A group of New York University researchers say they have been banned from Facebook for looking into political ad transparency and misinformation on the ubiquitous social network.
Members of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, who call themselves Cybersecurity for Democracy (CFD) created Ad Observer, a browser plug-in that automatically scrapes data on what political ads users are being shown and why.
On its website, the group insists the plug-in does not collect personal information, like names, Facebook friends, or how users interacted with the ads.
Claiming their work was non-partisan, they say it's 'important to democracy to be able to check who is trying to influence the public and how.'
But in a blog post Tuesday, Facebook project management director Mike Clark said the personal accounts of three CFD members were suspended because the Ad Observer plug-in used 'unauthorized means to access and collect data from Facebook, in violation of our terms of service'.
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Members of NYU's engineering school created a plug-in that scrapes political ads, like this for Marjorie Taylor Greene, from Facebook users' feeds to show visitors when the ad ran, its reach, how much it cost and who paid for it
'Today, we disabled the accounts, apps, Pages and platform access associated with NYU's Ad Observatory Project and its operators,' Clark wrote in a post titled 'Research cannot be the justification for compromising people's privacy.'
CFD says the plug-in was developed to examine the origin, reach and
