Before revision: The emergence of online political advertising has come with little regulation . As a result, social media platforms provide venues for political advertising with little accountabilityattached. Where accountability for political speech is lacking, we may expect the speech to be more divisive. This is particularly true for outside groups like Super PACs and dark money groups, most of whom disappear after elections. In this work, we analyze how campaign finance disclosure and microtargeting relate to the sentiment of political ads on Facebook.
After revision: The emergence of online political advertising has come with little regulation , allowing political advertisers on social media to avoid accountability. We analyze how transparency deficits caused by dark money and group impermanence relate to the sentiment of political ads on Facebook.