Signal Buys Instagram Ads To Highlight Facebook's Invasive Data Collection, Claims To Be …

For a brief period in early May, Instagram users might have noticed a creepy ad with a blue background that rattled off some rather specific and personal information about them. The Instagram ads varied by user but revealed things such as their location, job title, marital status, interests and even search terms they may have used. It turns out that this was an advertising campaign by rival messaging service Signal, and the company claims that Instagram quickly shut it down. Signal’s ads drew on the information collected by Facebook’s targeted advertising platform, a collection of demographic elements that are usually invisible to the user. The stated purpose of the campaign was to highlight exactly how much personal data Facebook (and its associated subsidiaries) are vacuuming up, making it more stark and visible to the end user that is usually unbothered by the process as it hums along invisibly in the background. However, Facebook claims that Signal never attempted to run the Instagram ads in question and cooked up the whole scheme for publicity; at least one screenshot posted by Signal themselves as evidence indicates that they may be telling the truth. Instagram ads get intensely personal, but were they real?…
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