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Reckless Designs and Broken Promises: Privacy Implications of Targeted Interactive Advertisements on Social Media Platforms

Julia B. Kieserman, Athanasios Andreou, Laura Edelson, Sandra Siby, Damon McCoy

TL;DR

It is found that this platform-level design choice creates a privacy loophole such that advertisers can view the profiles of those who interact with their ads, thus identifying individuals that fulfill certain targeting criteria.

Abstract

Popular social media platforms TikTok, Facebook and Instagram allow third-parties to run targeted advertising campaigns on sensitive attributes in-platform. These ads are interactive by default, meaning users can comment or ``react'' (e.g., ``like'', ``love'') to them. We find that this platform-level design choice creates a privacy loophole such that advertisers can view the profiles of those who interact with their ads, thus identifying individuals that fulfill certain targeting criteria. This behavior is in contradiction to the promises made by the platforms to hide user data from advertisers. We conclude by suggesting design modifications that could provide users with transparency about the consequences of ad interaction to protect against unintentional disclosure.

Reckless Designs and Broken Promises: Privacy Implications of Targeted Interactive Advertisements on Social Media Platforms

TL;DR

It is found that this platform-level design choice creates a privacy loophole such that advertisers can view the profiles of those who interact with their ads, thus identifying individuals that fulfill certain targeting criteria.

Abstract

Popular social media platforms TikTok, Facebook and Instagram allow third-parties to run targeted advertising campaigns on sensitive attributes in-platform. These ads are interactive by default, meaning users can comment or ``react'' (e.g., ``like'', ``love'') to them. We find that this platform-level design choice creates a privacy loophole such that advertisers can view the profiles of those who interact with their ads, thus identifying individuals that fulfill certain targeting criteria. This behavior is in contradiction to the promises made by the platforms to hide user data from advertisers. We conclude by suggesting design modifications that could provide users with transparency about the consequences of ad interaction to protect against unintentional disclosure.
Paper Structure (10 sections, 3 figures, 1 table)

This paper contains 10 sections, 3 figures, 1 table.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Background
  3. Targeting
  4. Interactivity
  5. Case Studies: TikTok and Meta
  6. TikTok
  7. Meta
  8. Ethics
  9. Discussion and Future Work
  10. Appendix

Figures (3)

  • Figure 1: Advertisement run through TikTok's campaign platform, which targeted users over 18 in the United States.
  • Figure 2: Configuration to disable user comments on TikTok advertisements
  • Figure 3: Screenshot of Meta's interface for setting targeting criteria