Google Releases a Searchable Database of US Political Ads (techcrunch.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: In an effort to provide more transparency and deliver on a promise to Congress, Google just published an archive of political ads that have run on its platform. Google's new database, which it calls the Ad Library, is searchable through a dedicated launch page. Anyone can search for and filter ads, viewing them by candidate name or advertiser, spend, the dates the ads were live, impressions and type. For anyone looking for the biggest ad budget or the farthest reaching political ad, the ads can be sorted by spend, impressions and recency, as well. Google also provided a report on the data, showing ad spend by U.S. state, by advertiser and by top keywords.

Comments

Ob

[Hognoxious]

Does it include Russian US political ads?

Hypothetically, I mean, if such a thing existed.

Worked great for me

[Cornwallis]

I tried searching "filthy OR crooked OR corrupt OR evil OR morons" and it correctly showed all of them.

Re:unmask the money

[LazarusQLong]

Funny you should ask. https://www.followthemoney.org... Is one such site. There are others. Google is your friend here.

money

[cascadingstylesheet]

If mere money had the political power that we attribute to it, we'd be discussing the legacy of President Forbes.

Power

[JBMcB]

And who will decide what the restrictions on political ad spending will be? The current president and legislature of the federal US government? You think that's a good idea?

It's great that you are thinking in terms of money. You also need to think in terms of power. If you give "the good guys" the power to do something, you're also giving "the bad guys" the power to do the exact same thing.

Re:planned parenthood

[Comboman]

What dates did you use? The site defaults to the most recent month and given the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the SCOTUS, I don't doubt that Planned Parenthood has been buying ads lately. However, if you look at other time periods (like prior to the election), you will find others spending much more.

Transparency isn't enough

[sjbe]

Yeah but I think transparency is really all that is needed.

I disagree. There has to be legal consequences or else nothing will change. I don't think any amount of transparency will matter unless it either results in legal consequences or actually affects election outcomes. Currently neither of those occur as far as I can tell because we have a delusional Supreme Court which seems to be hallucinating that having more money should entitle one to more free speech and a proportionately bigger voice in elections.

If there is anything the 2016 election in the US taught us it is that political ads... aren't all that relevant.

I presume you are talking about the presidential race. That was a highly unusual election with two highly unusual candidates - both extremely well known and polarizing. Political ads very much matter in most elections. If they didn't have a measurable effect then they would be doing something else. Political ads have been proven to work (including social media ads), particularly attack ads.

We live in a networked society now and it is our circles of peers and the information we share between us that influences us most.

That has always been the case but it's demonstrably a fact that political ads do influence elections at the margins. A lot of elections are fights for just a few percent of the voters who haven't already been swayed one way or the other. A card carrying democrat or republican probably isn't going to vote for the other guy so the ads aren't really for them.

Re:Transparency isn't enough

[Obfuscant]

I disagree. There has to be legal consequences or else nothing will change.

Legal consequences for the exercise of first amendment rights. An interesting concept. Which part of "congress shall make no laws" is confusing? Or is it the part of "free speech" where someone saying "I support John Doe for Congress" is covered by the first amendment?

we have a delusional Supreme Court which seems to be hallucinating that having more money should entitle one to more free speech and a proportionately bigger voice in elections.

Ahhh, now I get it. You think "free speech" means "free as in beer". It doesn't make sense to you that exercising the right to free speech might cost money, and that telling someone they can't spend their money is essentially telling them they can't participate in "free speech". "Free speech" is apparently supposed to mean whatever can be said without having to pay for it to be disseminated.

and a proportionately bigger voice in elections.

"Voice" in an election is called a "ballot". More money does not mean more ballots. "Voice" in the arena of political speech costs money -- so yes, the more money you have the more you can disseminate your ideas. How terrible! But then, that's why there are things called "donations", so like-minded people (or all union employees) can pool their money and improve the dissemination of their speech. How wonderful! The natural outcome of that is that people with unpopular ideas don't get donations. How terrible!

Re:unmask the money

[LazarusQLong]

also you can check: http://www.opensecrets.org/