Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg agrees to hand Russian adverts bought during US election to investigators
Billionaire's firm agrees to cooperate further with probe exploring Russia's role in an election which ended up putting Donald Trump in the White House
Facebook has agreed to hand over adverts bought by Russians to sway the 2016 campaign.
Mark Zuckerberg also pledged to beef up security, cooperate with federal investigators and enhance transparency on the site,
“I care deeply about the Democratic process. I don’t want anyone to use our tools to undermine democracy,” Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on his own Facebook page.
The billionaire admitted there will "always be bad actors in the world" but insisted “we can make it harder” for them to use the website to make political mischief.
The social media platform had acknowledged about $100,000 (£74,000) in ad spending connected to fake accounts probably run from Russia and was expected to be called before the Senate Intelligence Committee for a public hearing in October.
Russia’s effort to influence US voters through social media is also a focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the 2016 election.
In his brief online talk, Zuckerberg said the company has fully cooperated with Mueller’s investigation, and was also working with other countries to help ensure election integrity including Germany, which is holding national elections this weekend.
The company is also improving its internal security measures, making 250 new hires to focus on security.
He also promised to make advertising more transparent, so that if the ads were bought by Russia or another rogue state people would know, and also be able to see other ads bought by the same actors.
Zuckerberg said “we’re in a new world” that presents “ a new challenge for Internet companies,” and that he wanted Facebook to be a “force for good in democracy.”
In a statement, the company said it had already given the ads in question to Mueller, and would now share them with Congressional investigators as well.
“This has been a difficult decision," ” the statement continued.
"Disclosing content is not something we do lightly under any circumstances. We are deeply committed to safeguarding user content, regardless of the user’s nationality, and ads are user content."
But allegations of Russian interference in the US election — which Trump has called “a hoax” — persuaded the company to play ball.
“We believe the public deserves a full accounting of what happened in the 2016 election, and we’ve concluded that sharing the ads we’ve discovered, in a manner that is consistent with our obligations to protect user information, can help,” Facebook said.
