META Meta Platforms Inc

By Deepa Seetharaman and Byron Tau 

Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee are preparing to release 3,000 Russia-linked Facebook ads, according to people familiar with the matter, in what would offer the broadest picture yet of how the social network was manipulated during and after the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

The ads, which Facebook Inc. identified as bought by the pro-Kremlin Internet Research Agency, could be released as early as this week, some of the people said. But the timing could slip to next week or later as Facebook and Democrats haggle over how much information about users who liked, shared and commented on the ads should be redacted, the people said.

The cache will show the images of the ads, which groups the ads targeted, how much they cost and how many Facebook users viewed them, the people said.

The discussions to release the ads comes weeks after Republicans on the committee ended their probe into Russia's activity during the 2016 election. The report concluded that there were no signs of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, angering Democrats who said the investigation was far from over.

In September, Facebook identified 470 accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency, who bought the 3,000 ads during a two-year period intended to amplify social and political tensions during and after the 2016 presidential election. The disclosure triggered public outrage, forcing representatives from Facebook, Twitter Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google to appear in front of Congress on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 for three hearings on Russian manipulation of social media.

Data released by lawmakers during the hearings show many of the ads served to recruit new followers to Facebook pages of fake organizations or encourage them to attend politically charged events, and targeted Facebook users by race, religion and interests.

The company didn't make the ads public at the time. Instead Facebook handed the ads over to Congress, which made fewer than 50 of the ads available to the public. At the time, some lawmakers vowed to release all 3,000 to make Americans more aware of the Russian manipulation.

Facebook has said that many of the ads didn't mention either candidate and instead targeted users who liked pages affiliated with gun ownership, the Confederate flag and Ivanka Trump's jewelry line.

One of the Russia-backed pages, "Back the Badge," ran an ad meant to reach law-enforcement personnel and their spouses, as well as pages memorializing officers who had been killed. The ad, which ran in October 2016, was seen more than 1.3 million times.

Another page, "Woke Blacks," targeted people who are interested in "African-American culture" and the civil-rights movement. The ad promoting the "Woke Blacks" page was seen more than 750,000 times, according to data released last fall. Facebook has said about 25% of the ads were never shown to any users.

Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the panel, is leading the negotiations with Facebook over the ad release, people familiar with the discussions said. Mr. Schiff has sought to make public all the ads the committee was given but has said the release of such information raised privacy considerations.

"The American people deserve to see the ways that the Russian intelligence services manipulated and took advantage of online platforms to stoke and amplify social and political tensions, which remains a tactic we see the Russian government rely on today," Mr. Schiff said in October.

Releasing the ads would be the latest move by the Democrats on the committee who said the panel's report, made public in April, was inadequate. They have vowed to continue the investigation on their own, and they have pushed the committee's Republican leadership to release all the transcripts of witness interviews, without any success so far.

The use of Facebook for possible election manipulation by foreign governments has come under scrutiny in Congress, which is considering bipartisan legislation to bring more transparency to political ad spending.

The Wall Street Journal has found that Facebook, Twitter and other major U.S. tech companies have yet to provide to the public all the details of Russian troll activity on their platforms despite their pledge to tackle the problem and pressure from some lawmakers.

U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that social media was part of a Kremlin-backed campaign designed to boost Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign using disinformation, data thefts and leaks. Intelligence agencies laid out their conclusion in a 2017 report. Mr. Trump denies any collusion between his campaign and Russia. Moscow has denied any election interference.

In February, a Facebook ad executive sparked a backlash for saying on Twitter that the main goal of the Russian ads wasn't to swing the election. Facebook said Mr. Goldman was stating his own views, and he later apologized to colleagues.

Write to Deepa Seetharaman at Deepa.Seetharaman@wsj.com and Byron Tau at byron.tau@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 06, 2018 20:48 ET (00:48 GMT)

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