These revelations beg the question: Are expertly targeted social media ads the new normal when it comes to elections? Casey Lynn Fiesler, an assistant professor of information science at University of Colorado in Boulder, confirmed in a phone interview with Refinery29 that this is something we can expect to see more of in the future. Advertising has long been using psychographics , which Fiesler says is “attitudes or psychological criteria” that can be inferred from what you’re doing to sell products. Facebook has also been using your “likes” to target ads . “[Facebook] is very transparent about doing this,” she says. “You can go into your ad preferences and see how they’re categorising you.” The categories are based on things like what pages you like and what ads you click on. Fiesler says that Facebook knows she’s a knitter and likes Star Trek, and sends her ads based on those preferences.