Is Facebook's advertising data accurate enough for use in social science research? Insights from a cross‐national online survey. (6th November 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Grow, André; Perrotta, Daniela; Del Fava, Emanuele; Cimentada, Jorge; Rampazzo, Francesco; Gil‐Clavel, Sofia; Zagheni, Emilio; Flores, René D.; Ventura, Ilana; Weber, Ingmar
• Is Part Of: Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Volume 185(2022)Supplement 2
• Page Start: S343
• Page End: S363
• Publication Date: 2022-11-06
• Subjects: digital censuses -- Facebook -- online surveys -- targeted advertising; Social sciences -- Statistical methods -- Periodicals; Statistics -- Periodicals; 300.15195
• DOI: 10.1111/rssa.12948
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0964-1998

Abstract

Abstract: Social scientists increasingly use Facebook's advertising platform for research, either in the form of conducting digital censuses of the general population, or for recruiting participants for survey research. Both approaches depend on the accuracy of the data that Facebook provides about its users, but little is known about how accurate these data are. We address this gap in a large‐scale, cross‐national online survey ( N = 137, 224), in which we compare self‐reported and Facebook‐classified demographic information (sex, age and region of residence). Our results suggest that Facebook's advertising platform can be fruitfully used for conducing social science research if additional steps are taken to assess the accuracy of the characteristics under consideration.