Facebook is sticking to its privacy policy in the non-disclosure of 3 000 ads bought by Russian-linked accounts on the platform during the 2016 U.S. elections.

The senators, however, don’t have to be quite as honourable.

It was at the Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee’s recent Congressional hearing, where the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Google were put in the hot seat, that Senator Christopher Coons exposed two Facebook ads that were paid for by the mob-sounding “Russians.”

One of these was aimed at Hillary Clinton, focusing on issues about veteran support:

After Sen. Coons said that the ad was paid for in rubles, Mashable reported that:

The ad apparently was purchased by a Facebook Page called Heart of Texas, which has since been connected to Russian propagandists.

Rumours of the past suggest a link between the Russians and Heart of Texas, with Facebook even taking the page down in September this year. There goes its 225 000 followers.

What does this mean to lawmakers? Well, they see these ads as evidence to support the call for the government regulation of tech companies.

Sounds sketchy, right? I certainly don’t want the elite to control what I can and cannot see on my feed. But it might be too late for citizens of the U.S. as Sen. Amy Klobuchar already co-sponsored a bill by the name of Honest Ads Act, which would require tech organisations to keep public databases of political ads.

Here’s a clip for the lazy ones:

This is what Sen. Coons had to say to Facebook’s General Council, Colin Stretch:

This ad is nothing short of the Russian government directly interfering in our elections, lying to American citizens, duping folks who believe they are joining and supporting a group that is about veterans and based in Texas, when in fact it [was] paid for in rubles by Russians. Should Facebook be allowed to be a platform that foreign adversaries can use to run politics ads, sir?

Stretch had no option but to reply with submission:

Senator, that advertisement has no place on Facebook and we are committed to preventing that sort of behavior [sic] from occurring again on our platform.

Coons continued to reveal more, including a Facebook event yet again created by a Russian-linked account, this time making use of Trump. Here’s what we saw on Donie O’Sullivan’s Twitter:

It’s difficult to distinguish who was behind the page, and Sen. John Kennedy continued to hammer away at Facebook:

“You got 5 million advertisers, and you’re going to tell me you’re able to trace the origin of all those?”

The focus soon moved to Twitter, as senators showed a fabricated photo of comedian and actor Aziz Ansari holding a poorly manipulated sign that encouraged people to vote for Clinton via text message.

This was a smooth move as it would only deter voting attempts because of the inability to vote via SMS. Do your homework people! C’mon.

Here’s the pic:

It’s good to see leaders of the world realise the power that social media holds. Let’s hope they learn from this and start implementing their own business with more integrity.

[source:mashable]