Online campaigns in general can make it hard to tell who is behind a movement. A small, scrappy organization can do powerful things online, or a large corporation can fund a grassroots front group.
Micro-targeted ads take these questions to a whole new level.
As we learned in our reading, campaigns can successfully (and cheaply!) trick major news organizations like CNN (or whoever/whatever the target might be) into believing they have a major PR nightmare on their hands, when in fact a few ads were simply targeted to that precise group. Further, source amnesia allows players to make statements without really being accountable for any negative repercussions. All of this can be used for good -- or bad. It is amazing how much content is out there for which viewers really are not aware of the source, or do not realize they are being very specifically targeted. We no longer see the same ads as our neighbors, necessarily.
I predict that, after awhile, people will catch on. Advertising in all mediums will always carry significant influence, but once people gain a real awareness of the the fact they are being targeted, they might be a bit less susceptible to the influence of online ads.
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