Facebook’s new transparency tool in Ireland: will it help for #8thref?

By Liz Carolan

Today Facebook is launching a new transparency tool in Ireland — the “View Ads” feature they have been testing in Canada. Ireland is only the second country where this tool is being rolled out, and any proactive step taken to improve transparency is very welcome. However it has serious limitations, and those limitations highlight some of the major features of the social media campaigning we are seeing right now in Ireland.

The tool will allow any Irish Facebook user to see ads that any one page is showing in Ireland. A user can go to a page, click “about” and see the ads being run at that particular point in time by that particular page (so we are told, I have yet to see it in action — it comes online tonight — we are unduly excited.)

It is designed to address one of the problematic features of social media ads highlighted by us and many others — the ability to spread “dark ads” that are only visible to those directly targeted. It can also help highlight (and hopefully discourage) campaign pages sending different messages to different groups. These are important problems and it is good to see them being addressed.

In theory, this feature could allow us to expand our database of ads — to verify and find metadata for ads and advertisers that are flagged to us. We don’t capture lots of ads for various reasons — they are run as “mobile only” so the desktop only browser plugin we use doesn’t see them; our user base for WhoTargetsMe doesn’t include members of a micro-targeted group etc.

However, one pattern that we are seeing in campaigning online for #8thref is a proliferation of pages putting out ads, including untraceable pages that can pop up overnight and target voters.

At last count, the WhoTargetsMe tool we use had picked up 144 different pages paying for ads at one point in time over the last few months (see our public database). We encourage people send us screengrabs of ads they see, and we know from these that the data we collect is only a sample of pages promoting content related to the referendum.

If the trend we are seeing of more pages being added every week continues, it is likely that by referendum day (May 25th) there will be hundreds of pages paying for content to reach voters.

A second apparent feature of the “view ads” tool is that the transparency is ephemeral, with a risk that ad capturing becomes a game of Whack-a-Mole.

As far as we know, ads will only be visible for the period for which an advertiser has asked Facebook to actively promote it. If an ad gets highlighted to us, or a page flagged, we would need to go and retrieve information on that ad within a timeline set by an advertiser (which could be a matter of hours).

There also appears to be no increase in the transparency of the pages themselves — advertisers will continue to be able to target voters without revealing any information about their identity, location or intent to any Irish voters or officials.

And, of course, we still have no commitments to action by Google, YouTube and other advertisers. We are receiving large numbers of screengrabs indicating spend on advertising on these platforms happening under the radar. Yet we have even less information on these advertisements than we do on Facebook ads.

We still think there are things we can do to make the most of this new commitment by Facebook, and are working away behind the scenes to try develop tools that might enable this. Watch this space, and do get in touch if you have ideas or would like to help.

Either way, this is why we keep coming back to the need for our state to introduce regulations that would mandate transparency on online advertising, as part of comprehensive reform of our Electoral Acts.

We will have more detail on policy proposals on this in the coming week.

But for now, go enjoy having a nosey around different pages and the ads they are posting — send us screengrabs of anything interesting you find on Twitter, DM, email, or any other way you fancy :)