Facebook will hand Russia’s election ads to US inquiry

FACEBOOK has finally agreed to hand US investigators thousands of political adverts which it believes were bought by Russians vying to get Trump elected.

The social network admitted earlier this month that it sold around 3,000 political adverts to fake Russian accounts during 2015 and 2016.

Although initially reluctant to hand over the details, Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg relented on Thursday and said he instructed staff to aid investigators examining links between president Trump’s team and the Kremlin.

Mr Zuckerberg said the company was taking steps to prevent governments using the site to interfere with elections. ‘I don’t want anyone to use our tools to undermine democracy,’ he said.

But he warned the social network would not be able to stop a repeat of the Russian propaganda exercise: ‘I’m not going to sit here and tell you we’re going to catch all bad content in our system.

‘We don’t check what people say before they say it, and frankly, I don’t think our society should want us to.’

The adverts – which together cost around £77,000 – did not tend to discuss Trump directly, focusing instead on divisive issues such as immigration which may have aided his campaign. Around a quarter were targeted at particular areas of America, suggesting they were intended to influence swing states.

Donald Trump yesterday dismissed Mr Zuckerberg’s comments. He wrote on Twitter: ‘The Russia hoax continues, now it’s ads on Facebook. What about the totally biased and dishonest Media coverage in favour of Crooked Hillary?’