Online Political Microtargeting: Promises and Threats for Democracy

TL;DR

This paper examines the potential benefits and risks of online political microtargeting, highlighting its impact on democracy, privacy concerns, and possible regulatory measures within legal frameworks.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive mapping of microtargeting's promises and threats, and discusses regulatory options respecting freedom of expression.

Findings

Microtargeting can increase political engagement and campaign effectiveness.

It poses privacy risks and potential for misleading voters.

Regulatory measures can be designed to balance effectiveness and rights.

Abstract

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.