The Political Ads Library is a historical archive generated, in part, from political online ads and ad data portals provided by the two largest online advertising platforms, Facebook and Google. The library currently features 3.1 million unique ads from over 94,000 different advertisers targeting American elections and started at the outset of the 2016 U.S. election cycle.

By analyzing this growing dataset, researchers are able to observe overall trends and potential transparency issues in interactions between algorithmic advertising systems and regulators on both the state and federal level.

Jinyan Zang, PhD, Harvard University

Soheil Sadabadi, Bachelors in Computer Science, Class of 2020, Harvard University

Kevin Ngo, Bachelors in Computer Science, Class of 2021, Cornell University

Nandhini, Bachelors in Computer Science, Class of 2019, UC Davis

Prof. Latanya Sweeney, Harvard University

John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Ford Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and NetGain