Facebook Turns Over Russian-Bought Ads to 2016 Election Investigation
Facebook has reportedly complied with more requests from U.S. authorities, as the social media platform turned over details on ads bought by Russia-based entities to the investigation team led by special prosecutor Robert Mueller.
Mueller's team now have their hands on the ads bought by pro-Kremlin entities, and a search warrant could have been involved, according to Tech Crunch. The special prosecutor now has copies of the Russian-bought ads, as well as the targeting parameters for their distribution, along with details on the buyers' accounts themselves.
This is more detail than what Facebook was willing to share with Congress in their investigation last week, as the Wall Street Journal notes.
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It's also possible that Facebook is more willing to share sensitive information with the former FBI director, rather than the Congress staff. The social media platform informed lawmakers that about 3,000 ads relevant to the2016 election were bought via fake accounts, as ABC 13 News reports.
An early report has indicated that about 500 unreliable accounts, which has been linked to Russian users, had bought about 5,000 ads from Facebook. The company earned as much as $150,000 from these political ads, which it sold between 2015 and 2017.
Even with Facebook being relatively cooperative these days, the company is still hesitant about sharing details about these ads to Congressional investigators. The Senate Intelligence Committee is now looking at compelling Facebook officials to publicly explain how these agents, possibly backed by Kremlin, bought these political ads.
Twitter is also expected to be questioned by the Congressional investigators about possible Russian intervention in the 2016 election, according to Reuters.
Early in January, the FBI, Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency have come to conclude that the Russian government was behind the hacking of Democrat targets that eventually resulted in the leak of thousands of emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign.
Facebook ads had long been suspected of being involved in a possible meddling by Russia in last year's election. It was not until Wednesday, Sep. 6, that Facebook would acknowledge the possibility, however, according to the New York Times.
