Google sold ads to Russian-linked parties too
Different from the troll farms that used Facebook
A Russian-linked operation different from the Kremlin-linked troll farms that spent bank on Facebook ads, dropped tens of thousands of dollars placing ads on YouTube, GMail, and other Google platforms. Their goal? Presumably to interfere in the 2016 election.
Google remains tight-lipped about the details of their initial findings, but has said they used data from Twitter (without Twitter’s express consent) to investigate the ad buys. As of yet, Google is unsure (at least publicly) whether the ads were purchased by legitimate Russian accounts or troll accounts.
From the WaPo:
The Silicon Valley giant has found that tens of thousands of dollars were spent on ads by Russian agents who aimed to spread disinformation across Google’s many products, which include YouTube, as well as advertising associated with Google search, Gmail, and the company’s DoubleClick ad network, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss matters that have not been made public. Google runs the world’s largest online advertising business, and YouTube is the world’s largest online video site.
The discovery by Google is also significant because the ads do not appear to be from the same Kremlin-affiliated troll farm that bought ads on Facebook — a sign that the Russian effort to spread disinformation online may be a much broader problem than Silicon Valley companies have unearthed so far.
Google previously downplayed the problem of Russian meddling on its platforms. Last month, Google spokeswoman Andrea Faville told The Washington Post that the company is “always monitoring for abuse or violations of our policies and we’ve seen no evidence this type of ad campaign was run on our platforms.”
Up until now, Facebook has been running a full-blown crisis PR campaign, promising to buckle down on political ad buys after it was revealed Kremlin-linked troll farms ran ads on the social media behemoth just before and after the 2016 election. Last week, Facebook handed some 3,000 ads over to federal lawmakers investigating Russian interference.
Shortly after the Facebook revelations, Twitter had their turn in the hot seat after they found about 200 accounts that were used by Russian-linked groups.
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Comments
One thing that you can guarantee – nothing that turns up here will be harmful to Trump in any way, but it is likely to be quite embarrassing for the Democrats.
Reason – if it was harmful to Trump in any way, this would have been leaked to the NYT 10 months ago. That fact that Google has worked so hard to conceal their existence this long is pretty good evidence that Pichai hasn’t wanted them to be seen.
Has anyone checked how much
Money Google Gave Hillary and Gave the Democrats???????
I wonder how much money Soros spent on ads to interfere with the election?
I still have not seen an ads yet, it must be just some more faux stuff. The WJS had an article buried in today’s edition and the google ads were less than $10 K. Give me a break.
It said that facebook, google and twitter are suppose to testify Nov. 1st in a open hearing. Can’t wait to hear the big nothing burger.
Shoot, for all we know, the linkage might be some third party paying for it through a Russian ip setup.
I would not put it past the Demorats as making this part of their plan that backfired.
The word is “participate”, not “interfere”. Like every American, he’s entitled to speak as loudly and to as many people as he can afford.
“like every American” I wonder what gives with his naturalization citizenship. Everything he does is the same as the “Russians” I think his finger prints are all over this mess. His problem is that it did not work this election.
Let’s see the content of the ads.
Found their content for you.
“Hillary was Here” is all they say!
Here is what the WSJ said “Google found that accounts linked to the Russian government bought $4,700 worth of ad , while accounts with other Russian links spent $53,000 on ads…”
Oh and it gets better, “Goggle’s investigation extends beyond ad purchases and examines whether Russian actors used other Google tools, such as posting videos on YouTube”
My guess is the ads were click bait for mail order brides.
WSJ should be ashamed of themselves for such a crappy not researched article.
Well I found this on a NYT link. Too funny and the ads were bad.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/technology/facebook-russia-ads-.html
Even worst, it sounds like the Russians were stirring up conflict over the Freddie Gray case encouraging the Blacks in Baltimore to riot. Who knows how much money they are pushing with Occupy WS, BLM and Antifa.
Oh, and even better yet, the Russians are the Blacktivist
sell goods to dumb consumers.
On the CNN site:
http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/06/media/blacktivist-merchandise-facebook-russia/index.html
Marsha, Marsha, Marsha….oops, Russians, Russian, Russians
a sign that the Russian effort to spread disinformation online may be a much broader problem
It’s not a problem at all.
It’s not a problem when the NY Times spreads disinformation.
It’s not a problem when the WaPo spreads disinformation.
And it’s not a problem when anybody else spreads disinformation.
We might prefer that they desist, but it’s an annoyance, not a problem. We’re used to it. We’ve been inoculated by experts … experts like the NY Times and WaPo.
Darn, I turn ad block plus off on facebook to see if it works and now I can’t block the ads. Any clue as to how to get ad block to work again on facebook?
No wonder I never saw those Russian ads, adblock worked.
I found greasemonkey add-on which works. I have it turned off on LI. Is AdChoice something that benefits LI or is google cramming those ads my way.
The ads may be loaded from cache.
No sure how safe greasemonkey is, so I would vet before installing.