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How Murky Is “Murky Advertising”? We Audited Facebook, Google, and Other Platforms to Find Out
Jul
Once upon a time, most advertising was public. If we wanted to see what advertisers were doing, we could easily find it—on TV, in newspapers and magazines, and on billboards all over town.
This meant that governments, civil society and citizens could control advertisers, especially when they advertised products that could be harmful – such as alcohol, tobacco, gambling, pharmaceuticals, financial services or unhealthy foods.
However, the rise of online advertising has led to a kind of “obscure advertising.” Ads are often noticeable only to their intended recipients, disappearing moments after being seen, and no one outside the platforms knows how, when, where, or why the ads appear.
IN new study We conducted an audit of advertising transparency across seven major digital platforms for the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE). The results were grim: none of the platforms were limpid enough for audiences to understand what ads they were running and how they were being targeted.
Why is transparency critical?
Murky ads on digital platforms shape public life. They have been used to spread political falsehood, Target racial groupsand perpetuate gender bias.
Murky advertising on digital platforms is also a problem for addictive and harmful products such as alcohol, gambling and unhealthy foods.
Read more: Facebook ads have enabled gender, race and age discrimination. We need to know how ‘obscure ads’ affect Australians
IN recent research VicHealth found that age-restricted products, such as alcohol and gambling, were being targeted at under-18s on digital platforms. However, there is currently no way to systematically monitor what types of alcohol and gambling ads children see.
Ads are optimized to drive engagement, such as clicks or purchases, and targeted to people who are most likely to engage. For example, people identified as high-volume alcohol consumers are more likely to see more alcohol ads.
This optimization can have extreme results. test Research by the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE) and Cancer Council WA found that on a Friday evening in April 2020, one user received 107 alcohol adverts across Facebook and Instagram in one hour.
How limpid is advertising on digital platforms?
We assessed advertising transparency across major digital platforms—Facebook, Instagram, Google Search, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, and TikTok—using the following nine questions:
- Is there a comprehensive and lasting archive of all ads posted on the platform?
- Can the archive be accessed via API?
- Is there a public, searchable dashboard that is updated in real time?
- Are ads stored in the archive permanently?
- can we access removed ads?
- Can we download ads for analysis?
- Can we see what types of users the ad is aimed at?
- how much did it cost to run the ad?
- Can we check how many people the ad reached?
None of the platforms included in our assessment met basic transparency criteria, meaning that ads on the platform are not noticeable to civil society, researchers, or regulators. In most cases, ads can only be seen by their audience.
It is worth noting that TikTok has not implemented any transparency measures that would allow for the tracking of advertising on the platform.
From the article “Advertisements on Digital Platforms: How Transparent and Visible Are They?”, Author provided
Other platforms weren’t much better, with none offering a comprehensive or lasting ad archive. That means that once an ad campaign ends, there’s no way to see what ads were distributed.
Facebook and Instagram are the only platforms that publish a list of all currently busy ads. However, most of these ads are removed once the campaign becomes inactive and can no longer be followed.
The platforms also do not share contextual information about ads, such as ad spend and reach, or how ads are targeted.
Read more: Tech giants’ ‘transparency reports’ don’t specify how they’re combating disinformation. Time for legislation
Without this information, it’s challenging to understand who is being targeted by ads on these platforms. For example, we can’t be sure that companies selling harmful and addictive products aren’t targeting children or people recovering from addiction. The platforms and advertisers are asking us to simply trust them.
We found that platforms are starting to share some information about one narrowly defined category of ads: “issues, elections, or politics.” This shows that there is no technical reason to hide information about other types of ads from the public. Instead, platforms are choosing to keep it a secret.
Bringing advertising back to the public
If digital advertising could be systematically monitored, it would be possible to hold digital platforms and marketers accountable for their business practices.
Our assessment of digital platform advertising transparency shows that it is currently not observable or accountable to the public. Consumers, civil society, regulators and even advertisers all have a stake in ensuring a better public understanding of how digital platforms’ obscure advertising models operate.
The confined steps platforms have taken to create public archives, particularly for political ads, show that change is possible. And the detailed dashboards they offer advertisers on ad performance show that there are no technical barriers to accountability.
