Facebook doesn't know the full extent of Russia's ad purchases during the 2016 election

pulse

September 14, 2017 10:15 PM

Facebook still does not know the extent of Russia's advertisement purchases during the 2016 election — or whether these unidentified ad buys are still on the site.

That is primarily because the Russia-linked entities that purchased $100,000 worth of Facebook ads last year could have used the site's self-service tool to bypass the company's employees.

A Facebook spokesman told CNN on Thursday that there was "no sales support." A company representative would not elaborate when asked by Business Insider if it plans to change its ad sales policy.

Facebook's chief security officer Alex Stamos said in a statement last week that, in reviewing ad buys, Facebook found "approximately $100,000 in ad spending from June of 2015 to May of 2017 — associated with roughly 3,000 ads — that was connected to about 470 inauthentic accounts and Pages in violation of our policies."

"Our analysis suggests these accounts and Pages were affiliated with one another and likely operated out of Russia," he said.

But there may be more ads that Facebook has yet to uncover.

"We continue to investigate," a Facebook spokesperson told Business Insider.

Bloomberg reported

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