
Facebook says it sold political ads to Russian company during 2016 election - aaronbrethorst
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/facebook-says-it-sold-political-ads-to-russian-company-during-2016-election/2017/09/06/32f01fd2-931e-11e7-89fa-bb822a46da5b_story.html
======
meri_dian
I implore everyone alarmed by recent Russian assaults on Western Democratic
institutions to get their hands on an English translation of 'The Foundations
of Geopolitics' by Aleksandr Dugin. Dugin is a Russian academic and the book
is essentially a textbook on how Russia should seek to subvert and destabilize
Europe, the US and other Russian rivals in order to forge a new empire for the
explicit purpose of ethnic Russian domination of the world.

Dugin is not some fringe academic and the book is well known among the elite
of the Russian state. According to the Wiki page:

>"The book has had a large influence within the Russian military, police, and
foreign policy elites and was allegedly used as a textbook in the General
Staff Academy of Russian military."

More on the book's approach towards destabilizing America:

>"Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United
States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-
American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into
internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic,
social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements –
extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political
processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support
isolationist tendencies in American politics."

We must unite in the face of division, both for the sake of unity and because
the Russians are actively trying to divide us.

I haven't been able to find a copy of the English translation online. I was
only able to get my hands on one because of a connection that works in DC. If
anyone knows where to get one online please post a link.

Wiki page:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics?wpr...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics?wprov=sfla1)

~~~
javajosh
I'm curious: other than a will to power, is there any philosophical or
principle-driven reason for Russia's actions? In other words, why don't
Russians want Western liberal democracy for themselves?

~~~
dragonwriter
The Russian _regime_ doesn't want Western liberal democracy because it's
incompatible with the self-sustaining kleptocratic autocracy that they are
running.

Individual Russian people may or may not want Western liberal democracy for
any of a variety of reasons (they “not” side in part driven by regime
propaganda), but those preferences are not controlling regime actions.

------
balance_factor
As it is rarely mentioned in the US media, I'd just note that the US pretty
openly interferes in Russian elections, and has been doing so for a long time.
It's curious this is virtually never mentioned amidst all the accusations of
Russia involving itself in US elections.

There are many tentacles to the US octopus, for starters you can look at an
organization created by and funded by the US congress, the soi disant National
Endowment for Democracy. They have a conference opening next week containing
some of the people the US has been using to interfere in Russian elections (
[https://www.ned.org/events/prospects-for-russias-
democratic-...](https://www.ned.org/events/prospects-for-russias-democratic-
movement) ).

~~~
spaceseaman
> virtually never mentioned

I (anecdotally) hear this tidbit in every comments section relating to
Russia's involvement in the U.S. election. Almost as if it's a common talking
point.

Reminds me a lot of
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism)

EDIT: ... And so a conversation was effectively derailed and nothing was
gained. Arguing about the validity of Whataboutism or who is doing it isn't
the point. It's a deflection technique that works in spite of you calling it
out.

~~~
raquo
It's the line that Putin and Lavrov (foreign minister) have been pushing since
forever: "you westerners are no better than us, stop shaming us for the shady
things that we do". That's an easy way to keep your population happy – tell
them that life is no better in other countries. Corruption is everywhere,
police state is everywhere, etc. And most Russians believe that.

~~~
bitJericho
Well it's true in the us, Russia, china, Australia. That's not everywhere but
that is quite a lot of ground.

~~~
Retric
Russia does not have actual meaningful elections. That's a fairly fundamental
difference.

~~~
0xbear
Neither does the US really, in the sense that no matter who wins, you lose.

~~~
bitJericho
It's true. You can only win an election with piles of money. With
gerrymandering and lying. The US government is a train wreck

------
dymk
Facebook's blog post on the matter:
[https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/09/information-
operations-...](https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/09/information-operations-
update/)

~~~
baybal2
... and they do this while the were openly taking money from Russian/KGB
campaigners round 2010, dispatching campaign consultants and overall trreating
them as first tier clients. Same was true of Google in Russia, while they
still had hopes of somehow greasing hands with the establishment. They
evacuated the most valuable staff out of Russia around 2015 to Switzerland,
when they finally gave up. I still do remember them quitely delisting online
resources with corruption exposures circa 2007, that were reappearing with
simple reversal of word order.

They may've been just "probing where the water is shallow" in 2010 with
"seemingly innocent" think tank drivel and consulting buys, and then went full
throttle when it did matter the most.

American top C-Levels, officials, 3 letter agency employees, and other
American beau monde all have that "smart, sophisticated, brilliant, but damn
naive" note in their personalities. All such types do remind me of people who
are "trying to win in a casino," while having "I know what I'm doing" look on
their face. They can't win there, it not their league.

To prevail, Americans need to overhaul their political establishment and
institutes of power with virtuous and competent people.

If I was the US congress, I would've put it very square, if a dot com like FB
actively conspires with Russians, and then pretends that they didn't, then
everybody along the chain of command down to founders, c-levels, and major
financiers (with their own respective boards) are detained, subject to
criminal prosecution and given prison sentences

------
Ajedi32
Out of curiosity, are there any laws on the books right now which are meant to
prevent this sort of thing?

For example, let's assume a foreign government decided to purchase ads either
backing or attacking a US political candidate, and they were completely overt
about it. (No hiding behind shell companies or transferring funds anonymously;
completely out in the open.) Are there any laws or systems currently in place
which would stop them from doing that?

~~~
elipsey
TFA:

"Under federal law and Federal Election Commission regulations, both foreign
nationals and foreign governments are prohibited from making contributions or
spending money to influence a federal, state or local election in the United
States. The ban includes independent expenditures made in connection with an
election.

Those banned from such spending include foreign citizens, foreign governments,
foreign political parties, foreign corporations, foreign associations and
foreign partnerships, according to the FEC."

~~~
Ajedi32
> foreign governments, foreign political parties

How is that enforced? A US court can't exactly send the Russian government or
the Communist Party of China to prison for breaking the law here, can it?

------
sumoboy
Why would Facebook discriminate where ad $ revenue is coming from? Twitter,
Instagram, doesn't matter, money is money.

~~~
eroo
Because foreign agents buying political ads violates US federal law

~~~
spaceflunky
>Because foreign agents buying political ads violates US federal law

WRONG. Nothing prohibits foreign entities from buying their own political ads.

[http://fortune.com/2017/07/12/us-election-meddling-online-
ad...](http://fortune.com/2017/07/12/us-election-meddling-online-ad/)

~~~
bduerst
You're both right. Sounds like a law that hasn't been updated yet for _online_
ads.

>The laws that prohibit foreign nationals from spending money to influence
U.S. elections do not prevent them from lawfully buying some kinds of
political ads on Facebook and other online networks

------
revelation
If we just keep pointing at the Russian bogeyman, no one will care that
individuals like Peter Thiel or companies spent 100 to 1000 times that amount
of money on superpacs and eventually political ads for their favorite
candidate.

------
Zhenya
Can we see what the ads were? Can we see how they were targeted?

Am I missing this somewhere?

------
IdontRememberIt
I am in Switzerland and I keep seeing suggestions for "Anti trump" groups
(None of my friends are part of them). Why?

------
ThomPete
"Facebook officials reported that they traced the ad sales, totaling $100,000,
to a Russian “troll farm” with a history of pushing pro-Kremlin propaganda,
these people said."

Excuse my ignorance but isn't $100K chicken feed?

~~~
jonknee
That’s what Facebook self reported that it discovered, not necessarily the
whole operation. It’s also direct evidence of non-hacking related attempts to
influence the election.

Furthermore, considering there is a criminal investigation going on over
whether or not the Trump campaigned colluded with Russia on such activities,
the dollar amount is pretty meaningless.

~~~
paulddraper
> criminal investigation going on over whether or not the Trump campaigned
> colluded with Russia

It is technically a criminal investigation, though colluding with Russia would
not be a crime.

------
grumblestumble
Too bad, I was looking forward to the abominable shitshow that was going to be
Zuck's candidacy.

------
shostack
This is likely just the tip of the digital advertising iceberg with all of
this for FB and other advertising giants like Google and Twitter. According to
this Wired article[1] Giles-Parscale, the agency behind a lot of the Trump
election digital efforts "took in some $90 million, the vast majority of which
went toward buying Facebook ads for the campaign."

A Reddit user who "was working at the other end of this pipeline that is
selling digital adspace to consulting firms" (according to his post) also
posted some very detailed insights as to how funds might have been laundered
into clean political donations via small agencies and PACs in the US via
digital media buys.

Here's his follow-up post from three months ago which has more info and links
to his original post--really worth reading all of it, his original post, the
subsequent threads, etc.:
[https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/6alzm0/fbi_confirm...](https://np.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/6alzm0/fbi_confirms_activity_in_annapolis/dhfnm85/?sh=8bd62816&st=J2KZA1Y9)

So the issue is less about ads purchased directly from Russia or by
illegitimate companies with Russian IPs or anything of the sort as FB
addressed in this statement. That is a drop in the bucket compared to the
dollar amounts that might have been spent as part of the rest of the Trump
media buys. The bigger story may actually be more about Russian (and other
funds) funneled through small legit digital agencies and PACs (or through
Parscale) in the US who then did ad buys driving for Trump donations which he
was then able to legally use as campaign funds (or for enriching himself as
the Reddit user hypothesizes).

There are likely FB sales reps and others there who have some insight into the
ad campaign objectives, targeting details, and the source of that targeting
data. The last bit is interesting there because it is still not fully
understood how Cambridge Analytica plugged into all of this, and how they
obtained their detailed targeting data. Mercer and Bannon both have direct
Cambridge Analytica ties[2].

All of this is to say that I don't think the full story is being unearthed
with these data points that FB shared. And I'd be willing to bet that FB sales
reps who dealt with these accounts during the election know quite a bit more
about what actually went on. However we may never know how deep the rabbit
hole really goes, how dirty such funds might actually be, or how much FB,
Google and Twitter really profited from the election (and ongoing campaigns).

I want to conclude this by stating that I am just posting my own personal
thoughts based on a variety of articles and Reddit posts, and I don't purport
to have any inside insight into these companies operations beyond my fairly
deep experience in the online advertising space and my understanding of how
that operates, so this is largely speculation and you should come to your own
conclusions. That said, it is hardly outside the realm of possibility at this
point to imagine how this sort of scheme could work, and how all of the
players involved might have had strong financial incentives to not rock the
boat.

[1] [https://www.wired.com/story/trump-russia-data-parscale-
faceb...](https://www.wired.com/story/trump-russia-data-parscale-facebook/)

[2] [http://www.newsweek.com/did-russians-target-dem-voters-
kushn...](http://www.newsweek.com/did-russians-target-dem-voters-kushners-
help-613612)

------
pjc50
I guess Citizens United doesn't just apply to citizens.

~~~
Shivetya
Citizens United was a good ruling because Congress and both political parties
have been doing their damn best to limit the number of ways money can get into
politics unless it is to them.

How? Simple, donations under $200 per person do not need be revealed until
they exceed that number. Also taking foreign donations without proper tracking
and the ease of generating new cc numbers / names works as well. However the
number one method they use is exploiting campaign fundraising events where
they can rake in millions. With the clout and friends in business how can a
third party or anyone compete against it?

So while there are issues with money in politics all attempts to limit it have
simply been done to protect the two parties who hold near absolute power.

------
stevenwoo
The update for this article says that $100,000 ad buy may have reached
70,000,000 Americans.

[http://www.thedailybeast.com/russias-facebook-fake-news-
coul...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/russias-facebook-fake-news-could-have-
reached-70-million-americans)

------
rocktronica
Regardless of legality, it will be interesting to see how this is spun if/when
Zuckerberg runs for public office.

------
chvid
In the context of the 2016 election 100.000 usd is a tiny amount.

~~~
akhilcacharya
In the context of web ads it's not insignificant.

~~~
spaceflunky
If you can sway a US presidential election from 99% chance of losing, to
winning, using only a $100k ad budget. Maybe you deserve to be in power...

~~~
akhilcacharya
I'd agree with you if this was a domestic actor and not a foreign actor that
presumably wishes to do Americans harm.

------
anonu
Does anyone have access to the oft-cited FireEye report on this topic? Can't
seem to find it...

------
Clubber
>Most of the ads focused on pumping politically divisive issues such as gun
rights and immigration fears, as well as gay rights and racial discrimination.

When I read this I thought that this is what the US press does every single
day wither it's WaPo or Limbaugh. It's all about selling fear and division.
There's no longer nuance, no longer presenting both sides of an argument. It's
all this is good or this is evil.

~~~
dragonwriter
> When I read this I thought that this is what the US press does every single
> day wither it's WaPo or Limbaugh

WaPo, and even Limbaugh, generally does not invent false flag news stories on
both sides of divisive issues purely to drive division. WaPo may perhaps
distort coverage to favor one side of divisive issues because of editorial
biad or focus on existing divisive voices because conflict draws eyeballs, and
Limbaugh may generate outright invented propaganda on a particular side of
divisive issues to favor a preferred outcome, but neither of those behaviors
are at issue, and even if it was the same behavior, neither actor is an
outside interloper.

~~~
Clubber
They do it for profit though. I don't see the motive as particularly relevant,
the result is the same, division and fear.

Limbaugh certainly does. He said Sandra Fluke was a prostitute. I'm sure he's
said many other things. WaPo and NYT are a little better, but their writers
have gone a little bonkers over Trump hurting their credibility. I'm sure
there are some Limbaugh like news sites on the left. There have to be, riling
people up is very profitable. What about the DNC pushing Sanders off the
ticket story? I mean take as step back and analyze all this stuff the press
puts out. It's pretty divisive.

I'd really like to see a side by side comparison between Russian planted ads
and comments and domestic ads and comments. Do you think we could tell the
difference?

------
ilyaeck
When things go sideways, ain't it tempting to find an enemy to blame...

