Who Targets Me

SUMMARY

Who Targets Me is a free browser extension that helps you learn more about the political ads you're targeted with online, and let's you contribute anonymously to research into their impact. Politicians have always used misleading ads and campaign tricks to win votes. But because Big Tech enables campaigns to secretly launch thousands of ads at once, today’s voters are seeing ads that are more divisive and misleading than ever before. Despite this, there’s still little systematic data on how individuals are targeted by campaigns. We believe that these platforms have too much power over our civic conversations; that privately targeted political ads increase polarization and mistrust and that neither campaigns nor Big Tech will behave more responsibly without public pressure and transparency. The browser extension gives you: - A record of all the political ads you're targeted with and why you see them - Data about which parties and groups are targeting you most - Data about which parties and groups are targeting your district most heavily - Data about how many political ads there are vs. the total number of ads running at any given time By tracking how campaigns are using Big Tech to privately target voters, we can contribute to reform of how politics is done, protect a fair democratic process and elections, and start to repair our national conversation. ------ Who Targets Me launched in the UK in 2017 and has since been run in over 20 countries around the world. Our work has been covered by the BBC, New York Times, CNN and many others. *How to use Who Targets Me* - Install the browser extension - Create an anonymous profile (your age, location, gender and political leaning) - Decide whether to participate in one of our research partnerships - Use Facebook and other social media platforms as usual - Wait a while until you've seen some political ads (this is more likely during election campaigns) - Click the plugin icon (or visit https://results.whotargets.me) from time to time to see who's trying to influence your views with political ads What the plugin captures: - Facebook ads, their content and targeting What the plugin doesn't capture: - Any other type of post - Any personal information or information about your Facebook account You can choose to stop participating in the project at any time and, should you wish to, delete the ads you've contributed to the project. The open source software is licensed under the MIT license: https://github.com/WhoTargetsMe/Who-Targets-Me/blob/master/LICENSE.txt

The latest version of Who Targets Me is available on the Chrome web and is currently being used by 10,000 active users. The initial version was launched on 2020-06-16.

HOW TO INSTALL Who Targets Me FROM A CRX FILE

1. Download Who Targets Me CRX file
2. NOTE: Sometimes the browser may block downloading / installing CRX file from outside the Chrome Web Store. If so, you may need to download the ZIP file instead
3. In the URL bar, go to chrome://extensions
4. Enable Developer mode

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