Social-Media
Facebook requires the NYU Ad Observer to avoid gathering advertisement info.
Facebook needs the New York University study project to avoid gathering data on the political ad-targeting on the social media, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The Ad Observatory, an NYU engineering school initiative with more than 6,000 volunteers, uses its AdObserver browser extension to scrap data from political advertising on Facebook. But Facebook claims the software breaks its terms of service that bar scrapping.
A Facebook official sent a letter to the Ad Observatory researchers on 16 October saying that 'scraping methods, no matter how well-intentioned, are not an appropriate way of gathering information from us.' The letter also demanded further disciplinary action if the project did not shut down and erase the data it gathered, according to the WSJ. The organization could change its own code to discourage the NYU team from gathering additional data, the Facebook spokesperson told WSJ.
The NYU group learned this week that Facebook did not mark all political advertising to show who paid for them as mandated under its own disclosure laws, BuzzFeed News reported.
Last month, Facebook released a list of new safeguards it was putting in motion to try to stave off political intervention in the US presidential election on 3 November. It said that it would stop making campaign advertisements a week before the election, put the voter awareness center at the top of the Instagram and Facebook user feeds, and mark deceptive election results posts.
Facebook did not respond immediately to an e-mail from The Verge requesting a comment.
