Platform Ad Archives: Promises and Pitfalls

Abstract

This paper discusses the new phenomenon of platform ad archives. Over the past year, leading social media platforms have installed publicly accessible databases documenting their political advertisements, and several countries have moved to regulate them. If designed and implemented properly, ad archives can correct for structural informational asymmetries in the online advertising industry, and thereby improve accountability through litigation and through publicity. However, present implementations leave much to be desired. We discuss key criticisms, suggest several improvements and identify areas for future research and debate.

Protecting Democracy from Disinformation: Normative Threats and Policy Responses

“…Improving transparency is expected to increase the likelihood that citizens, watchdog organizations, and regulators can catch false or illegal advertising, even when they are micro-targeted toward particular segments of the electorate. Canada and France introduced laws that require social media companies to create ad repositories; the EU’s Code of Practice on Disinformation commits signatories (which include all major social media companies) to create ad repositories and parliamentary committees in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have proposed regulations to require ad archives (Leerssen et al 2019). A similar proposal in the United States, the Honest Ads Act, has stalled despite bipartisan support.…”

The regulation of online political micro-targeting in Europe

“…(messages only visible to the targeted group [Hall Jamieson, 2018]), the ad libraries' "present implementations leave much to be desired" (Leerssen et al, 2019). For instance, definitions of 'political' ads "vary greatly and continue to raise significant line-drawing and enforcement challenges".…”

Democratic Transparency in the Platform Society

“…In the past two years, a growing number of governments pushed for platform companies to create publicly accessibly archives of political advertisements, with legislation requiring ad archiving being passed in France and Canada and being proposed and debated in the United Kingdom and United States (Leerssen et al 2019;McFaul 2019). The European Commission's Code of Practice on Disinformation includes a voluntary commitment from of firms to develop systems for disclosing issue ads, and recommends transparency without articulating specific mechanisms.…”

“…The European Commission's Code of Practice on Disinformation includes a voluntary commitment from of firms to develop systems for disclosing issue ads, and recommends transparency without articulating specific mechanisms. Ad archiving appears to be an important new frontier for transparency and disclosure, but major questions around scope and details of implementation remain (see Leerssen et al 2019 for a comprehensive discussion of advertising archives as a form of transparency).…”

“…In the past several years, transparency has emerged as one of the leading accountability mechanisms through which platform companies have attempted to regain the trust of the public, politicians, and regulatory authorities. Ranging from Facebook's efforts to partner with academics and create a reputable mechanism for third party data access and independent research (King and Persily 2019) and the recent release of Facebook's public-facing "Community Standards" (the rules that govern what the more than 2.2 billion monthly active users of Facebook are allowed to post on the site), to the expanded advertising disclosure tools being built for elections around the world (Leerssen et al 2019), transparency is playing a major role in current policy debates around free expression, social media, and democracy.…”