Facebook to Release Russian-Linked Ads to Congressional Investigators
September 21 2017 - 4:21PM
Dow Jones News
By Robert McMillan and Byron Tau
Facebook Inc. said Thursday it has struck a deal with Congress
to share Russia-backed ads purchased during the U.S. presidential
campaign with congressional investigators, capitulating to
political pressure to be more forthcoming with information.
In recent weeks, investigators have begun scrutinizing what role
Russian activity on social media might have played in the election,
especially after Facebook disclosed that it found more than
$150,000 in Russian-linked ad spending on more than 5,200 ads on
its platform.
"After an extensive legal and policy review, today we are
announcing that we will also share these ads with congressional
investigators," the company said in a statement. "We believe it is
vitally important that government authorities have the information
they need to deliver to the public a full assessment of what
happened in the 2016 election."
The House and Senate intelligence committees are conducting
separate probes of Russian activity during the 2016 election with
the aim of writing comprehensive reports to publicly document what
happened during last year's divisive campaign. Facebook had shared
limited information with the committees in recent weeks and made
more complete disclosures to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is
leading a separate criminal and counterintelligence investigation
into the same topic.
Write to Robert McMillan at Robert.Mcmillan@wsj.com and Byron
Tau at byron.tau@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 21, 2017 16:06 ET (20:06 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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