PC Mag: 'Suspicious' Groups Were Big Buyers of Facebook Political Ads
New research points out a disturbing trend among political ads bought on Facebook: the lack of a public paper trail.
During the 2016 election, paid political ads on divisive topics were often sponsored by "suspicious groups" that left no information about their true identity, according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
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The research underscores the need for more transparency around digital political ads, said the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center.
"As this peer-reviewed study demonstrates, secretive groups were able to run tens of thousands of digital political ads without detection because of massive loopholes in our campaign finance laws," said Brendan Fischer, a director at CLC, in a statement.