For such an inconsequential run of ads on Facebook, it seems like 10 million users is a lot. But, that is what the estimate for views of Russian ads run on Facebook. There were 470 “inauthentic accounts”, whatever that means to someone. They bought $!00,000 in ads, half of which Facebook says were not seen until after the election. We have to wonder why anyone would want ads run after the election, or pay for those that were. Maybe, they were not intended just to influence the election, but the post election operation of the US government.
Some of the actual ads were shown yesterday. They included anti-immigrant ads about the cost of illegal immigrants, a few promoting racism, a couple supporting Black Lives Matter, and one promoting the killing of Muslims in the US. These pages had more than a million followers before they were pulled by Facebook. Their intent is to resist the new government, no matter who won. They need a base to do that from, and there were readymade ones all over the place after this election. You can bet they paid for a few of those “resist” banners that went up anywhere they could be tolerated as free speech, and quite a bit more. If there is one thing we should have learned from the Russian operations in the Ukraine, they don’t stop when the election is over.
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