"& #39;We have three major voter suppression operations under way,& #39; says a senior official.

They’re aimed at three groups Clinton needs to win overwhelmingly: idealistic white liberals, young women, and African Americans."

Bloomsberg reporting in 2016. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-27/inside-the-trump-bunker-with-12-days-to-go">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...

i.e. can someone help me understand what& #39;s new about the latest Cambridge Analytica "revelations"?

And whether there& #39;s really any new takeaways we should draw from them?

Bloomberg, 2016.

NB it goes on: "Furthermore, there’s no scientific basis for thinking this ploy will convince these voters to stay home. It could just as easily end up motivating them."
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-27/inside-the-trump-bunker-with-12-days-to-go">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...

In 2016, following an extensive array of voter suppression techniques (purging voter roles; requiring IDs; slashing the number of early voting sites in Indiana & N. Carolina), the black vote did indeed drop -- though only to pre-Obama levels, and still historically high.

We might reasonably say: "Facebook should not allow political campaigns to run voter deterrence ads" - but this isn& #39;t uniquely a Facebook problem.

In not allowing this type of advertising this year, Facebook is presumably *better* than radio, news & TV?

We might LIKE to say that "Facebook should never have allowed political ads to be targeted by race"

But the new data reveals that the ads weren& #39;t targeted by race (ie 100% black) but rather targeted by something (voter intentions) that correlated w/ race
https://www.channel4.com/news/revealed-trump-campaign-strategy-to-deter-millions-of-black-americans-from-voting-in-2016">https://www.channel4.com/news/reve...

Non-ad people are then going to say "This shows that all ad targeting is bad!"

Then a plumber can& #39;t show ads to a local neighbourhood, or a bike shop to an audience interested in cycling -- bc a) that& #39;s targeting, and b) those audiences will have some correlation w/ race.