Facebook Sold Ads To Russian-Linked Accounts During Election (cnet.com)
Facebook announced on Wednesday that it sold $100,000 worth of ads to inauthentic accounts likely linked to Russia during the election. The ad spending spree took place between June of 2015 and May of 2017, and was associated with roughly 3,000 ads. CNET reports: "Our analysis suggests these accounts and Pages were affiliated with one another and likely operated out of Russia," Alex Stamos, Facebook's chief security officer, wrote in a blog post. Facebook said it's continuing to investigate the issue and reported its findings to U.S. authorities.
Most of the ads and accounts didn't have to explicitly do with the election or either of the then-candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Instead, they were focused on divisive political topics, including LGBT issues, immigration and gun rights.
Most of the ads and accounts didn't have to explicitly do with the election or either of the then-candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Instead, they were focused on divisive political topics, including LGBT issues, immigration and gun rights.
Which countries did not buy ads from FB during the election?
Whatever Zuck the Cuck says, I don't believe it
...maybe there was something untoward going on in this last election cycle. Can't put my finger on it though.
I'm outraged (because apparently that's trendy) that some persons who may have been linked to some *Russians* bought advertising from there world's largest social network. This definitely proves that someone somewhere is doing something and there's a chance it's got something to do with someone who has some links to someone in Trump's cabinet.
I'li bet they sold a lot of ads to the chinese as well.
We substituted the coffee Slashdot normally drinks with "Sandoz Crystals", Lets see if they notice the difference
Traitors. Our countrymen have fought and died for this country you now desecrate.
All for the Red party.
I don't think BeauHD (or CNet, or both) know what a "spree" is.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
.. attacking Trump.
I traced down a couple of the websites that had trending stories on Facebook to a PR company in Washington.
One of the fake sites was Heatstreet.com. I can't recall the other.
Using DNS transfer records, the internet archive and other sources available on the internet I traced these sites to a PR company in Washington (they had tried to anonymize the domain transfers but through the transfer history you could determine what was going on).
These fake news sites, that were purchased just a few months prior to the election (heat street was originally a driveway heating site), which were converted to clickbait farms with RSS fed content, somehow managed to get enough readership to trend in Facebook with their fake news stories about Trump.
And now we have Slashdot running this story?
Did slashdot suddenly become "Fake news for nerds"?
How few people give a crap about a foreign power invading our country by stealth. Sowing dissension, stealing sensitive political and commercial data, and yes, doing their damnedest to influence an election, if not to alter the outcome then to cause as much suspicion as to undermine the results. So many of you making snarky or pithy comments, oh how smart you sound to everyone. +1s for the lot of you. Russia and China are not our friends. They have said as much many times. They have bragged about how cheap and easy it is for them to hack our open society compared to the billions we spend. From some of the comments I read here, mission accomplished for our enemies.
No kidding. Hyperbole is pretty much SOP these days.
I'd bet that it's overall related to the fake news plague originating in places like Macedonia. At least, that seems like a more likely scenario than stealth-takeover-of-a-country-by-buying-Facebook-ads.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
100k over two years does not seem to be a huge FB buy? "divisive political topics" could be rewritten as Facebook click bait.
Or what am I missing?
The irony being that the Democratic party has the least Democratic primary process because of Super Delegates.
It's not irony at all. It's standard, in Public Relations, to claim to be the opposite of whatever unpopular things you are, in order to confuse the general public.
Just like it's standard to preemptively accuse the opponents of doing whatever bad stuff it is that they do, so if somebody calls them on it it looks like a playground-argument: "You're a FOO!"
"No, YOU'RE a FOO!"
Want to know what the Democrats are? Just go down the list of everything bad they've ever accused the Republicans of being.
It's not symmetric. The Rs attract a DIFFERENT KIND of psychopath - the rule-bound, compensated sort, rather than the narcissistic, pathological liar, anything goes types. Working with Rs is like working with dynamite: Everything is fine until you do something that makes them think you're a bad guy, then BANG! Working with Ds is like working with nitroglycerine: BANG! at any moment for no apparent reason.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"Our analysis suggests these accounts and Pages were affiliated with one another and likely operated out of Russia," Alex Stamos, Facebook's chief security officer, wrote in a blog post. Facebook said it's continuing to investigate the issue and reported its findings to U.S. authorities.
What the poor jerk doesn't want to acknowledge is that thanks in part to Facebook, the US authorities he's reporting his results to are now controlled by Russia.
Thanks, Facebook, for your timely investigation.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
How few people give a crap about a foreign power invading our country by stealth. Sowing dissension, stealing sensitive political and commercial data, and yes, doing their damnedest to influence an election, if not to alter the outcome then to cause as much suspicion as to undermine the results.
That's the SOP for Americans messing in other countries' elections. If it was true that Russians manipulated your election, then welcome to have a taste of your own medicine! What's good for the goose and all that.
Sure, "Bartles" you just want us to believe we've always been at war with EastAsia and that the Chocolate ration has been increased to 25 grams this week.
Truth is, you hitched your wagon to the most corrupt horse since Warren Harding, and worse yet, he is more incompetent than the bank robbers who ordered a pizza delivery from the lobby phone.
The story behind Facebook can be found in "The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal" by Ben Mezrich, which "The Social Network" movie was based on. "The Boy Kings: A Journey into the Heart of the Social Network" by Katherine Losse takes place after the movie and from a woman's perspective that I'm currently reading. The most recent Facebook-related book is "Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley" by Antonio Garcia Martinez, who sold his startup and engineers to Twitter while getting a job at Facebook in a three-way deal, and developed the ad system at Facebook that tracks both logged in and anonymous users with third-party demographic data.
Pretty meaningless if they don't give any other information. How many other foreign countries buy ads on facebook?
How many others buy ads that are political in nature?
They're just singling out Russia because red scare 2.0 and they know it will get clicks. Boring.
Clearly, a world influencing behemoth like FaceBook should not be allowed to sell advertisements period. It's just too risky. Hell, I might want to buy a Korean car or an Italian vacation or, OMG, watch an expose on DACA "children".
I thought we were supposed to be talking about Nazi's now...
This is why we need to be communist like Russia. Capitalism = Jews Communism = Nazis
Considering the U.S. has elections every 2 years, if running ads a year before the election counts as attempting to influence the election, then every ad run at any time is attempting to influence the upcoming election.
You fucking tool - I live in Europe and I was born in a commonwealth country.
Your snide ignorant remark adds a lot of shit, and nothing of value at all.
Typical zeppo basement-dwelling ignoramus.
Obama literally threatened Brits about which way to vote, and now the Americans are making a fuss over Russia posting some ads to try to change peoples mind.
I just did read the "hot tub" email. It's clearly from a friend inviting Podesta and others to join them on what sounds like a family retreat of sorts. The kids you refer to are the children of the folks inviting Podesta, and the "entertainment" is referring to the fact that the kids will be having a blast in a heated pool.
If you think that's about child molestation, you're deluding yourself, and your mind is in the wrong place.
Here's a thought exercise: pretend you have kids and are inviting some friends to join you on a get-together or retreat. How would you phrase in the email that there's a nice heated pool, and your kids will be there, enjoying the pool as well. See if you can come up with a way to say it that doesn't sound like pedophilia in your head.
Man, you moral panic people never change, always selectively giving credence to "evidence" that points to the most outrageous interpretation, even when it is ludicrous on its face.
If you were alive for the "satanic ritual abuse" nonsense that sent totally innocent people to jail in the 80's, I am sure you'd be on that bandwagon, too.
The fundamental difference between R and D is this:
Republicans want to change society by forcing people to behave a certain way.
Democrats want to change society through the tax system.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I'd bet it's all about this: http://fortune.com/2017/09/06/...
Facebook caught cheating, says 'Let's divert the attention by blaming Russia' . It works. They also ate my homework.
This really reads like an ironic joke.. But I've never observed you having the where-with-all to make such a joke.
You don't need to look any further than the social justice movement, including feminism 3.0, both largely left issues, to see that democrats also want to inflict change by forcing people to behave a certain way, in a much more heavy-handed way.
I suppose you chose to ignore that non-difference because to you, it's not "forcing people" if the belief is the righteous one, it's just allowing them to see the light. It's only the other guys that are doing the forcing, since you don't agree with them.
So Liberals seem to think that Putin has a pet hate for Hillary and just attempted to hack her specifically in order to get Trump elected, right?
NOPE: Russia has an ongoing disinformation campaign and hacking campaign to subvert and undermine democracy everywhere.
Antifa? Russia
Far right guys? Russia
Fucking shitty comments with poor grammar? Russia
Calls for more socialist programs on every fucking forum on the internet? Russia
1) $100,000 in what is touted as an election that involved $6+ billion in campaigning. Um, drop in the bucket.
2) We have freedom of speech and freedom of press. That means even Russia is within their right to take out full page ads and express their views. And since the United States conducts international business, including with Russian firms and individuals, why would we expect them not to have an opinion on matters that could affect their economic investments with the U.S.?
3) "Most of the ads and accounts didn't have to explicitly do with the election or either of the then-candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Instead, they were focused on divisive political topics, including LGBT issues, immigration and gun rights."
More than likely, what REALLY happened, is that $100,000 was American's who funneled funds thru Russia to purchase ads beyond what we allow individuals to donate to campaigns.
Can we stop with the Russia election BS. Trump did not win because of Russia. Trump won because the Democrats chose to cheat their non-establishment candidate out of the nomination. And then ran a candidate who was the epitome of establishment and a long running history of scandals, and "getting away" with crap the average person never would. Hence, the Democrats lost because of Hillary. And nothing else is to blame.
Wow, that video. Zuck is proof that any idiot in America really can become a billionaire. Not every idiot, but in the course of events it will so happen that some idiots out there will succeed and become very rich. It touched on Zuck to make that this time around.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
By cheating, we mean the following:
- faked coin flips
- was given debate questions ahead of time
- removed Bernie supporters from the registration rolls
and more...
And we're only talking about the crap we know about.
Our own government is not our friend. Has engaged is far more of the above. And is probably now more of a danger to the U.S. than a foreign power.
You are a Kool-Aid drinker if we ever saw one. Can you share some of that stuff you've been smoking?
Really, okay, so they targeted folks who were pro-gun, and pro-life, highly targeted....yada yada.
And do you think ANY of that demographic was going to vote for Hillary? Duh...
dynamite = stabilized nitroglycerine
You have no idea who they targeted. Do you imagine they're so simple-minded as to preach to the choir?
Moron.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Ewww. Ok, I can say after that that I'm not the stuff billionaires are made of.
Anyway, I hadn't even watched the video, it's not related to the article, and I only saw that the article I pointed at was related to another /. article , this one https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... .
Yeah, America has a huge problem with Russia controlling all the media. Not Faceberg, Google, Twitter, George Soros, Fill-In-The-Blank Cultural Marxist, etc. etc. deliberately manipulating the election, as they were.