Facebook hands over 3,000 Russia-linked ads to US Congress

NEW YORK (Sputnik) – Facebook will deliver over 3,000 ads bought by Russian entities to the US Congress for review amid the ongoing investigation into Russia’s alleged interference in the US elections, Facebook’s Vice President of Global Policy Joel Kaplan said in a press release on Monday.

“Last month we announced plans to share with Congress the ads that appear to have come from a Russian entity known as the Internet Research Agency,”

Kaplan said.

“Today we are delivering those ads to congressional investigators and explaining more about the steps we’re taking to strengthen our ads policies and enforcement.”

In September, Facebook said it found about 3,000 political ads that appeared to be linked to Russian entities from the period between June 2015 and May 2017.

Facebook will reportedly tell the Congress whom the ads targeted, how they were paid for and how many views they had.

In addition to turning over Russia-linked ads, Facebook will take a set of comprehensive measures to improve review and enforcement of ads and ad accounts, Kaplan said. That would include increasing transparency of ad sources, tightening restrictions on advertisers’ content and boosting ad review process, according to release.

Last week, media reported that the Senate Intelligence Committee asked senior managers from Facebook, Google and Twitter to testify in front of the US Congress at a public hearing as part of the probe into foreign influence in the 2016 election. The US Congress and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are looking into the alleged Russian interference in the US vote.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has stressed that Moscow had nothing to do with the ads and had not even been aware of them. Russian officials have repeatedly refuted the allegations of meddling.