Our phones connect us to friends and family, to news and entertainment, to shopping and banking. As we scroll, search and swipe each day, a vast number of companies collect and exchange information about us.
This information fuels automated advertising models designed by digital platforms to increase their profits by targeting us with advertising when we are online. Through digital platforms and their own data collection and sharing practices, companies selling and advertising harmful and addictive products like alcohol and gambling ‘tune in’ to our individual behaviours, preferences and affinities to target us with ads.
In this study we piloted a novel digital data donation method that enables people to collect the ads that are targeted at them on Facebook via a mobile app and to share the data that platforms create about them. We aimed to explore the experiences of Australians who had experienced or who were at risk of harm from alcohol and gambling products, to investigate how digital advertising of addictive products contributes to harm.
Key findings
- Facebook tags people at risk of harm and trying to reduce their use of alcohol and gambling as interested in these addictive products to target them with advertising
- Alcohol and gambling companies uploaded data on people at risk of harm and trying to reduce their use of alcohol or gambling to fuel targeted marketing on Facebook.
- People who are trying to reduce their alcohol use or gambling are constantly faced with advertisements for these addictive products on social media.
- People who are trying to reduce their alcohol use or gambling don’t want to be profiled and targeted for alcohol and gambling and can find it impossible to escape this advertising when they are on social media.
