Election law expert Nathaniel Persily has written an interesting article about the Internet and the 2016 election. The problems Nate (and others) see in 2016 will inform the debate about free speech now and in future elections.

Persily notes that the 2016 campaign saw an “online explosion of campaign-relevant communication from all corners of cyberspace.” Here’s his description of the Trump campaign’s social media efforts:

Employing traditional web-based communication, event promotions, new apps, native advertising (in which web ads are designed to look like articles in the publication containing them), and new uses of social media, the campaign launched 4,000 different ad campaigns and placed 1.4 billion web impressions (meaning ads and other communications visible to individual users)…the campaign targeted 13.5 million persuadable voters in sixteen battleground states, discovering the hidden Trump voters, especially in the Midwest, whom the polls had ignored.”