Five ads that Russia pushed on Facebook, and how they were targeted to you
https://qz.com/1117906/5-ads-that-russia-pushed-on-facebook-and-how-they-were-targeted-to-you/
Government officials on Wednesday (Nov. 1) released a collection of ads that Russian operatives purchased on Facebook between 2015 and 2017. The collection is part of the 3,000 ads Facebook handed over to Congress in September, when the company first disclosed that it had found $100,000 in ad spending by accounts linked to Russia. Facebook said in a blog post at the time that the ads were “connected to about 470 inauthentic accounts and Pages,” and that they focused largely on “divisive social and political” subjects like gun rights, immigration, and LGBT issues, and less on particular presidential candidates and the election itself.
Facebook said in its testimony before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee yesterday that 126 million users on Facebook have seen the ads. Included in the collection released today was metadata showing exactly how some of the ads were targeted to Americans. Here, we’ve rounded up five ads, along with detailed information about how they were targeted, how much they cost, and how many people they reached. If you’d like to see more ads, we’ve put together a longer list here.