Facebook accused of inaction over Russian ads in Brexit vote

A senior British MP on Wednesday accused Facebook of failing to noticeably examine potential Russian affect in the Brexit vote, after it discovered simply three adverts linked to a recognized propaganda group.

Damian Collins, chairman of parliament’s tradition and media committee, repeated his request for data as half of an investigation into the affect of “fake news” in final 12 months’s referendum vote to go away the European Union.A British lawmaker is in search of extra data on alleged Russian efforts to sway Britain’s vote on leaving the EU through Facebook ads. (AFP / MANILA BULLETIN)

The committee and Britain’s elections watchdog, the Electoral Commission, have each requested Facebook and Twitter for particulars of Russian-backed adverts on their platforms throughout the referendum marketing campaign.

It comes after proof of exercise by one Russian useful resource for spreading propaganda, the Internet Research Agency, throughout final 12 months’s US presidential election.

In a letter to the Electoral Commission, Facebook mentioned the company had paid for under three ads to British audiences throughout the Brexit marketing campaign, price simply $zero.97.

“This amount resulted in three advertisements (each of which were also targeted to US audiences and concerned immigration, not the EU referendum) delivering approximately 200 impressions to UK viewers over four days in May 2016,” Facebook mentioned.

The social media big mentioned it took the request “very seriously” and backed the fee’s investigation.

But Collins mentioned Facebook had restricted its inquiries, saying: “It would appear that no work has been done by Facebook to look for other fake accounts and pages that could be linked to Russian backed agencies and which were active during the EU referendum, as I requested.”