On Facebook and Instagram, Political Ads Are Increasingly Critical of Data Centers

Lieb analyzes 20,751 U.S. political and issue ads mentioning data centers that ran on Facebook or Instagram from January 1 through October 24, 2026. The advertising conversation shifted sharply: supportive ads outnumbered critical ones in January, but in October 57% were critical and only 3% supportive.

Advertisers spent nearly $12 million over the final 90 days studied. Corporate interests, energy, environmental effects, water, taxation, and jobs dominated the messages. The project used a language model to classify ads, then reports validation on 300 human-coded ads with 95% accuracy and an average F1 score of 0.88, making the automation method visible and contestable.