very interesting article about how Facebook ad buys work
This article is intriguing for at least two reasons: Senator Mark Warner's tweet that Russia paid Facebook in rubles (could their interference be more blatantly illegal? It's not in the news yet. But he's on the Intelligence Committee. Hmm), and because it also explains how Facebook ads are targeted.
Wonkette actually cites ProPublica's article in theirs: https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-enabled-advertisers-to-reach-jew-haters
but Wonkette is so much fun to read, plus they're the one who made the point about Senator Warner tweeting something that isn't otherwise in the news yet.
Want to market Nazi memorabilia, or recruit marchers for a far-right rally? Facebook’s self-service ad-buying platform had the right audience for you.
Until this week, when we asked Facebook about it, the world’s largest social network enabled advertisers to direct their pitches to the news feeds of almost 2,300 people who expressed interest in the topics of “Jew hater,” “How to burn jews,” or, “History of ‘why jews ruin the world.’”
To test if these ad categories were real, we paid $30 to target those groups with three “promoted posts” — in which a ProPublica article or post was displayed in their news feeds. Facebook approved all three ads within 15 minutes.
Here's an image from the advertising portal:
snip
ProPublica kept adding categories (most of which have now been deleted by Facebook) until it assembled an audience large enough for a Facebook ad and then BING BONG! Facebook approved its ad a few minutes later.
https://wonkette.com/622953/jesus-facebook-does-russia-have-a-pee-tape-of-you-too