Facebook rejected ads that Signal tried to run on Instagram trying to highlight the types of data Facebook collects from users, the company said in a post yesterday.
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In a post titled "The Instagram ads Facebook won't show you," Signal said it created a "multi-variant targeted ad" that would "show you the personal data Facebook collects about you and then sells it."
The suggested ads would inform Instagram users that “You received this ad because you’re a chemical engineer who loves K-pop. This ad used your location to see that you’re in Berlin. And you have a new baby. And it just moved,” according to screenshots shared by Signal.
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“The ad will simply display some of the information collected from the viewer using the advertising platform. Facebook was not involved in this idea,” Signal said, sharing another screenshot that showed its Instagram advertising account had been disabled.
"Being clear about how ads use user data is apparently enough to get them blocked. In the world of Facebook, the only acceptable use is to hide what you're doing from your audience," the company wrote in its post.
Facebook leverages users’ personal information to precisely target ads to its users — a business that brought the company $85.9 billion in revenue last year. But Facebook’s data collection practices have come under scrutiny after a controversy involving Cambridge Analytica, a digital consulting firm with ties to the Trump, which harvested data on up to 87 million Facebook users without their permission.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but in a statement to The Information it dismissed the episode as a “trick” on Signal’s part.
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Signal, which uses end-to-end encryption, has a history of fighting any entity that demands user data. It was one of several encrypted messaging apps that saw a huge surge in new users in January after Elon Musk urged his audience to leave Facebook-owned Messenger due to privacy policy changes.
Information source: cnet.com
