Facebook says expected Russian change operation spent $100K on ads compelling polarizing posts

Facebook said on Wednesday it had found that an change operation likely based in Russia spent $100,000 US on ads compelling divisive social and domestic messages in a two-year-period by May.

Facebook, a widespread amicable media network, pronounced that many of a ads promoted 470 “inauthentic” accounts and pages that it has now suspended. The ads widespread polarizing views on topics including immigration, competition and happy rights, instead of subsidy a particular domestic candidate, it said.

The commentary were announced in a blog post by a chief security officer, Alex Stamos, and pronounced that Facebook was co-operating with sovereign inquiries into change operations during a 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The association pronounced it found no couple to any presidential campaign. Three-fourths of a ads were inhabitant in scope, and the rest did not seem to simulate targeting of political swing-states as voting neared.

Facebook did not imitation a names of any of a suspended pages, yet some of them enclosed such difference as “refugee” and “patriot.”

Even if no laws were violated, a pages ran afoul of Facebook mandate for authenticity, environment adult the suspensions.

White paper

More than $1 billion was spent on digital domestic ads during a 2016 presidential campaign, 10,000 times a amount identified by Facebook’s confidence team. But a commentary strut U.S. comprehension agency conclusions that Russia was actively concerned in moulding the election.

Facebook previously published a white paper on influence operations, including what it pronounced were feign “amplifier” accounts for propaganda, and pronounced it was enormous down.

As recently as June, it told reporters that it had not found any justification to date of Russian operatives buying election-related ads on a platform.

A Facebook worker pronounced Wednesday that there were unspecified connectors between a divisive ads and a well-known Russian “troll factory” in St. Petersburg that publishes comments on amicable media.

Beyond a emanate ads, Facebook pronounced it unclosed $50,000 more in sincerely domestic promotion that competence have a couple to Russia. Some of those ads were bought regulating a Russian language, even yet they were displayed to users in English.

Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/facebook-russian-influence-operation-ads-1.4277835?cmp=rss