{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,11]],"date-time":"2026-09-11T04:20:25Z","timestamp":1789100425850,"version":"build-2803163510"},"reference-count":29,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,11,30]],"date-time":"2022-11-30T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1669766400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Big Data"],"abstract":"<jats:p>While the fighting in the Syrian civil war has mostly stopped, an estimated 5.6 million Syrians remain living in neighboring countries<jats:xref><jats:sup>1<\/jats:sup><\/jats:xref>. 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 \u201cliving abroad,\u201d aged 18\u201334, 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.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3389\/fdata.2022.1033530","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,11,30]],"date-time":"2022-11-30T06:13:56Z","timestamp":1669788836000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":2,"title":["Using Facebook advertising data to describe the socio-economic situation of Syrian refugees in Lebanon"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"5","author":[{"given":"Masoomali","family":"Fatehkia","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Zinnya","family":"del Villar","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Till","family":"Koebe","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Emmanuel","family":"Letouz\u00e9","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Andres","family":"Lozano","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Roaa","family":"Al Feel","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Fouad","family":"Mrad","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ingmar","family":"Weber","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,11,30]]},"reference":[{"key":"B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"617","DOI":"10.1111\/padr.12289","article-title":"The impact of hurricane Maria on out-migration from Puerto Rico: evidence from facebook data","volume":"45","author":"Alexander","year":"2019","journal-title":"Popul. 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A.\n            KorkmaE. E.\n            BircanT.\n          Oxford; New York, NYOxford University PressData Science for Migration and Mobility2022"},{"key":"B14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"121","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-319-13734-6_9","article-title":"International gender differences and gaps in online social networks,","volume-title":"Social Informatics: 6th International Conference, SocInfo 2014","author":"Magno","year":"2014"},{"key":"B15","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"e0230264","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0230264","article-title":"Migrant mobility flows characterized with digital data","volume":"15","author":"Mazzoli","year":"2020","journal-title":"PLoS ONE"},{"key":"B16","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.48550\/arXiv.2206.12352","article-title":"The potential of Facebook advertising data for understanding flows of people from Ukraine to the European Union","author":"Minora","year":"2022"},{"key":"B17","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"e0229175","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0229175","article-title":"Monitoring of the Venezuelan exodus through Facebook's advertising platform","volume":"15","author":"Palotti","year":"2020","journal-title":"PLoS ONE"},{"key":"B18","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"261","DOI":"10.1111\/imig.12987","article-title":"Using the innovative to improve the established: the employment of social networking sites as recruitment tools in migrant surveys","volume":"60","author":"P\u00f6tzschke","year":"2022","journal-title":"Int. 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C.\n            FatehkiaM.\n            GarimellK.\n            ErberI.\n            ZagheniE.\n          \n            SalahA. A.\n            KorkmaE. E.\n            BircanT.\n          Oxford; New York, NYOxford University PressData Science for Migration and Mobility2022"},{"key":"B28","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"88","DOI":"10.1145\/3447739","article-title":"Non-traditional data sources: providing insights into sustainable development","volume":"64","author":"Weber","year":"2021","journal-title":"Commun. ACM"},{"key":"B29","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"721","DOI":"10.1111\/padr.12102","article-title":"Leveraging Facebook's advertising platform to monitor stocks of migrants","volume":"43","author":"Zagheni","year":"2017","journal-title":"Popul. Dev. 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