The identification of political ads on Facebook often goes wrong

Researchers at KU Leuven (belonging to the imec-DistriNet research group) and New York University (Cybersecurity for Democracy) have demonstrated that on a global scale, Facebook misjudges up to 83 percent of ads that they or the researchers deemed political. In some cases, Facebook does not recognise them as political ads, while they often wrongfully label non-political ads as political.

It is in the US and New Zealand that Facebook achieved the most success in filtering ads correctly. In those countries, only one percent of ads slip through the net, even though in the US, the number of ads involved still amounts to just under ten thousand. Facebook achieved its worst score in Malaysia, where 45 percent of ads remain under the radar. ...