Facebook Surrenders Russian Propaganda Ads To Authority

Its been a busy month for Facebook legal team, the social network site has been in the storm lately for being allegedly used by Russian government to manipulate the outcome of the 2017 US election by purchasing suggestive propaganda ads. Facebook has now admitted there were some US$100,000 worth of advertisement bought by the foreign entity of which it now agrees to hand over to congress for scrutiny.

After deliberating whether to hard over client account details and coming under heavy questioning, Facebook has decided to pass the ad details to the select committee. Here’s the response from the social network giant.

1) Why did Facebook finally decide to share the ads with Congress?

After an extensive legal and policy review, we’ve concluded that sharing the ads we’ve discovered with Congress, in a manner that is consistent with our obligations to protect user information, will help government authorities complete the vitally important work of assessing what happened in the 2016 election. Congress is best placed to use the information we and others provide to inform the public comprehensively and completely.

2) Why are you sharing these with Special Counsel and Congress — and not releasing them to the public?

Federal law places strict limitations on the disclosure of account information. Given the sensitive national security and privacy issues involved in this extraordinary investigation, we think Congress is best placed to use the information.

3) Let’s go back to the beginning. Did Facebook know when the ads were purchased that they might be part of a Russian operation? Why not?

No, we didn’t.

The vast majority of our over 5 million advertisers use our self-service tools. This allows individuals or businesses to create a Facebook Page, attach a credit card or some other payment method and run ads promoting their posts.

 

4) Do you expect to find more ads from Russian or other foreign actors using fake accounts?

It’s possible.

When we’re looking for this type of abuse, we cast a wide net in trying to identify any activity that looks suspicious. But it’s a game of cat and mouse. Bad actors are always working to use more sophisticated methods to obfuscate their origins and cover their tracks.

5) I’ve heard that Facebook disabled tens of thousands of accounts in France and only hundreds in the United States. Is this accurate?

No, these numbers represent different things and can’t be directly compared.

We build and update technical systems every day to make it easier to respond to reports of abuse, detect and remove spam, identify and eliminate fake accounts, and prevent accounts from being compromised.

In contrast, the approximately 470 accounts and Pages we shut down recently were identified by our dedicated security team that manually investigates specific, organised threats. They found that this set of accounts and Pages were affiliated with one another — and were likely operated out of Russia.

Facebook will be upping the ante on monitoring such activities that can be used to dictate an outcome of an election in a country. In Malaysia, the social media network is one of the most popular engagement tool used by the young, rogue parties can easily influence and sway decision to their desire with fake news and manipulative paid content.

Welcome to the new age propaganda platform!

Comment what you think!