Caracterização e análise de propagandas políticas microdirecionadas no Brasil: um estudo de caso do Facebook e Instagram

Abstract

Social networks have become the source of information for Brazilians. As a result, most politicians, public figures and political candidates use online advertising platforms to spread their values and political messages. Since 2018, the Meta company (former Facebook company) has made available an Ad Library that provides advertising transparency for its products, such as Facebook and Instagram, to avoid interference in elections and other political issues. In this work, we provide a characterization of ad data in Brazil to understand the dynamics of political ads on Facebook and Instagram, as malicious advertisers can use the platforms resources to influence the Brazilian political and social environment. Such an analysis is crucial for understanding the types of ads that Meta selects for the data library, since there are ads chosen to integrate the library through an algorithm, which is not fully known. We analyzed 2,981,807 ads and their metrics for impressions and money spent, focusing on election periods. Our analysis shows that each year, advertisers spend more money on ads during election periods, with growth between the first and second rounds of elections. In addition, we identified the advertisers who invested the most in ads on Facebook and Instagram, and which types of ads had a high investment. Finally, we made an analysis of the textual content of advertisements, through topic modeling, to understand which subjects are most invested in election periods.