Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: doi:10.22028/D291-38301
Title: Using Facebook advertising data to describe the socio-economic situation of Syrian refugees in Lebanon
Author(s): Fatehkia, Masoomali
del Villar, Zinnya
Koebe, Till
Letouzé, Emmanuel
Lozano, Andres
Al Feel, Roaa
Mrad, Fouad
Weber, Ingmar
Language: English
Title: Frontiers in Big Data
Volume: 5
Publisher/Platform: Frontiers
Year of Publication: 2022
Free key words: Syrian civil war
Lebanon
Facebook advertising data
big data
vulnerability assessment
DDC notations: 600 Technology
Publikation type: Journal Article
Abstract: While the fighting in the Syrian civil war has mostly stopped, an estimated 5.6 million Syrians remain living in neighboring countries1. Of these, an estimated 1.5 million are sheltering in Lebanon. Ongoing efforts by organizations such as UNHCR to support the refugee population are often ineffective in reaching those most in need. According to UNHCR's 2019 Vulnerability Assessment of Syrian Refugees Report (VASyR), only 44% of the Syrian refugee families eligible for multipurpose cash assistance were provided with help, as the others were not captured in the data. In this project, we are investigating the use of non-traditional data, derived from Facebook advertising data, for population level vulnerability assessment. In a nutshell, Facebook provides advertisers with an estimate of how many of its users match certain targeting criteria, e.g., how many Facebook users currently living in Beirut are “living abroad,” aged 18–34, speak Arabic, and primarily use an iOS device. We evaluate the use of such audience estimates to describe the spatial variation in the socioeconomic situation of Syrian refugees across Lebanon. Using data from VASyR as ground truth, we find that iOS device usage explains 90% of the out-of-sample variance in poverty across the Lebanese governorates. However, evaluating predictions at a smaller spatial resolution also indicate limits related to sparsity, as Facebook, for privacy reasons, does not provide audience estimates for fewer than 1,000 users. Furthermore, comparing the population distribution by age and gender of Facebook users with that of the Syrian refugees from VASyR suggests an under-representation of Syrian women on the social media platform. This work adds to growing body of literature demonstrating the value of anonymous and aggregate Facebook advertising data for analysing large-scale humanitarian crises and migration events.
DOI of the first publication: 10.3389/fdata.2022.1033530
URL of the first publication: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fdata.2022.1033530/full
Link to this record: urn:nbn:de:bsz:291--ds-383017
hdl:20.500.11880/34574
http://dx.doi.org/10.22028/D291-38301
ISSN: 2624-909X
Date of registration: 30-Nov-2022
Description of the related object: Supplementary material
Related object: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fdata.2022.1033530/full#supplementary-material
Faculty: MI - Fakultät für Mathematik und Informatik
Department: MI - Informatik
Professorship: MI - Prof. Dr. Ingmar Weber
Collections:SciDok - Der Wissenschaftsserver der Universität des Saarlandes

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