When selecting the target group, the ministry also included the criterion of being particularly close to the Greens.
This violates the party-political principle of neutrality.
The CDU wants to make this an issue in the state parliament.
Mainz / Berlin - The Rhineland-Palatinate climate protection ministry has changed its targeted advertising on Facebook with Jan Böhmermann after a critical contribution on the ZDF program “Magazin Royale”.
A target group selection based on Facebook's assumed interest in the Greens was "wrong and unacceptable," the ministry admitted on Friday.
The new management with Minister Anne Spiegel (Greens) had no knowledge of the practice introduced in 2018 and is now having the entire social media strategy put to the test.
Sharp criticism of the practice came from the CDU opposition.
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For the Facebook placement of posts by the ministry, features such as nature conservation, sustainability or the environment were included in order to primarily reach Facebook users who are interested in these topics with this content. This is common practice in public relations with Facebook, said the ministry. However, it was a mistake to include the target group characteristic “users who Facebook assumes that they are interested in Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen”. For reasons of neutrality, it is ensured “that such a target group selection will no longer take place in the future”.
"Targeted addressing of users who are interested in greens has nothing to do with legitimate public relations work by a ministry," said CDU parliamentary group leader Christian Baldauf on Friday.
"These continued legal violations in a state institution are unacceptable." Baldauf announced that the practice that has now been discontinued will be made an issue in the state parliament.
The SPD-led Federal Ministry of Labor was also “targeting SPD supporters”.
Because of this, the ministry ended its collaboration with an advertising service provider.
dpa
