Facebook issued a statement on Monday that its more than 10 million users in the United States saw advertisements purchased by Russian-backed sources before and after the U.S Presidential election 2016. The company admitted that it experienced a overwhelming task in balancing foreign election interfering with straightforward public debate. Facebook added that there were total 3 thousand ads and 44% of them sought to stoke racial, religious or other social tensions and these had been viewed before the day of election. The company also confirmed that 56% of the ads were viewed after the election and at least 25% of the entire ads hadn’t been viewed by anyone. The announcement from Facebook comes after hours of sharing copies of suspect ads with congressional legislators.
They are investigating possible Russian intervention in the U.S Presidential Election 2016. Those Congress members are from U.S House of Representatives and Intelligence Committees of Senate. They consider that Facebook, Google, and Twitter should testify at public hearings in the coming weeks because 10 million viewers aren’t being considered as a trivial number. They have indicated that this amount is equal to the population of Michigan State. Facebook didn’t offer a geographical breakdown of the users who experienced those ads. In the announcement of its finding, Facebook clearly accepted the problems faced in moderating content on its platform. The vice president of Facebook, Elliot Scharge said that the company has taken all measures to control abuse and there will be social and political contents to be appeared on our platform.