You can believe Müller

The Facebook administration transferred the US special prosecutor Robert Muller data on the sale of advertising on social networks at request from Russia as part of the investigation of Russian intervention in the elections. It is reported by The Wall Street Journal.

The social network administration sent copies of advertisements, the parameters of fictitious accounts, the owners of which acquired ads, as well as customer criteria to determine the target audience. The special prosecutor had to write out a warrant to obtain these data. Without this, Facebook does not reveal the archives of the contents of the accounts.

The volume of data transferred by Müller is significantly more than the one that the Congress received, the publication reports. This is partly due to the unwillingness to interfere with the Muller team. In addition, Facebook is afraid to violate the laws of the United States in the field of inviolability of the personal life of citizens as a result of "excessive interaction with Congress"

On September 7, the Facebook administration reported that when analyzing the advertisement published on the social network for its possible connection with Russian intervention in last year's presidential election in the United States , about 3 thousand suspicious ads were discovered. The total cost of such 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.

As stated in the Facebook report, advertising was analyzed at the slightest suspicion of her Russian origin. The social network administration notified the American authorities about the results of the study. What the advertising, placed after the election, called for, was not explained in the report.

On Monday, The Daily Beast reported that the Americans were called to protest with the help of anonymous Facebook anonymous accounts from Russia. At the same time, the mechanisms of paid advertising on social networks were used. In particular, according to the publication, thus in August 2016, rallies were organized in Aidaho against immigrants and Muslims.

On Tuesday, the chairman of the US Senate Committee on Intelligence Republican Richard Burr demanded that the Facebook administration and other social networks submit a full report on foreign financing of political advertising campaigns. Burr intends to find out whether social networks are known about foreign financing of political advertising as part of the election campaigns of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.

Democrat Senator Mark Warner advocated holding Senate hearings about political advertising in social networks. “I am disappointed that Facebook did not share the information that the Russians are pushing people to anti -migration rallies,” he said. “I think this is the tip of the iceberg. I assume that there will be more further.”

As Warner noted, it is known that the “troll factory” from St. Petersburg promoted political advertising on social networks. However, signs of such activities were seen in Moldova and other countries. Social networks should provide more information, the senator emphasized.