Most Americans Exposed to Russian-linked Facebook Ads Saw Them After Election Day
Approximately 10 million Americans may have seen these ads in their Facebook feeds
We’ve been following the Russian-linked Facebook ad scandal. Monday, Facebook gave federal lawmakers investigating Russian interference into the 2016 election some 3,000 ads they believe may have been placed by Russian-linked entities.
Approximately 10 million Americans may have seen these ads in their Facebook feeds.
Tuesday, the Daily Caller reported that more than half the Americans exposed to these ads didn’t see them until after they’d cast their ballots.
More than half of the 10 million Americans estimated to have seen Russian-linked political ads saw them after Election Day in 2016, according to Facebook.
Fifty-six precent of the total times ads were displayed were shown after the election, with 44 percent shown before, Elliot Schrage, Facebook’s vice president of policy and communications, wrote of the data the company provided to Congress.
Facebook handed over to Congress roughly 3,000 ads with links to Russia on Monday. The company said it sold $100,000 worth of ads to Russian-linked sources investigators believe were trying to sway the results of the 2016 election.
However, more than half of the Americans exposed to the ads on Facebook saw them they had cast their votes on Nov. 8. About 4.4 million would have been exposed to the ads before Election Day, but it’s impossible to know if simply scrolling past a political ad would sway their vote.
“Roughly 25% of the ads were never shown to anyone,” Schrage wrote. “That’s because advertising auctions are designed so that ads reach people based on relevance, and certain ads may not reach anyone as a result.”
Facebook alerts publishers to how many people an ad “reached”. But in Facebook jargon, “reached” doesn’t mean someone spent time contemplating the ad, clicking on the ad, or even noticing it. “Reached” means the ad was pushed into x number of people’s feeds, most of who scroll right past the ad without noticing.
A few weeks ago, Facebook unveiled a new political ad transparency politics when it was revealed Russian-connected actors placed thousands of ads on the social media platform.
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Comments
Then there’s all the people who saw them before the election, but after they’d already cast their absentee ballot. Depending on which state we’re talking about, that could be a significant amount of ballots.
Of course, this doesn’t address whether the ads had any effect (unlikely).
This is getting comical – they are so desperate to find something, anything nefarious that they are spiraling further and further down the rhetorical drain.
It’s now getting popular to say Facebook shouldn’t have hosted these ads – but how was facebook supposed to police that? Suppose a german put up an ad on his site registered in Denmark, and an American accidentally saw it – is that going to be illegal? How can that be policed?
They don’t realize that they are advocating for a system much like China’s, where everything on any linked network going in and out of the country is constantly monitored by, and subject to the approval of, an army of government censors.
Come to think of it, that is exactly the system that today’s democrats would love to see.
No, this is a serious matter. Facebook should be shut down pending a decade long Congressional investigation and to their ties with Russia and their attempt to hijack the election.
Obama’s White House spent millions on a Behavioral Science team to manipulate American’s opinions and actions including having the IRS send out intimidating letters to taxpayers who legally opted out of Obamacare…..
In the meantime, most of us ignore Facebook ads and email spam
A day AFTER the election? Hmmmm…. Probably gave instructions on how to retroactively blame the Russians for the results.
The fact that they won’t tell us what is in the ads doesn’t wash, especially when any morsel of news that can embarrass Trump is “leaked” within minutes.
My bullshit detector says that if these ads were Pro-Trump, they’d have been released months ago to every media outline and run on every media outlet 24/7 as proof of collusion.
So that rules out 1 candidate. Hmmm who could these ads have been for? If only there were a US Attorney with lots of power investigating this…darn I guess we’ll never know.
This has GOT to be the weakest, lamest, saddest attempt by the liberals yet to undermine the POTUS. Who in their right mind would believe a) enough people on Facebook actually follow the links randomly appearing on the side bar, let alone read the pages to make a difference, (Hillary won the popular vote, after all, so even if people DID read these posts, clearly not enough of them were swayed by them to carry the popular vote in Trump’s favor), and b) believe anyone uses Facebook as their go-to site for credible news sources???
Andy, spot on.
“Ads with links to Russia”
The girl who peddled her bike by in the insurance ad attends an Elementay School who’s janitor is engaged to a woman who’s grandmother cooked for the Soviet Army at Stalingrad.
Rachel Maddow has more such damning evidence at 10pm local.
Please! First it was Teump collusion and now all they have is ads on Facebook paid for by Russian entities…
I for one don’t make my political decisions by the garbage on Facebook. And I don’t need Zuckerberg telling me what is and isn’t appropriate behaviour.
He really is a deluded a-hole, isnt he…
Facebook’s total ad revenue in 2016 was almost $27B, we are talking about $100k worth of ad spend which is 0.0004%… it is completely inconsequential and frankly a pathetic joke.
In less than a year they have gone from re-counts to “Hamilton electors” to Russian interference to FB ads, what is the next desperate pipe dream that liberals will glom onto to undo the 2016 presidential election?
The absurdity of this is staggering