Mark Zuckerberg, after 10 months of wrangling with criticism over the issue of Russians linked to the Russian government buying Facebook ads to sway the 2016 election, finally capitulated to provide investigators with 3,000 ads.
Zuckerberg also announced that his company would take new steps during future elections to identify purchasers of sponsored ads, which can be targeted to the Facebook pages of narrow groups of voters without public awareness, and to curb the spread of fake news on its platform during election campaigns around the world.
“I don’t want anyone to use our tools to undermine democracy,” Zuckerberg said. “That’s not what we stand for … We’re going to make political advertising more transparent.”
That’s great! But what took Zuckerberg so long to take action? It took Facebook 10 months to complete their own internal investigation? Hmm!
Earlier this month the social media platform revealed that a Russian company with ties to the Kremlin created at least 470 fake accounts on the site and purchased $100,000 in political advertisements targeting U.S. voters ahead of the election. Facebook also plans to continue to investigate the extent of Russian interference.
The information could have big implications for Trump and his associates. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has also obtained a search warrant to review Facebook's records. In order to obtain a search warrant, Mueller had to prove to a judge that there's good reason to believe a crime was committed on the site by foreign operatives. If anyone within the Trump campaign was aware of the criminal activity, they could be charged with aiding and abetting a crime. Mueller and congressional investigators will now review the records for any suspicious connections.
Russia's interference in our election was an unprecedented attack on our democracy, and anyone who aided in their efforts needs to be held accountable.
Here’s the story:
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By Greg Gordon
