Facebook launches new weekly ad archive report for political spending

Facebook on Tuesday introduced a new “ad archive report” for political advertisements and revealed that is the top spender for such ads on its own platform.

The report will help users more easily search and categorize the Facebook ad archive that was released in May.

The company revealed that they have spent $12 million touting its election security reforms and urging users to vote.

{mosads}But that disclosure was essentially a footnote in its release of top political spenders across Facebook and Instagram. Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s (D-Texas) Senate campaign is currently the top campaign spender on the platform with close to $5.4 million spent since May in his effort to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz (R).

O’Rourke is followed by President Trump’s Make America Great Again Committee, a joint fundraiser between the Republican National Committee and the president’s reelection campaign. The group has spent more than $3.1 million on Facebook ads since May.

Rounding out the top five were JB Pritzker, a Democrat running for governor of Illinois, with about $1.99 million; Care2, a networking site for activists, with $1.97 million; and ExxonMobil with $1.95 million.

“This report is a weekly summary of the archive and includes data for ads that have been viewed by people in the US for the time period selected above,” a message on the site reads. “Making this report available to the public is part of Facebook’s efforts to increase transparency in advertising.”

Facebook has so far only released a screenshot of the report and said it would soon be downloadable for everyone.