Facebook: Millions of users viewed 'divisive' Russia-linked ads

They touched on topics including LGBT matters, race issues, immigration and gun rights

Picture: (iStock/Getty Images)

Russian ads designed to create social and political divisions reached around 10 million Facebook users in the US, the company has revealed.

The social network, which has handed around 3,000 ads to congressional investigators, has admitted that it could yet find more that were spread using its platform.

According to Facebook, 44 per cent of total ad impressions (the number of times ads were displayed) came before the US presidential election on November 8, 2016, and 56 per cent came after the election.

Around 25 per cent of the ads were never shown to anyone.

“Most of the ads appear to focus on divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum, touching on topics from LGBT matters to race issues to immigration to gun rights,” said Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s vice president of policy and communications.

“A number of them appear to encourage people to follow Pages on these issues.”

Facebook says it has to review millions of ads each week, and has promised to improve its processes.

As well as hiring an extra 1,000 members of staff to review ads, the company says it will focus on:

• Making advertising more transparent
• Strengthening enforcement against improper ads
• Tightening restrictions on advertiser content
• Increasing requirements for authenticity
• Establishing industry standards and best practices

Facebook believes these new efforts would have enabled it to “have caught these malicious actors faster and prevented more improper ads from running”.

Mr Schrage added: “Our effort to require US election-related advertisers to authenticate their business will help catch suspicious behavior. The ad transparency tool we’re building will be accessible to anyone, including industry and political watchdog groups. And our improved enforcement and more restrictive content standards for ads would have rejected more of the ads when submitted.”

Over the weekend, Mark Zuckerberg apologised and asked for forgiveness, after admitting that his work has been used to cause divisions.

Earlier this month, Facebook said it had sold $100,000 worth of political adverts to fake accounts likely operated from Russia.