'Nearly 10 million US users saw 3000 Russian ads on Facebook'

Washington : Nearly 10 million users in the United States were catered with over 3000 Russian ads on Facebook that the company claimed were purchased in Russia in the months before and after last year’s US presidential election, Facebook said on Monday.

Facebook is facing a probe after disclosing the details about the presence of Russian political ads worth $100,000.

After an extensive legal and policy review, the social media giant recently announced that it would share 3,000 Russian ads with Congressional investigators.

In a separate statement on Monday, the Facebook said that they will be assigning nearly 1000 employees to monitor the ads for future.

With more than 5 million paying advertisers, however, Facebook has difficulty enforcing all of its policies. The company said on Monday that it would adjust its policies further “to prevent ads that use even more subtle expressions of violence.” It did not elaborate on what kind of material that would cover.

Facebook earlier handed over the details to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is currently investigating claims of alleged Russian meddling in the election, included copies of the ads and details about the accounts that bought them and the targeting criteria they used.

As the probe into Moscow's alleged meddling in the election intensifies, Twitter also announced that it has deleted over 200 fake Russian accounts and identified Russia Today of buying bought ads targeted at American users' accounts.

In a closed-door meeting last week, Colin Crowell, Twitter's Vice President for Public Policy, met with staff from Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to discuss the issue.

Twitter also shared with committee staff ads that three Russia Today accounts targeted to the US market in 2016.

"Based on our findings thus far, RT spent $274,100 in US ads in 2016. In that year, the three RT accounts promoted 1,823 tweets that definitely or potentially targeted the US market," Twitter said.

Google has also launched a probe into the role its services could have played in the Russian interference.

"Google is conducting a broad internal investigation to determine whether Russian-linked entities used its ads or services to try to manipulate voters ahead of the US election," media reports said last week.

(with IANS inputs)