Meta Content Library as a Research Tool

Yair Rubinstein (Meta Platforms, Inc., New York, New York, USA — rubin.yair@gmail.com; ORCID: 0009-0009-4789-7234)

Published in the Adjunct Proceedings of the 36th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media (HT Adjunct 2025), September 15–19, 2025, Chicago, IL, USA · DOI: 10.1145/3720533.3756893 · License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · © 2025 Copyright held by the owner/author(s).

Authors: Yair Rubinstein

Keywords: Digital methods, Network science, Social media research, content analysis, data science, research data visualization

Session: Tutorial · Pages: 54 · Conference: HT'25 Adjunct

Abstract

At ACM Hypertext, representatives from Meta's research partnerships team led a tutorial for researchers about Meta Content Library and demonstrated the latest features available in its user interface (UI) and API. The Content Library provides researchers comprehensive access to public content from Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Users can surface billions of data points from public posts, videos, photos, reels, story highlights, and more. The in-depth demonstration led by our partnerships and data science team demonstrated how the API and the UI can surface this content and illuminate topics relevant to ACM Hypertext attendees studying the intersection of digital media and society. Meta also provided an overview for how individuals and research teams can apply for access to these tools, as well as opportunities for attendees to share feedback about Meta's research tools and services.

CCS Concepts

Software and its engineering → Software notations and tools

Information systems → World Wide Web Web interfaces

Applied computing → Education; Digital libraries and archives

Human-centered computing → Human computer interaction (HCI); Interactive systems and tools; User interface management systems

Keywords

Social media research, research data visualization, data science, content analysis, Network science, Digital methods

1 Introduction

Meta Content Library and Content Library API provide comprehensive access to the full public content archive from Facebook and Instagram. For Facebook, data includes posts to Pages, groups, events and public profiles belonging to widely-known individuals and organizations. Public Marketplace listings and fundraisers are also available. For Instagram, data includes posts shared by business and creator accounts as well as personal accounts belonging to widely-known individuals and organizations. Public fundraisers and Instagram channels are also available. In addition, data from Threads is included for posts shared by public profiles with 1,000 or more followers.

1.1 Meta Content Library's User Interface and API

Meta Content Library's dataset can be queried through either its user interface or API. The user interface is a web-based, controlled access environment. The API provides individuals additional tools to conduct deeper analyses of public content within its cleanroom environment.

With Meta Content Library's user interface, individuals can easily search content across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads with comprehensive sorting and filtering options to help find relevant results. The user interface also offers features like producer lists which allow individuals to search results with customizable collections of content producers, and custom dashboards which allow individuals to quickly display post feeds and trend charts based on selected keywords and producers.

Content Library API allows programmatic queries of the data and is designed for computational researchers familiar with R or Python. Data pulled from the API can be analyzed in a cleanroom environment.

Individuals can search across over 100 data fields with multiple dedicated endpoints in Content Library API. For Facebook, this includes Pages, posts, groups, events, profiles, comments, Marketplace listings and fundraisers. For Instagram, this includes accounts, posts, comments, fundraisers, and channels.

1.2 Learn More

Researchers can explore our developer documentation to learn more about the features, search quality and data available in Meta Content Library and Content Library API.

References

[1] Meta, 2025. Transparency Center. Retrieved August 1, 2025 from https://transparency.meta.com/researchtools/meta-content-library

[2] Meta, 2025. Meta Content Library and API Developer Documentation. Retrieved August 1, 2025 from https://developers.facebook.com/docs/content-library-and-api