US election: Facebook announced suspicious advertising

When analyzing the advertisement published on Facebook for its possible connection with Russian interference in last year's presidential election in the United States, the Service Administration discovered approximately 3 thousand suspicious announcements. This was reported in the company's report.

The total cost of ads placed from June 2015 to May 2017 amounted to about 100 thousand dollars. Purchases were made from about 470 sub -pages, connected to one another and allegedly managed from Russia. Since the Facebook policy does not allow the use of fake pages, they were removed.

Most advertisements are noted in the report, did not concern the elections directly. Publications were aimed at deepening contradictions on various issues, such as LGBT community rights, interracial relations, immigration and the right to carry weapons.

About a quarter of advertising, according to the conditions of publication, was intended to demonstrate to users certain countries and regions; Most of these ads appeared back in 2015.

As stated in the report, advertising was analyzed at the slightest suspicion of her Russian origin. In particular, the accounting accounts registered in the United States were investigated, but leading in Russian, even if the owners of these pages did not violate the rules for using the service. About 2.2 thousand ads placed from these pages were investigated with a total cost of about 50 thousand dollars.

Facebook has notified the American authorities about the results of the study.

What to do with interference in the elections had an advertisement placed in the last six months of the studied period - from November 2016 to May 2017, when the elections have already passed - the report is not explained.