By Elizabeth Culliford

(Reuters). – Facebook (NASDAQ) owner Meta Platforms Inc shared more data Monday on how advertisers targeted political and social issues ads.

Meta also stated it would include targeting information for individual ads in its Facebook Open Research and Transparency database, which is used by academic researchers. The expansion comes after a pilot was launched in 2013.

Meta’s vice president for business integrity Jeff King stated that rather than analyzing the way an ad was placed on Facebook it is going through and considering an advertiser strategy to achieve what they wanted.

Recent pressure has forced the social media giant to disclose targeted ads on its platforms. It launched an open ad library in 2018, but some critics pointed out its shortcomings and lack of targeting data.

Meta indicated that the page’s ad library would soon display a summary listing of targeted information regarding social issues, political or electoral advertisements.

Meta stated in a blog article that the Ad Library can show that Page spent 2,000 advertising dollars on social issues, election or politics in the last thirty days. That 40% of the spend was directed to Pennsylvania residents or people interested in politics.

Meta stated that the new information will be available in the Ad Library in July. The data will include information from August 2020 and the data will be made available to vetted researchers at the end May, according to Meta.

As part of its transparency initiatives, the company ran various programs together with researchers from outside. The company stated last year that it had discovered a technical fault in the data provided by its Social Science One Project.

The company stated that it had removed the accounts of New York University researchers who were studying political ads via its platform in 2021 because they were concerned about user privacy.