Meta Relents, shares ad targeting data

Meta promises to provide researchers with more information on social issues, targeting election and political ads on Facebook and Instagram.

In one UpdateThe company says new data will be provided through the Facebook Open Research and Transparency (FORT) project, starting later this month.

Data will be provided for each individual ad and will include information such as the categories of interest selected by the advertisers.

And from July, the company’s publicly available advertising library will also include a summary of targeting information for post-launch ads. This will include the total number of social issues running each page using each type of targeting, election and political advertising data – for example, location, population and interest – and the social issues used for targeting, the percentage of election and political advertising spending ঐ options.

“We’ll also include whether a page has used a custom audience and / or a similar audience,” said Jeff King, VP of Business Integrity.

“For example, the ad library may show that in the last 30 days, a page has advertised 2,000 ads about social issues, elections or politics, and 40% of their spend on these ads is from” people living in Pennsylvania “or” people interested in politics. ”

Previous attempts by researchers to share similar data have been thwarted by Meta. Last summer, for example, the company banned the accounts of researchers working on a New York University ad-observer project aimed at highlighting the micro-targeting of political advertising. I

t CrowdTangle, a social media monitoring tool that displays trending topics, public accounts and communities and viral posts on Facebook and Instagram, and blocks ProPublica’s ad transparency tools.

Now, though, the company is facing new rules aimed at advertising from the EU. Paid political advertising will be prohibited, and micro-targeting based on sensitive personal information such as ethnic origin, religious beliefs or sexual orientation will be prohibited unless the user expressly consents. Significantly, ads need to explain the basis on which an individual is targeted, which group of individuals is targeted, criteria used, and augmentation tools or methods established.

While updating this, Meta says it has consulted with experts outside the academic community and civil society.

“By providing advertiser targeting criteria for analyzing and reporting ads on social issues, elections and politics, we hope to help us better understand the practices used in our technology to reach potential voters,” King said.

“In addition to protecting people’s privacy, we are committed to providing meaningful transparency.”