Socially inept

I was surprised to see The Scotsman follow a story on the use of Facebook advertising by the SNP which appeared in the increasingly right-wing and ludicrous Mail on Sunday. All political parties use targeted advertising and other media to try to reach audiences beyond their core support. This is found in newspaper advertising, party political broadcasts, articles by columnists and many other forms.

On the same theme Alexander Mckay (Letters, 26 March) references the same source and attempts to criticise the S np by creating a spurious and untrue link between the use of social media by them and the kind of mining and manipulation of data of which the company Cambridge Analytica is accused. Yet Scott Macnab, in The Scotsman, has published information which did not appear elsewhere, which indicates that in 2017 the Conservatives spent £2 million and Labour £577,000 on the same kind of social media promotional work, compared to the £43,345 spent by the SNP.

As a BBC report on the 2017 election made it clear that all the main political parties used targeted ads and there has been cross-party support in Westminster for consideration of the regulation of social media outlets by the Digital, Media, Culture and Sport Committee, can we look forward to a letter from Alexander Mckay castigating other political parties for hypocrisy?

GILL TURNER Derby Street, Edinburgh