Release of Facebook ads shows pattern
Lawmakers offer look at Russians’ role in ’16 race
SAN FRANCISCO – Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee released thousands of Russian Facebook ads on Thursday, offering the public its first in-depth look at messages meant to heighten tensions among Americans during and after the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Facebook said the ads were purchased by the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency to sway public sentiment.
The giant social network is working to tighten restrictions on political ads to prevent manipulation of elections, including this fall’s hotly contested midterms.
In February, the Justice Department charged 13 Russians and three companies with trying to subvert the presidential election and “spread distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general.”
Facebook pages with points of view that span the political spectrum from “Blacktivist” to “Heart of Texas” bought ads. Some of the more than
3,000 ads denounced Donald Trump, others his Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton.
Many of the ads, placed by Russians posing as Americans, didn’t endorse a specific candidate but spread inflammatory messages on sensitive subjects such as immigration and race, targeting users from specific backgrounds and tight races in states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Virginia.
A group called Fit Black urged people to attend “Black Fist Free Self-Defense Classes.”
The Army of Jesus encouraged voters to pick a president with “godly morals” and showed a picture of Jesus arm-wrestling Satan.
The Facebook ads varied in their effectiveness and reach. Some were shared a few hundred times, others more than 1 million times. They ran for more than two years, starting in June
2015 and increasing in volume in October and November 2016, just before and after the presidential election. They were also spikes in April and May of 2016 and April and May of 2017.
Patterns emerge in sampling the ads. Many of the hundreds of ads placed in April 2016 targeted racial divisions in American society, encouraging African-American political activism by imitating the language and messages of the Black Lives Matter movement in posts highlighting racist incidents.
A smaller contingent that month targeted conservative Facebook users. Festooned with American flags, the ads sounded patriotic themes, including reverence for the Constitution. Others contained calls for Americans to “take care of our vets, not illegals.”
Facebook said it has taken a much more aggressive stance on political and issue ads, requiring people who buy them to verify their identity and location and to reveal publicly who they are.
Until September, when it identified
470 accounts that purchased 3,000 ads for more than $100,000 over a twoyear period, Facebook denied the Russians exploited its platform.
In fact, Russian operatives availed themselves of the precise nature of the ad targeting offered by Facebook, zeroing in on categories of Facebook users, such as gun lovers, Trump supporters, residents of certain places and more.
Ten million Americans saw the ads, according to Facebook estimates.
Marco della Cava in San Francisco contributed to this report