Facebook to Turn Over Russian-Linked Ads to Congress

 

Facebook said it would share  more than 3,000 Russia-linked adds with two congressional committees  investigating Russian influence on last year’s presidential campaign.  The company previously showed congressional staff a sample of the ads,  some of which attacked Hillary Clinton or praised Donald J. Trump, but  had not shared the entire collection.   

WASHINGTON  — Under growing pressure from Congress and the public to reveal more  about the spread of covert Russian propaganda on Facebook, the company  said on Thursday that it was turning over more than 3,000 Russia-linked  ads to congressional committees investigating the Kremlin’s influence  operation during the 2016 presidential campaign.“I  care deeply about the democratic process and protecting its integrity,”  Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, said during an appearance  on Facebook Live, the company’s video service. He added that he did not  want anyone “to use our tools to undermine democracy.”“That’s not what we stand for,” he said.The  announcement  that Facebook would share the ads with the Senate and House  intelligence committees came after the social network spent two weeks on  the defensive. The company faced calls for greater transparency about  470 Russia-linked accounts — in which fictional people posed as American  activists — which were taken down after they had promoted inflammatory  messages on divisive issues. Facebook had previously angered  congressional staff by showing only a sample of the ads, some of which  attacked Hillary Clinton or praised Donald J. Trump.Facebook’s admission on Sept. 6  that Russian agents covertly bought ads on the site during last year’s  campaign has brought intense scrutiny on the social network and on  Twitter, entangling both companies in the investigation by Robert S.  Mueller III, the special counsel. Both companies have turned over  detailed data to Mr. Mueller. The  disclosure of the ads also raised the possibility of future regulation  of political advertising on social media platforms. This week,  congressional Democrats asked the Federal Election Commission to advise  on ways to prevent illicit foreign influence on American elections via  social media, including possible new laws or regulations. Continue reading the main story           

Steve Crouse

September 26, 2017  They did 28 Billion last year , probably 50 this  year.  Everyone has a chance to rant against anyone they hate,  including family members as...    

Jeff C

September 26, 2017  If Facebook has $28 billion in mostly ad  revenue, then how much of that is politically related? - in the broad  and specific sense of the...    

Erica Smythe

September 23, 2017  Even on this forum within the NYT, organizations  exist with paid employees who post all day to try to influence the  national narrative and...     

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ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story      Dmitri  S. Peskov, a spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia,  denied on Friday that Russia had been involved in any way. The Kremlin,  he said, does not even know how to put advertisements on Facebook,  adding, “We have never done it, and the Russian side has never been  involved in this.”For  Facebook, the move to work with the congressional committees  underscored how far the social network has strayed from being a mere  technology company and how it has increasingly had to deal with the  unintended consequences of the tools it provides to reach the more than  two billion people who use the site regularly. The company became more  proactive in deflecting criticism this week, with its chief operating  officer, Sheryl Sandberg, describing on Wednesday the steps Facebook  would take to strengthen its ad system so that it could not be misused to target racists.On Thursday, in a move clearly intended to pre-empt government intervention, Mr. Zuckerberg outlined the list of actions  Facebook planned to take in the coming weeks to make political  advertising more transparent. He said each ad will show which Facebook  Page — a kind of account required for businesses to create an ad — had  paid for the ad, although that would not necessarily identify the people  behind the Facebook Page. In addition, Facebook plans to invest more  heavily in its security teams, expand its coordination with global  election commissions, and work closely with other tech companies to  share threat information as it arises.In  his seven-minute talk from Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park,  Calif., Mr. Zuckerberg suggested there may be additional fake accounts  linked to Russia or other foreign countries. “We are looking into  foreign actors, including additional Russian groups and other former  Soviet states,” he said.Mr.  Zuckerberg, 33, noted that Thursday was his first day back from  parental leave after the birth of a daughter. But despite that folksy  touch, he had the look of an improbably young leader addressing his  people at a moment of crisis. 

 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg discusses 'next steps in protecting election integrity' Video by ABC News 

With  his talk of “the democratic process,” “foreign actors,” and “election  integrity” — mentioning Germany’s elections this weekend in particular —  Mr. Zuckerberg reinforced Facebook’s status as a transnational global behemoth whose power reaches into every corner of contemporary life.“We  are in a new world,” he said. “It is a new challenge for internet  communities to deal with nation-states attempting to subvert elections.  But if that’s what we must do, we are committed to rising to the  occasion.” Despite  Russia’s stealth attack, Mr. Zuckerberg argued that Facebook remained a  force for good in democracy, promoting billions of online discussions,  linking voters to candidates and helping two million Americans register  to vote. He said that positive role was “100 or 1,000 times bigger” than  the illicit activity.Twitter,  which has kept a low profile since Facebook’s disclosure of the Russian  intrusion, has announced that it will brief the Senate Intelligence  Committee next Wednesday behind closed doors.In  a statement, Twitter did not address illicit Russian activity on its  platform but said it “deeply respects the integrity of the election  process, a cornerstone of all democracies” and vowed to “continue to  strengthen our platform against bots and other forms of manipulation.”Senator  Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the intelligence  committee, praised Facebook’s announcement but said he still believed  regulation was needed to ensure that voters know more about who is  behind ads on social media. 

 “This  is a good first step,” he said. “I’m disappointed it’s taken 10 months  of raising this issue before they’ve become much more transparent.” He  said he believed there were additional “troll farms” in both Russia and  Eastern Europe, “and it’s really important that Facebook work with us to  investigate other sources of advertising and fake accounts.”Mr.  Warner said he believed the 3,000 ads, which the committees had not yet  received, should be made public with protections for the privacy of any  innocent people whose names may be in the material.Mr.  Warner and Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, circulated a  letter inviting colleagues to co-sponsor a bill that would require  greater transparency for online political ads, according to a copy of  the letter seen by The New York Times.A  spokeswoman for Senator Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina, who  is chairman of the intelligence panel, said he had no comment Thursday  night.The Times reported this month  that Russian intelligence appeared to have been behind an infestation  of Twitter with automated accounts, called bots, that spread messages  against Mrs. Clinton last year. The cybersecurity company FireEye  identified what it called “warlists” of hundreds of fake accounts that  fired off identical political messages. The  Times also found Facebook accounts that appeared to have been created  by ordinary Americans but were actually concocted by Russian agents.  Facebook, which had said as recently as July that it had found no  evidence of fraudulent Russian ad purchases, reversed itself this month  and said it had removed 470 profiles and pages that it said were linked  to the Internet Research Agency, a Russian company with ties to the  Kremlin.Facebook  found $100,000 of ad purchases that were linked to the fake pages —  designed to look like the pages of Americans animated by particular  issues — that spread inflammatory messages about immigration, guns and  other topics; derided Mrs. Clinton and supported Mr. Trump. Facebook  shut the accounts down in recent weeks but declined to name or describe  them publicly, saying federal law prohibited it from making customer  communications public.Although  Facebook had declined to identify the fake Russian pages, The Daily  Beast and other news organizations ferreted out a few of them, including  one called “Secured Borders” on immigration and another called “Being Patriotic” that promoted pro-Trump rallies in Florida last year.The  illicit Russian exploitation of social media fits squarely into Mr.  Mueller’s wide-ranging investigation, and the companies said they have  fully cooperated with his requests for detailed data. Though most public  attention has been focused on whether the Trump campaign helped with  the Russian hacking, leaking and other intrusions, the special counsel’s assignment is “a full and thorough investigation of the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.”One  question for Mr. Mueller is certain to be whether the Russian Facebook  advertising — and any other promotions using Twitter or other services —  showed evidence of the kind of sophisticated targeting that might  indicate that Americans had provided assistance. Facebook has said some  of the ads were targeted to particular geographic areas but has not  given details.For  the social media companies, the furor over Russia’s interference raises  a possibility that they deeply fear: government regulation, at least  for the part of their business that involves political advertising.  Political ads on social media have thus far escaped the rules that  require, for instance, the familiar “I approve this message” tagline on  candidates’ television spots.Tech  executives worry that new rules could hinder the world’s largest  digital advertising businesses. Because of the self-service advertising  system these tech giants have created, anyone who has an account and a  credit card can buy an ad. That has made for a long tail of small-ticket  advertisers who add up to millions of dollars in spending. “Facebook’s  number one priority is ad revenue,” said Ian Schafer, chief experience  officer of Engine USA, a digital advertising holding company. “The last  thing Facebook wants to do is give the government an inch, because then  they’ll probably take a mile.”Last year, Facebook made nearly $28 billion in annual revenue,  up 57 percent from a year earlier, and the trajectory remains bright.  Roughly 97 percent of that revenue came from the company’s ad business.