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Most of the ads targeted Hillary Clinton (in support of Donald Trump), but some targeted Trump specifically. Ads targeted a variety of groups that either are systematically oppressed, or who see themselves as systemicatically oppressed. In addition, many of these ads target swing states.
Some of these ads also target college students. Universities that are specifically targeted include the University of Wisconsin-Madison (targeted 48 times). In addition, some college groups were also targeted, including College Republicans and Young Republicans. Students who identified that they had studied either Arabic or African-American history in college or graduate school were also targeted.
<iframe seamless frameborder="0" src="https://public.tableau.com/views/RussianAds/Sheet4?:embed=y&:display_count=yes&publish=yes&:showVizHome=no" width="800" height="600"></iframe>This graph shows the 20 most commonly referenced interests. Looking at this graph, it becomes clear that there are a few major categories of interests, and users, that these ads targeted. The first is Black Americans. The ads are targeted towards Black Americans who come from a wide range of backgrounds, and who hold many different political beliefs. The two most frequently targeted interests were “African-American Civil Rights Movement (1954-68)” (at 897 mentions) and “African-American history” (at 887). Third was “Martin Luther King” at 695 mentions, and fourth was “Malcolm X,” at 694 mentions. Many of the ads targeted towards Black users are connected in some way to police violence and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Also of note is that active participants in “internet culture” were also targeted. One of the most frequently targeted interests was 9GAG, a website dedicated to sharing memes. As Alice Marwick and Rebecca Lewis note, memes and internet culture are frequently used by racists, misogynists, and other members of the so-called “alt-right” to gain new members, as well as to radicalize less extreme members of the right. Related targeted interests were “LOL,” “meme,” “meme center,” “NBA memes,” “Reddit,” “Collegehumor,” “Cracked.com,” “Imgur,” “Internet meme,” and more. These interests differ in scope, but they concern themselves with two things: internet culture/media, and humor. Not everyone who uses Imgur--an image hosting site popular on Reddit--is a misogynist. But people who use Imgur are likely to use Reddit, and may browse or actively post on conservative or far-right subreddits, such as r/TheRedPill. And then, these users are easier to manipulate, or drive deeper down the right wing rabbit hole.
Even this rabbit hole is described using the language of liberation. r/TheRedPill is named after a famous exchange in The Matrix, in which a character tells the protagonist that he can either take a blue pill, and forget what he now knows to be true about the world, or a red pill, which will help him understand the world as it truly exists. Following this dialogue, men who “take the red pill” say that they now see the world as it truly is: a place that, they say, caters to women and punishes men “for being men.” Posts are written by men who feel discriminated against because they are men, and who feel their struggles are unrecognized in a milieu where people identify them as having male (and oftentimes white) privilege.
(On a side note: at the time of my writing this, r/TheRedPill has been “quarantined” by Reddit. This means that the subreddit is not visible in search or recommendations, and can generate no revenue. The quarantine system seems to have been created in response to hoax and disinformation communities on the site, and the internet at large. The quarantine banner on the subreddit says that r/TheRedPill “is dedicated to shocking or highly offensive content.” Just as “alt-right” is an incomplete and misleading way to term the groups involved, “shocking or highly offensive” is a misleading way to describe a community of misogynists.)
Internet media was also targeted. Selected interests include “RawStory,” “Mother Jones,” “Union of Huffington Post Writers and Bloggers,” “BlackNews.com,” “HuffPost Black Voices,” “BuzzFeed,” and more. Media, like other interests, spans many different perspectives.