Facebook: Just 73p spent on Russian Brexit adverts

MP accuses social media giant of failing to investigate true extent of Kremlin meddling in vote

FACEBOOK has said less than £1 was spent on Russian adverts designed to disrupt the Brexit vote, playing down claims that meddling from the Kremlin helped swing last year’s referendum.

The US internet giant responded to an investigation from the Electoral Commission by saying the Internet Research Agency, a shadowy organisation with links to the Russian government, spent just $0.97 (73p) in Britain during the two months of the EU referendum campaign.

However, its claims were instantly disputed by a senior MP. Damian Collins, the chairman of the digital, culture, media and sport (DCMS) committee, accused Facebook of failing to investigate the true extent and evidence of Russian meddling.

Facebook, Twitter and Google have been under pressure to reveal the extent of foreign interference in both last year’s referendum and this year’s general election, amid US scrutiny of Russia’s role in Donald Trump’s victory last year.

It has been claimed that thousands of Russian Twitter “bots” were active during the votes, and Facebook has admitted that around $100,000 was spent by the Internet Research Agency around the US election to promote divisive messages on issues such as race and religion.

Responding to the Electoral Commission and to Mr Collins’ separate inquiry, Facebook said that during the official referendum campaign, between April 15 and June 23, just three adverts were seen a total of 200 times. It said they were not directly related to the Brexit vote but to immigration, and were also shown to voters in the US.

“We strongly support the Commission’s efforts to regulate and enforce political campaign finance rules in the United Kingdom, and we take the Commission’s request very seriously,” Facebook said. “Further to your request, we have examined whether any of the identified Internet Research Agency (IRA) pages or account profiles funded advertisements to audiences in the United Kingdom during the regulated period for the EU Referendum. We have determined that these accounts associated with the IRA spent a small amount of money ($0.97) on advertisements that delivered to UK audiences during that time.

“This amount resulted in three advertisements (each of which were also targeted to US audiences and concerned immigration, not the EU referendum) delivering approximately 200 impressions to UK viewers over four days in May 2016.”

However, Mr Collins said Facebook had not been thorough enough and had only identified adverts from pages discovered in the US investigation, and that studies showing thousands of Twitter bots had attempted to disrupt the vote were strong evidence that there was Russian meddling.

“It would appear that no work has been done by Facebook to look for Russian activity around the EU referendum, other than from funded advertisements from those accounts that had already been identified as part of the US Senate’s investigation,” he said

The DCMS committee is due to grill bosses from Facebook, Google and Twitter at a hearing in February.