The Facebook Ads Library It is a powerful tool to find out who has bought space on that social network to broadcast ads on social, political and electoral issues. And it is an excellent example of what the Mexican media can do to build trust and credibility with their own audiences.
The Facebook Ads Library (ad library) is a consequence of the stumbles of Facebook and its management team, starting with Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, to control the use of the platform for political purposes.
The ad library It was not a free grant from Facebook to users, advertisers and public regulators, but rather a consequence of scandals such as the Cambridge Analytica one, in which the platform and the personal data of Facebook users were used. Facebook to segment messages with sniper precision.
“At Facebook we believe that people should be able to know who is responsible for the ads they see on Facebook and Instagram, especially during electoral processes,” says a social network corporate post for Mexico and Chile. There is advertising transparency data from August 2020.
In Mexico, the old media business model contemplates that official advertising covers operating costs and commercial advertising offers profitability. The official advertising means the injection of public money of governments of the three levels, political parties, politicians in office and candidates and electoral hopefuls in propaganda campaigns. The only regulation on the media is the electoral one; the rest are aspirations for self-regulation and the application of deontological codes.
With the Facebook ad library —intensively used by the verifiers of the National Electoral Institute (INE) of Mexico—we citizens can know that the National Action Party (PAN) has spent an average of 250,000 pesos per month since August 2020 to spread its propaganda on the platform and that the largest campaign ran in March 2022 with the title “Morena lies”, in which he relates the increase in the price of gasoline with the house that the son of Andrés Manuel López Obrador lived in in Houston.
We also know that Latinusthe media outlet headed by Carlos Loret de Mola, has invested 2.4 million pesos in the purchase of advertising, a amount similar to that invested by the INE or a quarter of what was invested by Samuel García Sepúlveda, today governor of Nuevo León. Other big buyers are the Green Party (37.6 million pesos), Morena (14.2 million) and Movimiento Ciudadano (8 million), according to the Meta Platforms Inc. general report for Mexico.
The tool only shows investment in campaigns with content on social, political and electoral issues. Purchased ads do not necessarily imply that the person who paid for them is the final beneficiary of the ad.
Facebook is the only social network with this transparency tool. Venue purchase reports include Instagram and Messenger, Meta’s other social communication services. Neither Twitter neither TikTok neither Snapchat neither LinkedIn They have a tool like this. Neither do the traditional media, despite their enormous public and social responsibility.
This year there has been a lot of discussion in Mexico about freedom of expression and media transparency. There are many live cases in the public debate: from Supreme Court resolutions related to journalistic practice or the differentiation between information and opinion in the media, to President López Obrador’s proposals for transparency, motivated by his courage to the journalistic coverage that bother.
The Facebook Ads Library offers light on the most sensitive topics in public opinion.
Facebook is a private company and has no obligation to make transparent information about its advertising sales, beyond the results that it periodically offers as a company in the stock market or the obligations by public regulations. Transparency at the level of detail of the Ad Library of Facebook It is pushed by the scandals related to the platform, but also as a way to clear its name and improve its reputation.
In the end, we all win: citizens and users of the platform, especially in times of polarization, misinformation, false stories (fake news) and post-truth and in a situation where the media are seen as disseminators of propaganda and news loaded with biases and hidden interests.
Don’t you think it’s an excellent example to imitate in the Mexican media, as an effort of transparency and accountability?
Editor of El Economista online
Economy
Journalist. Since 2010 he edits the digital version of El Economista in Mexico City. Master in Transparency and Protection of Personal Data from the University of Guadalajara. He has a specialization in telecommunications and information technology law. His personal blog is Economicon.
