Emma Graham-Harrison, in The Guardian, reports:

Facebook is to publish comprehensive data on political advertising during Ireland’s abortion referendum campaign, giving an unprecedented insight into targeting of voters on social media, and setting a powerful precedent for election transparency.

The US company has told Irish politicians it will provide anonymised details of the amount spent on targeting Irish voters on its platform between 1 March and 25 May, and the number of referendum-linked ads that had been purchased.

It will also provide details of proposed advertisements, and proposed spending, that it had rejected after bringing in a ban on foreign organisations paying for online campaigns inside Ireland.

… The Irish vote threw concerns about “dark ads” – targeted at individual voters or small groups, and not visible to the rest of the electorate – into sharp focus after it emerged that foreign organisations had been taking advantage of a loophole in Irish law to target voters online.

Facebook to publish data on Irish abortion referendum ads (The Guardian)

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