Well, that's one heck of an "oopsie daisy" right here:
How about that? Snapchat accidentally allowed Democrats to have user data of GOP voters which can be used to target advertisements ahead of the midterm elections.
Heck of a convenient accident.
Here's what Axios discovered.
A slip-up by social media giant Snap allowed leading Democratic campaigns and party committees to unwittingly tap into a vast repository of Republican voter data to hone their midterm ads, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: There's no indication Snap was aware of or facilitated that data sharing, and the company said it's taking steps to rectify the oversight. But the blunder underscores the sensitivities surrounding reams of voter data that have become a highly valuable political commodity.
Context: On Snap and other platforms, political advertisers can target their ads to highly specific user segments — frequently relying on data brokers that hoover up information on voters' interests, activities, spending habits and other criteria.
How about that?
A major corporation just happened to make a mistake that greatly benefitted one particular party, the Democrats, ahead of a major election.
So crazy.
Driving the news: Snap's political ad archive shows multiple Democratic and progressive organizations were able to target their ads on the platform using data maintained by the Republican-aligned firm i360.
- •The firm is affiliated with the political and philanthropic network founded by billionaire Charles Koch.
- •Its data was used to target Snapchat ads by groups including the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams' gubernatorial campaign.
- •There's no indication that any of the advertisers knew they were using i360 data or took any steps to exploit it beyond normal ad targeting decisions.
The DNC, Stacey Abrams, and Planned Parenthood used proprietary information they weren't supposed to have to target mostly young people on Snapchat and encourage them to vote for Democrats.
But they didn't know what they were doing...
What they're saying: "Unfortunately, due to an internal mistake, we didn't follow this usual process — which resulted in these two companies' services being used by advertisers outside of the process, impacting a small number of ads," a Snap spokesperson told Axios.
- •The spokesperson stressed that the advertisers inadvertently permitted to use those audience segments were not given access to i360's or TargetSmart's underlying data, or to any Snapchat user data.
•"We take full responsibility for this mistake, and as soon as we became aware of it, we took action to correct the issue, notified the two vendors, and are working to rectify payments to each of them. We are also taking steps to ensure this doesn't happen again," the spokesperson said.
Funny how this always happens in one direction.
And it's only discovered after the damage is done.
Sorry, Snap. We ain't buying it.
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