Last week, we announced approval of the first group of over sixty researchers to use Facebook data to study social media's effect on elections and democracy. Today, we are happy to share two new requests for proposals -- An RFP for the CrowdTangle API and an RFP for the Ad Library API. Each RFP features simple application processes and fast decisions.
- The CrowdTangle API includes a subset of public pages on Facebook and Instagram. The data we are providing access to includes, from Facebook, 6.9 billion page posts, 1.2 billion group posts, and 11.2 million verified profile posts, as well as 1.6 billion Instagram posts. More information about the dataset can be found in this codebook.
- The Ad Library API includes data on political advertising. The Ad Library is new and under active development, and we are hopeful Facebook will continually improve its capabilities so researchers can better analyze campaign spending, ad targeting, and ad content. It includes information about $540 million spent on 3.25 million ads in the US since May 2018; it also includes somewhat smaller numbers of ads in India, the UK, Ukraine, and Brazil. More information about this dataset can be found in the Ad Library codebook (with known issues here).
Researchers with successful proposals for these RFPs to Social Science One will obtain data access along with training and an online community to ask questions. If you seek funding, you may apply through the separate process described here.