Encrypted messaging service Signal wanted to run clever ads on Facebook's Instagram that revealed how specifically the ad itself was targeted. Facebook banned its account, writes Signal's Jun Harada. It was evidently not OK with Signal exposing the barely-anonymized personal data that Facebook has for sale to promote its own more private alternative.
We created a multi-variant targeted ad designed to show you the personal data that Facebook collects about you and sells access to. The ad would simply display some of the information collected about the viewer which the advertising platform uses. Facebook was not into that idea.
Facebook is more than willing to sell visibility into people's lives, unless it's to tell people about how their data is being used. Being transparent about how ads use people's data is apparently enough to get banned; in Facebook's world, the only acceptable usage is to hide what you're doing from your audience.
Harada adds: "Your ad would have been so you."