Facebook shows political ads to men

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With the May 14 elections approaching, the political parties and candidates are trying to reach voters using social media, besides visual and printed media.

However, it was found that Facebook, the most frequently used platform for this purpose, shows political ads disproportionately to men.

Gözlemevi (Observatory) is an initiative working to better inform and increase the awareness of the voters, civil society, and media in Turkey on digital political advertisement activities.

Gözlemevi examined the political ads broadcast on Facebook in Turkey in March this year and their recipients on a gender basis. Gender distribution of the recipients of the ads was determined using the 10 advertisements that the Meta pages which broadcast the most ads spent the most money on.

Gözlemevi identified that Facebook shows political ads overwhelmingly to men.

Among the social media accounts examined, those that have the highest ratio of men among their political ad recipients are Sinan Oğan's account with 90 percent, Yakup Türkal's account with 77 percent, and the account of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) with 75 percent.

Only the Democracy and Progress Party (DEVA) distributed ads special to women.

Gözlemevi also reflected that the Green and Left Party (YSP) did not place ads on this platform.

You can reach the data that they used here. 

"Discrimination in the algorithm should be eliminated"

Although Facebook accounts do not differentiate between genders when ad targeting options are concerned, political ads have been received by men. For the ten accounts that have been examined, 71 percent of the political ads placed without making a gender preference were shown to men. Only Deva Party placed ads targeting women especially. 

Handan Uslu from Gözlemevi answered our questions about the research they carried out. 

Uslu said that discrimination inherent to the algorithm should be eliminated in order for a more inclusive and equalitarian political environment to be obtained. 

"Our research on the political ad targeting of Facebook in Turkey revealed that there was great gender bias with most ads being shown to men. The situation that this finding shows has a negative effect in terms of equality and democracy in society, including the exclusion of women from the political agenda, reinforcing existing inequalities, and potential manipulation of voters. 

 "Discrimination inherent to the algorithm should be eliminated in order for a more inclusive and equalitarian political environment to be obtained."

"Private data is confidential"

Uslu says that these platforms know us better than ourselves. "What most people do before they go to sleep is to enter these social media platforms, and we do the same when we get up. This means that these platforms know when you go to bed and when you get up. It is not even necessary to examine who you give a like to," she says.  

She gives this example: "Can you not sleep well these days? Are you not well-organized? They can collect so much data. Say you are bipolar and in your manic period, you use social media more. You may be shown ads of psychologists in these platforms afterward. Can we say that this is ethical?"

"The advertisers can also deepen discrimination"

Uslu also said, "Political micro-targeting prevents women from benefiting from political content. The lack of political content that they receive excludes women from a significant part of the political debate. This situation prevents democratic processes to function in a healthy manner and makes women disadvantaged in their participation in political processes."

She adds that micro-targeting can also cause discrimination by the advertisers themselves. "The target group preferences of the advertisers can also involve discrimination. When targeting is made using certain demographic or behavioral data, this can deepen the existing inequalities," Uslu says. 

What is micro-targeting?

Political micro-targeting is the showing of specialized political ads to the users using their behavioral, demographic, and other digital data. Through political micro-targeting, politicians can broadcast political ads customized to voters.

The difference between micro-targeting from traditional marketing is that, in the former, the ads are shown using the digital data of the target groups. For instance, a politician can target voters in a certain region or a certain age group and share ads on retirement policies only with certain groups. (EMK/PE)