Online political microtargeting involves monitoring people’s online behaviour, and using the collected data, sometimes enriched with other data, to show people-targeted political advertisements. Online political microtargeting is widely used in the US; Europe may not be far behind. This paper maps microtargeting’s promises and threats to democracy. For example, microtargeting promises to optimise the match between the electorate’s concerns and political campaigns, and to boost campaign engagement and political participation. But online microtargeting could also threaten democracy. For instance, a political party could, misleadingly, present itself as a different one-issue party to different individuals. And data collection for microtargeting raises privacy concerns. We sketch possibilities for policymakers if they seek to regulate online political microtargeting. We discuss which measures would be possible, while complying with the right to freedom of expression under the European Convention on Human Rights.

中文翻译：

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在线政治微目标：民主的承诺和威胁

在线政治微目标定位包括监视人们的在线行为，并使用收集到的数据（有时会充斥其他数据）来展示以人们为目标的政治广告。在线政治微目标在美国被广泛使用；欧洲可能并不落后。本文描绘了微观定位对民主的承诺和威胁。例如，微观定位有望优化选民关注的问题与政治竞选活动之间的匹配，并提高竞选活动的参与度和政治参与度。但是，在线微观定位也可能威胁民主。例如，一个政党可能会误导自己，将其呈现为不同个人的不同政党。而针对微目标的数据收集引起了隐私问题。如果决策者寻求规范在线政治微观定位，我们将为他们勾画出可能性。我们讨论了在遵守《欧洲人权公约》规定的言论自由权的同时，可以采取哪些措施。