In this article, I link personalized ads to the fundamental downfall or hollowing out of democracy.
By putting up a different mask to each voter, a politician can amass enough votes to be elected. After the election, the same politician can deny any individual accusation of breaking any promise.
I go back to first principles and am uninterested in philosophical musings. They are just as important, but articulated well in other places.
Original Democracy
Originally, the idea of democracy is «power to the people«. Instead of a monarch, a family, or a dictator, the people of a country should be able to govern itself. Because it is impractical to decide and do everything needed to run a country together, delegating the individual’s voice to just a few, voting was introduced.
With voting comes the importance of knowing the individuals that are available to vote for. Most importantly, the following properties are relevant about each available delegate – or politician:
- the goals
- the plans for the future
- the track record
- the links to interest groups
Initially (say ancient Greece), those individuals were being presented as actual humans in a forum who could speak in public and present and defend themselves. Once mass media was introduced with the printing press, then radio and TV, they could be presented to an ever bigger audience.
All these ways of presenting individuals had in common that the entire audience got to see the same presentation: the descriptions, statements, plans of an individual were the same to everyone in the electorate. If a politician said «A», all voters knew that politician said «A» and could cast their vote accordingly.
In general, this makes for a sensible democracy. If a politician turns out to be ineffective, inconsistient, or lying, the entire electorate will learn about it and adapt accordingly.
Ad Democracy
In an intermediate step came the era of political advertisement. This changed the situations by shifting power to wealth.
People who could amass more money to pay for advertisement were able to place more ads in public places. With the effect know as «mere exposure» in social psychology, they would be able to influence the electorate beyond reason, accessing the «gut feeling» directly.
Personalized Democracy
Today’s reality of fine-grained micro-targeting of advertisement fundamentally changes the possibilities.
Basically, microtargeting allows a party, a politician, an actor to push arbitrary messaging (statements, fake or actual media, info material) to individual, narrowly defined individuals or groups of individuals at scale. «At scale» meaning the actual presentation to the targeted individuals is done fully automatically by the so-called «algorithms». It is essentially effortless. Effortless compared to ancient Greece, where one would have needed to walk around and present the different messaging to each individual. Of course, this was not realistic.
The strategy it enables:
- Research any number of niche interests of targetable internet users (on Google, Facebook, TikTok etc.)
- Fabricate tailor-made messaging for each group to make them believe this politician stands for their particular interest.
- Push it onto those users individually at scale.
- Once they have voted for this politician, no-one will be able to hold her or him accountable because no individual will have the weight to effectively complain they were lied to.
To make things worse, the recent advent of generative AI makes the personalization even easier: generative AI can be used to micro-target to the individual current user (as opposed to the above-mentioned niche interest group) based on any number of known personal information.
Is there a way out?
Do you know of an easy way out of this existential threat to modern democracies?
I don’t. Any ideas I can come up with are far-fetched, theoretical, or unrealistic and very long term:
- Create laws that prohibit targeted political ads: any political ads would have to be pushed out to the entire electorate. Since moste politicians today profit of this very feature, such legislation is utterly unrealistic any time soon.
- Create a mass movement to monitor real ads: Create browser plugins and mobile apps to monitor ads on individuals› devices and aggregate those. This would require very many people – ideally across the entire political spectrum – to opt-in to share very sensitive data. It would also need a lot of computational resources for the aggregation, with no financial incentive for anyone. It is essentially a reverse-engineering of what the advertising platforms are doing.
- Require the advertising platforms to make all targeted political advertisement transparent: while this would not end the problem, it would at least make it possible to make it visible to journalists and the public. It seems like some of this is currently available in the Ads Transparency Center of Google and the Ads Library of Facebook. I sure hope this would be monitored and reported on more by the media.
Your article «Hollow Democracy» delves into a profound and timely issue: the erosion of democratic principles through the use of personalized political advertising. This subject resonates deeply, especially given the increasing role of technology and data in political campaigns. Allow me to reflect on the points you’ve outlined and consider some of the implications and potential solutions.
The Evolution of Democracy and Political Advertising
You’ve traced the evolution of democracy from ancient Greece, where political discourse was direct and public, to the current era of personalized political ads. The shift in how politicians communicate with voters—from a communal presentation to a highly individualized pitch—highlights a fundamental change in the political landscape. This transformation has indeed made it possible for politicians to tailor messages to specific segments of the electorate,
The dangers that you’ve outlined are indeed grave. Pervasive and unchecked targeted advertising can lead to a much-divided society, feeding people tailored content that resonates with their existing leanings and values. Also, as politicians can easily obtain and utilize rich audience data, micro-targeting capacities are stronger than ever. If not properly regulated, this could have significant implications for the integrity of democratic processes.
As for potential solutions, none of them are perfect, but tackling the issue will undoubtedly require a multifaceted approach. Legislative interventions like banning targeted political ads or mandating transparency, although challenging to implement, would be impactful. Coupled with tech-based solutions like ad-monitoring apps or plugins, we can strive towards preserving democracy in the digital age.
However, perhaps the most crucial step lies in citizen education. By informing the public about these practices, we can inspire a greater demand for transparency in the political process, which, in turn, would drive necessary changes. As always, an informed electorate is the best defense against any threat to democracy.
Thank you Gustav for this thoughtful input.
How do you suggest we could get to the «public» that so much needs to be «informed»?
Thank you for your detailed reflection upon the topic. You’re correct about the transformation in political communication, and how the shift in discourse has allowed politicians to personalize their messages. As concerning as it might be, it’s just a fraction of the larger, ever-evolving dilemma democracy is facing in the digital age.
Addressing these concerns, as you’ve also acknowledged, won’t be a single-sided solution; rather, a convergence of legislation, technology, and educational initiatives. Empowering the electorate through transparency in political advertising, alongside enhancing their awareness, would be the ideal first step toward countering this issue.
Lastly, it’s encouraging to see such open dialogue on the matter. After all, understanding and discussing these challenges is the initial stride in our path toward rectifying them.