Go figure! Totally accidental 'slip-up' at Snapchat gave Dems a huge advantage over GOP when it comes to campaign ads

Sarah D | 11:22 AM on September 08, 2022

You’re not going to believe this, but evidently Snap Inc. (the company that developed popular social media app Snapchat) had some kind of “slip-up” that gave Democrats a major advantage over Republicans in the campaign advertising game:

SCOOP: A slip-up by social media giant Snap allowed leading Democratic campaigns and party committees to unwittingly tap into a vast repository of Republican voter data to hone their midterm ads. https://t.co/MYLk60CnhM

— Axios (@axios) September 8, 2022

Huh.

whoopsie https://t.co/N71GpwqAgJ

— Grace Curley (@G_CURLEY) September 8, 2022

More from Axios:

Driving the news: Snap’s political ad archive shows multiple Democratic and progressive organizations were able to target their ads on the platform using data maintained by the Republican-aligned firm i360.

The firm is affiliated with the political and philanthropic network founded by billionaire Charles Koch.

Its data was used to target Snapchat ads by groups including the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams’ gubernatorial campaign.

There’s no indication that any of the advertisers knew they were using i360 data or took any steps to exploit it beyond normal ad targeting decisions.

No indication whatsoever. We’re sure everything is totally above-board because Democrats would never exploit a “slip-up” like that.