Social Media Lab
Empirical research on how social media and digital technologies reshape communication, organizations and society, with particular emphasis on misinformation, disinformation, election integrity, manipulated media and platform transparency.
- Type
- Academic interdisciplinary social-media research centre
- Based in
- Toronto, Canada
- Focus region
- Canada, with comparative and global social-media research
Notable projects
PoliDashboard for tracking political advertising on Meta; DeepfakesTracker; Communalytic; NoteTracker; ConflictMisinfo; and the 2025 investigation that identified and named the post-approval ad-creative swapping tactic known as ‘Chameleon ads’.
An interdisciplinary research centre at the Ted Rogers School of Management, Toronto Metropolitan University. Established in 2010 and led by Anatoliy Gruzd and Philip Mai, the Lab combines public-interest empirical research with open research tools and dashboards.
- Investigation
- 1
- Platform tracked
- 1
- Active since
- 2025
- Latest report
- Apr 2025
Topics covered
- Ad Transparency & Fraud1
- Content Moderation1
- Election Integrity1
- Misinformation & Disinformation1
Watchdog vs. platform
Publicly documented legal proceedings, access disputes, or other platform pushback. Allegations, findings, and outcomes are labelled separately and linked to their sources.
No sourced legal or practical dispute has been documented for Social Media Lab yet. Know of one?
Add a sourced case