Facebook-owner Meta to share more data on political advertisements

Facebook-parent Meta Platforms Inc has recently announced that it would provide additional data from its public ad database regarding the targeting decisions made by publishers running social and political-issue advertising.

As a part of the expanded trial which began last year, Facebook’s Open Research and Transparency database column, which is used by academic researchers will now have a section for specific targeting information for such ads.

Jeff King, the Vice President of Meta, was quoted saying that the company is looking for an advertiser strategy rather than evaluating how a Facebook ad was delivered.

In recent years, Meta was forced to increase transparency regarding targeted advertising on its platforms during elections. It is worth mentioning that some institutions have long criticized Facebook for flaws and a lack of specific targeting data when it launched a public ad library in 2018.

According to the social media giant, the ad library will include a summary of targeted data for social issues and political advertisements published by a page.

An instance was shared in a blog post by Meta, stating that the ad library could reveal that out of the 2000 ads a page ran about social issues, elections, or politics over the last 30 days, 40% of their expense on these ads was targeted to people who are interested in politics.

The company also mentioned that the data for academic researchers will be made available by end of May and will reveal information starting from August 2020. Whereas the extra information in the ad library will be added in July this year.

As part of its transparency efforts, Meta has launched several programs with outside institutions. However, amid privacy concerns, the company had disabled the profiles of some researchers from NYU (New York University), who were studying political ads on its platform in 2021.

Source Credits –

https://www.financialexpress.com/industry/technology/facebook-parent-meta-to-share-more-political-ad-targeting-data/2535002/