Facebook blocks third-party tools that collect information on political ads

according to ProPublica operates a searchable database, called the Facebook Political Ad Collector, that displays information about more than 120,000 political ads thanks to the roughly 22,000 users who use its custom plugin. Facebook's Rob Leathern, the company's vice president of product who specializes in ad transparency, says the change was not intended to lock out journalists and other nonprofit and advocacy groups. ProPublica says Facebook's archive is also only available in three countries and, most importantly, doesn't include "affinity" information. So-called "affinity" targeting is how Facebook advertisers in the past have targeted groups by protected classes like race, gender, and religion, and it's based upon information Facebook says must be self-classified by the user. Facebook is allegedly developing an API so organizations can more easily access political ad data on the platform, but it's currently in beta and restricted to keyword searches only, ProPublica reports.

Facebook will start tracking political ads around the world

The site is rolling out versions of its political ad archive to international markets ahead of elections this year in Europe, India, Ukraine, and Israel, the company announced Monday. Facebook rolled out a similar archive last May before the 2018 US midterm elections and has other archives for political ads in the UK and Brazil. Facebook says it's planning "a global expansion" of the ad archive product by the end of June. Facebook is also expanding its "war room" effort. Ahead of the US midterms, it created a "war room" to centralize employees from different teams so that they could more quickly respond to issues of misinformation or voter suppression.

Facebook limits scrutiny of political advertising before Australian election

according to Transparency advocates have criticised Facebook for changes that make it harder for Australian not-for-profits and journalists to monitor political advertising on the platform just months out from the federal election. But it was revealed on Monday that Facebook had restricted the ability of external transparency campaigners to collate and scrutinise ads. A Facebook Australia spokesman said the changes were part of a "routine update". It has since flagged significant restrictions on political advertising. Facebook has taken other steps to improve transparency and integrity around political advertising.

collected by :Roy Mark