How Targeted Advertising on Social Media Drives People to Extremes

Have you had the experience of looking at some product online and then seeing ads for it all over your social media feed? Far from coincidence, these instances of eerily accurate advertising provide glimpses into the behind-the-scenes mechanisms that feed an item you search for on Google, "Like" on social media or come across while browsing into custom advertising on social media.

As a social media researcher, I see how people seeking to radicalize others use targeted advertising to readily move people to extreme views.

Advertising in mass media is powerful, but mass media has a built-in moderating force.

The detailed profiles the social media companies build for each of their users make advertising even more powerful by enabling advertisers to tailor their messages to individuals.

Social media has a greater ability to expose people to ideas as fast as they individually will accept them.

Many people recognize social media as part of the problem, but how are these powerful customized advertising techniques contributing to the divisive political landscape?

One important part of the answer is that people associated with foreign governments, without admitting who they are, take extreme positions in social media posts with the deliberate goal of sparking division and conflict.

These extreme posts take advantage of the social media algorithms, which are designed to heighten engagement, meaning they reward content that provokes a response.

These social media radicalization pipelines work much the same way whether recruiting jihadists or Jan. 6 insurrectionists.

Most people have gone to social media looking for something in particular and then found themselves looking up from their phones an hour or more later having little idea how or why they read or watched what they just did.