Presentation given at the International Metropolis Conference on June 25 in Ottawa. The conference trip was financially supported by the European Commission's Joint Research Center as well as by ACM's Distinguished Speakers Program.

1. Digital Advertising Data for
Migration Research
Ingmar Weber
@ingmarweber
June 25, 2019
International Metropolis Conference 2019
Or How I learned to Love Online Advertising

2. The Distinguished Speakers Program
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3. About ACM
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 I am proud to be an ACM Member.

4. Facebook’s Audience Estimates

5. Facebook’s Audience Estimates

6. LinkedIn’s Audience Estimates

7. LinkedIn’s Audience Estimates

8. http://fb-doha.qcri.org/
Quick-n-Dirty Urban Census
FB Users who used to live
in W Europe or N America
Gender balanced
Well educated
Fairly old
High end devices
Luxury areas

9. Quick-n-Dirty Urban Census
http://fb-doha.qcri.org/
FB Users who used to live
in Nepal
Mostly men
Lots “unspecified”
Fairly young
Low end devices
Industrial area

10. http://fb-nyc.qcri.org/
Quick-n-Dirty Urban Census
FB Users who used to live
in Latin America

11. MIGRATION MONITORING

12. Expats Across US States
2014
2017

13. Expats Across Countries
2015
2017
regression line

14. Age-Specific Selection Biases

15. Bias Reduction via Model-Fitting
Mean out-of-sample absolute percentage error 37%,
down from 56% without origin-age bias correction
Adjusted R^2 = .70
Does not use GDP, language, internet penetration, …
z = age-gender group
i = country of birth
j = US state of residence

16. QUANTIFYING MIGRANT
ASSIMILATION

17. Do Refugees Share German Interests?
What interests to consider? Everybody likes “Music” and “Technology”.
How to interpret the score? High/low compared to European migrants?
Germans in DEU
FB Interests:
Football (90%)
Max Planck (70%)
Sauerkraut (40%)
…
Arabs in MENA
FB Interests:
Quran (80%)
Ibn Al-Haytham (60%)
Falafel (60%)
…
Arabs in DEU
FB Interests:
?

18. Do Refugees Share German Interests?
What interests to consider? Everybody likes “Music” and “Technology”.
How to interpret the score? High/low compared to European migrants?
Germans in DEU
FB Interests:
Football (90%)
Max Planck (70%)
Sauerkraut (40%)
…
Arabs in MENA
FB Interests:
Quran (80%)
Ibn Al-Haytham (60%)
Falafel (60%)
…
Arabs in DEU
FB Interests:
?

19. Obtaining an Assimilation Score
Migrant Group Assim. Score
Austrian migrants .900
Spanish migrants .864
French migrants .803
Turkish-speaking migrants .746
Arabic-speaking migrants .643
A: Women, non-uni, 45-64 .461
A: Men, uni, 18-24 .677
• Experimental methodology: take with a ton, not just a grain of salt
• Needs to be validated externally
• Goals include finding “bridging” interests/patterns

20. THE VENEZUELAN EXODUS

21. Trends across time
Trends across space
Socio-economic insights
Report Hosted on “R4V: Operational Portal Refugee Situations”

22. Trends across time
Trends across space
Socio-economic insights
Report Hosted on “R4V: Operational Portal Refugee Situations”

23. HIGH-SKILLED MIGRATION IN
EUROPE

24. Studied in X, Lives in Y
• Compile a list of all universities for European
countries
• Query number of LinkedIn users who studied
in country X who now live in country Y
• Disaggregate by gender, age, industry, …

25. All age groups

26. 55+

27. 18-24

28. LIMITATIONS AND CHALLENGES

29. Strengths and Weaknesses
+ Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snapchat, Google, ...
+ Real-time estimates
+ Uses anonymous and aggregate data
+ Gender, age, location, country of origin, ….
- Black box on how attributes are inferred
- Needs modeling for bias correction
- Usage patterns and black box change over time
- No historic data available
- Risk of group-level misuse

30. Thanks!
iweber@hbku.edu.qa
References and full texts: https://ingmarweber.de/publications/