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Analyzing the Use of COVID-19 Ads on Facebook

Published: 30 November 2020 Publication History

Abstract

In view of the emergence of mobility restrictions and social isolation imposed by the coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic, digital media, especially social networks, become a breeding ground for fake news, political attacks and large-scale misinformation. The impacts of this 'infodemic' can take even greater proportions when using sponsored content on social networks, such as Facebook ads. Using the Facebook ad library we collected more than 236k facebook ads from 75 different countries. Choosing ads from Brazil as the focus of research, we found ads with political attacks, requests for donations, doctors prescribing vitamin D as a weapon to fight coronavirus, among other contents with evidence of misinformation.

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Cited By

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  • (2022)Characterizing Brazilian Political Ads on FacebookProceedings of the Brazilian Symposium on Multimedia and the Web10.1145/3539637.3557935(47-54)Online publication date: 7-Nov-2022
  • (2021)Satisfaction of Members of a Facebook Group with the Credible Information Provided to Reduce Medical Misinformation in Obstetrics During the COVID-19 Pandemic in PeruTelematics and Computing10.1007/978-3-030-89586-0_12(151-162)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2021

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cover image ACM Conferences
WebMedia '20: Proceedings of the Brazilian Symposium on Multimedia and the Web
November 2020
364 pages
ISBN:9781450381963
DOI:10.1145/3428658
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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In-Cooperation

  • SBC: Brazilian Computer Society
  • CNPq: Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecn
  • CGIBR: Comite Gestor da Internet no Brazil
  • CAPES: Brazilian Higher Education Funding Council

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 30 November 2020

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Author Tags

  1. Covid-19 ads
  2. facebook ads
  3. political advertisement

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  • Short-paper
  • Research
  • Refereed limited

Conference

WebMedia '20
Sponsor:
WebMedia '20: Brazillian Symposium on Multimedia and the Web
November 30 - December 4, 2020
São Luís, Brazil

Acceptance Rates

WebMedia '20 Paper Acceptance Rate 34 of 87 submissions, 39%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 270 of 873 submissions, 31%

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Cited By

View all
  • (2022)Characterizing Brazilian Political Ads on FacebookProceedings of the Brazilian Symposium on Multimedia and the Web10.1145/3539637.3557935(47-54)Online publication date: 7-Nov-2022
  • (2021)Satisfaction of Members of a Facebook Group with the Credible Information Provided to Reduce Medical Misinformation in Obstetrics During the COVID-19 Pandemic in PeruTelematics and Computing10.1007/978-3-030-89586-0_12(151-162)Online publication date: 1-Nov-2021

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