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Microtargeting is any kind of personalized advertising targeted at a specific person (or kind of person) based on data gathered from a person’s internet history or demographics. Microtargeting is vast, hard to understand, and unregulated—so according to O’Neil, it qualifies as a “weapon of math destruction.”
Microtargeting Quotes in Weapons of Math Destruction
The Weapons of Math Destruction quotes below are all either spoken by Microtargeting or refer to Microtargeting. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 10: The Targeted Citizen
Quotes
Successful microtargeting, in part, explains why in 2015 more than 43 percent of Republicans, according to a survey, still believed the lie that President Obama is a Muslim. And 20 percent of Americans believed he was born outside the United States and, consequently, an illegitimate president. (Democrats may well spread their own disinformation in microtargeting, but nothing that has surfaced matches the scale of the anti-Obama campaigns.)
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Microtargeting Term Timeline in Weapons of Math Destruction
The timeline below shows where the term Microtargeting appears in Weapons of Math Destruction. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 10: The Targeted Citizen
Lobbyists and interest groups, too, use these microtargeting tactics to reach more people. This can be dangerous—certain political groups can create targeted advertisements...
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Microtargeting is vast, largely hidden, and unaccountable or unregulated—so it is, in O’Neil’s estimation, a WMD....
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