Facebook to BAN claims about 'man-made' Covid-19 & 'unsafe' vaccines as it launches election-like campaign to promote vaccination
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Source: The Washington Post
Pharmaceutical companies are ramping up their spending on social media, triggering some patient advocate concerns about privacy
By Nitasha Tiku | March 4, 2020
Pharmaceutical companies are ramping up their spending on social media, triggering some patient advocate concerns about privacy
By Nitasha Tiku | March 4, 2020
Jordan Lemasters keeps seeing ads in his Facebook app for an attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder drug called Vyvanse. When the Chicago-based audio branding consultant recently clicked on the ad's drop-down menu and selected "Why Am I Seeing This Ad," a pop-up said it was because of his age range, because he lives in the United States and because he may have visited Vyvanse.com.
But Lemasters felt spooked. The 29-year-old had used another ADHD drug, Adderall, but never publicized it. The ads "just felt invasive," says Lemasters, who says he quit Adderall in 2017 because it made him feel like a zombie. “What bothers me is how powerful those drugs are and how it's pushed, rather than a doctor actually assessing a patient and suggesting a proper solution."
After years of avoiding social media, drug companies are growing bolder about advertising on Facebook and other social networks, according to interviews with advertising executives, marketers, health-care privacy researchers and patient advocates. That is exposing loopholes around the way data can be used to show consumers relevant ads about their personal health, even as both social networks and pharmaceutical manufacturers disavow targeting ads to people based on their medical conditions.
Ads promoting prescription drugs are popping up on Facebook for depression, HIV and cancer. Spending on Facebook mobile ads alone by pharmaceutical and health-care brands reached nearly a billion dollars in 2019, nearly tripling over two years, according to Pathmatics, an advertising analytics company. Facebook offers tools to help drug companies stay compliant with rules about disclosing safety information or reporting side effects.
But seeing an ad for a drug designed to treat a person's particular health condition in the relatively intimate setting of a social media feed — amid pictures of friends and links to news articles — can feel more intrusive than elsewhere online. The same opaque Facebook systems that help place an ad for a political campaign or a new shoe in a user’s feed also can be used by pharmaceutical companies, allowing them to target consumers who match certain characteristics or had visited a particular website in the past.
The ability of drug companies to reach people likely to have specific health conditions — a far cry from a magazine or TV ad — underscores how the nation's health privacy law, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), has not kept up with the times. HIPAA, which safeguards personal health records, typically does not cover drug companies or social media networks.
It also typically doesn't cover the sea of companies known as data brokers that can collect medical information like prescriptions, insurance claims and even electronic health records — as long as they detach the data from the full name and address of the patient — among other personal details. Those data brokers first sort the information into groups that are useful for advertisers. Then brokers match that data with identifiers such as email addresses, Zip codes and phone numbers.
Facebook says membership or activity in a group is not used to target ads, and the company's policies prohibit using medical history for targeting, too.
"Medical history is not used to inform the interest categories that we make available to advertisers, and we prohibit businesses from sending us sensitive health information," Facebook spokesman Joe Osborne said in a statement. “Our teams work with health related companies looking to reach their audiences on Facebook and we require them to act in accordance with the law."
Please go to The Washington Post to read more.
But Lemasters felt spooked. The 29-year-old had used another ADHD drug, Adderall, but never publicized it. The ads "just felt invasive," says Lemasters, who says he quit Adderall in 2017 because it made him feel like a zombie. “What bothers me is how powerful those drugs are and how it's pushed, rather than a doctor actually assessing a patient and suggesting a proper solution."
After years of avoiding social media, drug companies are growing bolder about advertising on Facebook and other social networks, according to interviews with advertising executives, marketers, health-care privacy researchers and patient advocates. That is exposing loopholes around the way data can be used to show consumers relevant ads about their personal health, even as both social networks and pharmaceutical manufacturers disavow targeting ads to people based on their medical conditions.
Ads promoting prescription drugs are popping up on Facebook for depression, HIV and cancer. Spending on Facebook mobile ads alone by pharmaceutical and health-care brands reached nearly a billion dollars in 2019, nearly tripling over two years, according to Pathmatics, an advertising analytics company. Facebook offers tools to help drug companies stay compliant with rules about disclosing safety information or reporting side effects.
But seeing an ad for a drug designed to treat a person's particular health condition in the relatively intimate setting of a social media feed — amid pictures of friends and links to news articles — can feel more intrusive than elsewhere online. The same opaque Facebook systems that help place an ad for a political campaign or a new shoe in a user’s feed also can be used by pharmaceutical companies, allowing them to target consumers who match certain characteristics or had visited a particular website in the past.
The ability of drug companies to reach people likely to have specific health conditions — a far cry from a magazine or TV ad — underscores how the nation's health privacy law, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), has not kept up with the times. HIPAA, which safeguards personal health records, typically does not cover drug companies or social media networks.
It also typically doesn't cover the sea of companies known as data brokers that can collect medical information like prescriptions, insurance claims and even electronic health records — as long as they detach the data from the full name and address of the patient — among other personal details. Those data brokers first sort the information into groups that are useful for advertisers. Then brokers match that data with identifiers such as email addresses, Zip codes and phone numbers.
Facebook says membership or activity in a group is not used to target ads, and the company's policies prohibit using medical history for targeting, too.
"Medical history is not used to inform the interest categories that we make available to advertisers, and we prohibit businesses from sending us sensitive health information," Facebook spokesman Joe Osborne said in a statement. “Our teams work with health related companies looking to reach their audiences on Facebook and we require them to act in accordance with the law."
Please go to The Washington Post to read more.
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