How this archive is made

Why it exists

Political advertising disappears. Platforms remove ads, campaigns delete accounts, and ad libraries drop entries once a campaign ends — often within months. An archive that only linked to originals would be mostly dead links within two years, so each entry keeps a copy where one could be saved, and says so plainly where none could.

What the labels mean

Each entry carries one of four verdicts on AI involvement, with the reasoning published beside it. A verdict without reasoning would be an accusation, so the reasoning is required for every entry that claims any AI involvement at all.

AI-generated

Confirmed synthetic content: the footage, voice or image did not exist before it was generated.

AI-manipulated

Real material, altered with AI — a changed crowd, a substituted voice, a removed or added figure.

Suspected

Flagged but not confirmed. Detection is unreliable and the repository records the uncertainty rather than resolving it.

No AI detected

Examined and cleared. Conventional production, kept for comparison.

On uncertainty

A large share of this archive is marked Suspected, and that is deliberate. AI detection is unreliable, and flattening “we think so” into “it is” would make the archive easier to read and impossible to cite. Where we could not confirm, the entry says so.

How entries are reviewed

Anyone can submit an ad through this site. A member of the project team writes the verdict, the reasoning and the analysis for each one, and nothing is publicly visible until it has been approved. Contributors choose whether their name appears with their work; their email address is never published.

Scope and limits

The archive covers anti-EU political advertising in Romania and the Republic of Moldova, in Romanian, Russian and English. It is not a complete record of political advertising in either country, and it is not a fact-checking service. It is a teaching collection that happens to be useful to people outside the classroom.

Using this material

The advertisements are quoted for academic analysis and criticism and remain the property of whoever made them. The analyses are the work of the contributors who wrote them. If you cite the archive, cite the entry.