Russian campaign spent US$100,000 on Facebook adverts during US election

A Russian-funded campaign, which promotes social and political messages on its network, has been discovered by Facebook.

The social media company discovered a Russian operation spent US$100,000 on 3,000 adverts during the run-up to the US elections, with most adverts promoting 470 fake pages and accounts, spreading political propaganda.

According to the BBC, Facebook is co-operating with US investigator, Robert Mueller, who is overlooking the link with Russia in last year’s US presidential election.

Facebook’s chief security officer, Alex Stamos, said in a blog post: “There have been a lot of questions since the 2016 US election about Russian interference in the electoral process.

“One question that has emerged is whether there’s a connection between the Russian efforts and ads purchased on Facebook.

“These are serious claims and we’ve been reviewing a range of activity on our platform to help understand what happened.”

Sky News noted Russian interference in the election was the subject of several investigations in the first months of Donald Trump’s presidency.

Written by Leah Alger

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