{"id":23334,"date":"2025-03-31T06:04:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T06:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/?p=23334"},"modified":"2025-04-14T00:38:02","modified_gmt":"2025-04-14T00:38:02","slug":"polidashboard-org-launches-with-powerful-new-features-to-track-political-ads-just-in-time-for-the-2025-canadian-federal-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/2025\/03\/31\/polidashboard-org-launches-with-powerful-new-features-to-track-political-ads-just-in-time-for-the-2025-canadian-federal-election\/","title":{"rendered":"PoliDashboard.org Launches with Powerful New Features to Track Political Ads on Facebook and Instagram\u2014 Just in Time for the 2025 Canadian Federal Election"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/polidashboard.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\" noreferrer noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"181\" src=\"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/polidashboard-with-tagline-1024x181.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-23336\" srcset=\"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/polidashboard-with-tagline-1024x181.png 1024w, https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/polidashboard-with-tagline-300x53.png 300w, https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/polidashboard-with-tagline-768x136.png 768w, https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/polidashboard-with-tagline-1536x272.png 1536w, https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/polidashboard-with-tagline-696x123.png 696w, https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/polidashboard-with-tagline-1068x189.png 1068w, https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/polidashboard-with-tagline.png 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>[Toronto, Ontario] \u2014 [March 31, 2025]<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2014 As the 2025 Canadian federal election gets underway, the newly redesigned <a href=\"https:\/\/polidashboard.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">PoliDashboard.org<\/a> arrives at a crucial moment, providing timely tools to track and analyze political advertising on Meta platforms (Facebook and Instagram).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Developed by the <strong>Social Media Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University<\/strong>, PoliDashboard is an open-source project built to increase transparency in digital campaigning and support public understanding of how political messages are delivered online. It is part of a global initiative to promote transparency in elections and public discourse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The goal of PoliDashboard is to shine a light on paid political advertising on Meta platforms\u2014helping make social media users less vulnerable to manipulation by both foreign and domestic actors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>This new release includes powerful updates:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Audience Demographic Filters:<\/strong> Explore which demographic groups (based on age and gender) each advertiser targets;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Location-Based Filtering:<\/strong> See where ad dollars are being spent by province\/state;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Enhanced Speed &amp; Usability:<\/strong> Experience a faster, more intuitive user interface, making it easier than ever to dive into the data.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201c<em>These upgrades come at a critical time<\/em>,\u201d said Philip Mai, co-director of the Social Media Lab and a member of the PoliDashboard development team. \u201c<em>As Canadians head into another federal election, it\u2019s vital that we understand who\u2019s spending money on political ads, what messages they\u2019re promoting, and whom they\u2019re trying to influence.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">PoliDashboard uses publicly available data from Meta\u2019s Ad Library, providing rich visualizations and advanced filtering options to empower journalists, researchers, civil society organizations and the  public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Anatoliy Gruzd, also part of the PoliDashboard development team, added:<br><em>&#8220;Our goal is to make political ad data more accessible and meaningful\u2014not just for researchers and journalists, but for anyone who wants to see how digital platforms are being used to shape public opinion. Transparency is the first step toward accountability.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Explore the dashboard now at:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/polidashboard.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/polidashboard.org\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Media Contact:<\/strong><br>[Philip Mai]<br>[info@socialmedialab.ca]<br>[Social Media Lab, Toronto Metropolitan University]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Toronto, Ontario] \u2014 [March 31, 2025]&nbsp;\u2014 As the 2025 Canadian federal election gets underway, the newly redesigned PoliDashboard.org arrives at a crucial moment, providing timely tools to track and analyze political advertising on Meta platforms (Facebook and Instagram). Developed by the Social Media Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University, PoliDashboard is an open-source project built to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":23453,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,37],"tags":[55,514,8,472,511,510],"class_list":["post-23334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-announcements","category-politics","tag-cdnpoli","tag-ads","tag-facebook","tag-instagram","tag-misinformation","tag-polidashboard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23334"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23347,"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23334\/revisions\/23347"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialmedialab.ca\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}