Signal, the very famous privacy-oriented messaging app, had devised a brilliant marketing campaign for Instagram, which unfortunately Facebook blocked in the bud .
As you can see from the images below, these were cards that explicitly showed the parameters for which the user had been targeted and was viewing advertisements.
We have created a targeted ad with different variations, designed to show the personal data that Facebook collects about you and to which it sells access. The ad would simply show some of the collected viewer information that the advertising platform uses. Facebook did not agree with this idea.
The purpose of the campaign, of course, was to raise awareness of privacy by showing how detailed ads can be customized.
Facebook would have immediately blocked the campaign, which never started. However, Facebook spokesman Joe Osborne, while acknowledging that some of the ads would have been blocked because company policies prevent showing sexual orientation or medical conditions in advertisements, accused Signal of never actually launching the campaign, trying just to advertise with the gimmick.
If you want to follow the dispute between Signal and Facebook, we invite you to read this thread by Alex Kantrowitz, which collects the answers of the two companies.
These Signal ads are amazing. Facebook banned them for being a little bit too relevant. https://t.co/q9D4VKqPt9 pic.twitter.com/NEBgqW40I8
– Alex Kantrowitz (@Kantrowitz) May 4, 2021
In any case, the idea worked and the cards are circulating a lot on the web: if you want to know more about the initiative, you can take a look at this Signal post.
