative work on when its benefits outweigh its risks.
- Possible regulation: Policymakers could require parties to disclose spending, archive advertisements, identify sponsors, and state whether ads are targeted.Such transparency could help researchers, journalists, and regulators assess what parties promise to different audiences and investigate data processing.
- Possible regulation: More substantive measures, including expenditure caps or election-period bans, could be considered if research shows that microtargeting requires stronger intervention.Expenditure limits may violate Article 10 in some circumstances, while party-only bans risk circumvention through third-party targeting.
7. Concluding thoughts
Online political microtargeting offers potential benefits for citizens, politicians, and public opinion, but also creates privacy, fairness, opacity, and fragmentation risks. The paper argues that policymakers should improve transparency and gather more information while respecting freedom of expression.
- Microtargeting may make political advertising more relevant, reach otherwise difficult-to-reach citizens, and help politicians campaign efficiently and effectively.The paper also notes that it can sometimes be cheap for politicians.
- Microtargeting can contribute to more diverse political campaigns and greater voter knowledge about certain issues.
- Microtargeting can invade privacy, enable exclusion or manipulation, and let parties misleadingly present different one-issue identities to different audiences.
- Large parties may gain an unfair advantage from costly microtargeting, while powerful intermediaries, opaque party priorities, and fragmented political discussion create further democratic risks.
- The paper cautions that microtargeting’s influence may be weaker in Europe than in the US and that online political advertising has limited influence on voters.
- Policymakers should improve transparency and obtain more information before developing regulation, while carefully respecting freedom of expression in political speech and advertising.