Signal used its Ad account on Instagram to show you your personal data it can see, and Facebook promptly shut it down and disabled their Ad account

Wed, 05 May 2021 15:41:38 +0200

Danie van der Merwe

gadgeteer@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

Signal explained how it went down in a blog post Tuesday. The idea was to post ads on Instagram which use the data an online advertiser may have collected about users, and basically show the user what that data might be for them.

However, Facebook wasn't having it, and shut down both the campaign and Signal's ad account. It's unclear which rule or guideline, exactly, Signal has breached in order to get banned.

See Signal tried to run a very honest ad campaign on Instagram. Facebook said no.

#technology #instagram #facebook #privacy #signal

Instead, Signal's ad account on the platform got banned.

technology privacy instagram deletefacebook

Wed, 05 May 2021 16:18:04 +0200

Danie van der Merwe

gadgeteer@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@FourOh-LLC no-one ever said it was about individual accounts being banned. This is a point that Signal was proving around the privacy that gets exposed to advertisers. Their advertising account was closed. Not sure what it has to do with political organisations though? This is pure business competition and the differentiator being used is privacy exposure. Facebook though does not want individuals to so blatantly see what advertisers can see about them. This had nothing to do with political messages being posted and I imagine that is a US only issue. This is really also an extension of the Apple vs Facebook privacy saga. In both cases Facebook does not want Apple or Signal raising awareness to users about what data is being collected for advertisers.

Wed, 05 May 2021 17:01:22 +0200

Danie van der Merwe

gadgeteer@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@FourOh-LLC I saw it more as Facebook does not want end users seeing what sort of information of theirs was exposed to advertisers. I don't think this was connected to the mass removal of accounts. It's probably a contravention to expose personal information in adverts, even if it is back to the individual themselves.

Yes it is Signal's own legal issue, but I think they proved their point already and won't worry. It created awareness as to what data is being collected and shared to advertisers (not kept privately by Facebook for their own use).

Fri, 07 May 2021 21:52:51 +0200

Danie van der Merwe

gadgeteer@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

Well this certainly hurts Signal's case a bit as there is reason to now believe they pulled a bit of a PR stunt here - we know Facebook does a lot of what is alleged, but that does not mean that someone should fabricate a story about it - https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/no-facebook-didnt-kill-signals-ads-that-show-how-much-facebook-knows-about-you-truth-is-much-worse.html