About

Making the Invisible Visible: Introducing PoliDashboard —  An App For Tracking Targeted Political Ads on Facebook and Instagram.

– Why does transparency in targeted digital advertising matter, especially during elections? In a world where political influence is often subtle and data-driven, it’s easy for paid messages to quietly shape public opinion. PoliDashboard.org helps bring these hidden campaigns into the light. This open-source app tracks political, election-related, and social issue ads, including those running on Meta platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. It offers a near real-time look at when ads are running, who’s paying for them, how much they’re spending, and which audiences they’re trying to reach.

Developed by the Social Media Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University, PoliDashboard is part of a global initiative aimed at enhancing democratic transparency and accountability. By using Meta’s Ad Library API to automatically refresh its data daily, the tool ensures that the public, journalists, and researchers have access to up-to-date, trustworthy information. This tool promotes transparency in online political advertising by revealing who is behind ads, the messages they convey, and how they target audiences. Making this information visible helps prevent manipulation and holds both foreign and domestic advertisers accountable.

Country-specific dashboards are presented in partnership with selected academic and civic partners in countries where the Facebook Ad Library is available. 

Team Members

  • Original Concept and Design:  Philip Mai and Anatoliy Gruzd
  • Developers: Ricky Yu (2025-), Tiago Ribeiro (2023-2025), Jingwei Zhang (2023), Nikolai Krause (2018-2022) and Shawn Menzies (2015-2016)

Partner Institutions

Contact Us

We welcome comments and suggestions for improving the dashboard. If you have any questions, please contact us at info[at]socialmedialab.ca or visit the project’s GitHub page.

About the Social Media Lab

The Social Media Lab is an interdisciplinary research center at the Ted Rogers School of Management, part of Toronto Metropolitan University. The lab examines how social media and digital technologies are transforming the way people and organizations communicate, share information, conduct business, and foster communities. It also examines the broader impact of these shifts on society. Through its research, the lab aims to help the public better understand both the benefits and potential downsides of adopting new technologies with a focus on combating and managing the spread of misinformation and disinformation. 

The Lab was established in 2010 and is the first of its kind in North America. It is led by co-directors Anatoliy Gruzd (PhD) and Philip Mai (JD). The Lab is internationally recognized and attracts a diverse range of outstanding multidisciplinary scholars from around the world each year. It is a leader in social media studies and is the founder of the International Conference on Social Media and Society (#SMSociety). 

In addition to conducting original empirical research and producing public reports around matters of public interest, the Social Media Lab also develops research apps, tools, and information dashboards to support social science research on online participation. Some of the Lab’s research tools, such as Communalytic and Netlytic.org (Superseded), PoliDashboard.org, NoteTracker.socialmediadata.org, DeepfakesTracker.org and  ConflictMisinfo.org are used by thousands of students, educators, researchers, analysts and journalists worldwide each year.