BENGALURU, Karnataka—In the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections in 2019, Facebook,Google, and Twitter all rolled out ad transparency programs to allow researchers to study ads placed by political parties. Although this was a good start, most of these tools were hard to use, and offered limited information.
Now, two researchers — Manuel Beltrán in The Hague, and Bengaluru-based Nayantara Ranganathan, who are investigating new forms of propaganda in social media and elections — have created a simple tool called ad.watch that presents researchers with a much simpler and more detailed way to find information about political advertising on Facebook around the world. Ad.watch shows data from 34 countries, including India, at present with the small team working to add more.
The tool allows anyone with an internet connection to get accurate answers for some fairly standard questions that have proved hard to answer, and also provides fascinating insights into the online strategies adopted by India’s political parties. The tool even has interactive maps that breakdown spending by state and region.
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For instance, it may not come as a surprise that the largest number of political ads on Facebook were targeted at Uttar Pradesh residents, however, there were more advertisements targeting Assam residents (which sends only 14 lawmakers to the Lok Sabha) than Maharashtra residents (which sends 48).
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) predictably outspent all its rivals by a massive margin, spending nearly Rs 3.3 crores on Facebook advertisements compared to the Congress’s Rs 2.4 lakhs. However, Congress’s spending appears better targeted: the party ratcheted up close to 180 million impressions on its ad spend, compared to the BJP’s 200 million impressions gained at a much higher cost.
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