The presidential elections held last year on the other side of the pond continue to cause headaches for the big internet companies, accused (with hindsight) of having contributed to distorting those elections.
These companies include Google and Facebook, which are believed to have supported an anti-refugee campaign during the 2016 US presidential election.
The campaign, which was supposedly based on several videos, was segmented so that it would reach primarily the eyes of citizens in undecided states where there was no candidate clearly better positioned than another.
The ads that were part of this campaign are believed to have received millions of clicks , according to Bloomberg, based on information provided by people who were directly involved in the advertising campaign.
The campaign, which was backed by the non-governmental organization “Secure afghanistan phone number America Now ,” focused first and foremost on anti-Islamic messages.
One of the videos that was part of this controversial campaign, for example, showed the supposed conversion of France into an Islamic state. Other ads took potshots at Hillary Clinton , Donald Trump's rival in the elections.
To make this campaign a reality, “Secure America Now” reportedly invested several million dollars. And because of this, and given its very high budget, the campaign received personalized attention from the advertising departments of both Google and Facebook .
The world's largest social network is said to have tested, for example , twelve different videos to determine which one was actually the most effective.
Facebook , which has declined to comment on its alleged involvement in the campaign, nevertheless stresses that it did not work directly with Secure America Now, but rather with the advertising company that managed the organization's advertising campaign.
Google is said to have worked even more closely with Secure America Now, Bloomberg reports . Employees of the Mountain View company reportedly met with several representatives of Secure America Now in New York to discuss the effectiveness of the campaign.
Google has stated that its advertising platform has very strict rules regarding what content can and cannot appear there. “If a campaign violates our policies, we disapprove it and stop showing it,” the internet giant stresses.
Google has reportedly blocked some of the ads in the “Secure America Now” campaign, including a video calling France an “Islamic state,” The Guardian reports .