[Udik]

I do see the difference, of course. But on the other hand, foreign or domestic, trickery is trickery. Check this:

"The data scientists found that showing certain Facebook ads to certain possible Trump voters lowered their approval of the president by 3.6%"

And:

"“We have found ways to find the right news to put in front of them, and we found ways to understand what works and doesn’t [..] And if you combine all those things together, you get a really effective approach, and that’s what we’re doing.”

This sounds like applying micro-targeted psychological tricks to damage one candidate or favour another. I'm sure the same was done on Trump's side, but it is scary nonetheless. This is pervasive and subtle high-tech manipulation, not political promotion and even less political information. You can be happy of the result today but it's hard to approve the methods.

[JPKab]

Sadly this is what a polarized political system does: if you believe that the opposing side is primarily motivated by racism and bigotry then you will not have any moral scruples about willfully manipulating human beings.

If you believe the other side wants to destroy America's founding principles you will be equally fine with doing the same thing for your side.

[lern_too_spel]

This is political advertising, which is different from political information. It has always had this purpose. As long as they're following the FEC rules, where ads are clearly marked as such along with who is paying for them, what's wrong?