Once users are engaged, the platforms assemble comprehensive dossiers on their interactions, buying patterns, prejudices and hatreds, even emotional states, which are in turn monetized with the sale of targeted advertisements. Until recently, Facebook allowed advertisers to target ads to the category “Jew haters.” During a 2019 US measles outbreak, Facebook distributed anti-vaccination ads to pregnant women. “Platforms are . . . incentivized to permit and even to encourage the spread of extreme or controversial harmful speech, as it is likely to directly benefit them financially,” write Jeff
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