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Facebook Found Only 'Insignificant' Overlap Between Russian, Trump Campaign Ads

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MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Facebook has found only an "insignificant" overlap between content published by the Russia-based Internet Research Agency (IRA) and the campaign team of now US President Donald Trump prior to the US presidential election in 2016, the US-based social network said in a written testimony to the US Senate.

"We have seen only what appears to be insignificant overlap between the targeting and content used by the IRA and that used by the Trump campaign (including its third-party vendors)," the written testimony, dated January 8, read.

Facebook further clarified that a total of 129 public events were created across 13 IRA pages on its site. These events were viewed by some 338,300 users' accounts and marked as interesting by around 25,800 of them. Moreover, about 62,500 users indicated that they were going to an event.

In this May 25, 2017, file photo, Facebook CEO and Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg delivers the commencement address at Harvard University commencement exercises in Cambridge, Mass. - Sputnik International
Social Engineering to the People: Facebook Asks Users to Rank Media Credibility
Facebook also informed the senators about a new tool it had launched that allowed its users to determine which of the IRA pages on Facebook and its photo-sharing service Instagram they might have liked or followed between January 2015 and August 2017.

The company said it was taking the necessary measures to inform its users about its moves to "strengthen our platform’s resistance to inauthentic and malicious behavior, including increasing ads transparency, implementing a more robust ads review process, imposing tighter content restrictions, and exploring how to add additional authenticity safeguards."

READ MORE: US Senate Unveils Facebook, Google, Twitter Answers on Russia Investigation

In November, Facebook, Google and Twitter gave testimonies to US congressmen as part of the US authorities’ ongoing investigation into Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. In its testimony, Facebook told the US House of Representatives' Intelligence Committee that it had found no overlap in the groups targeted by the Trump campaign’s advertisements and the advertisements tied to Russia-linked accounts.

Moscow has repeatedly said that Russia did not interfere in any foreign states’ domestic affairs, noting such moves were against principles of the Russian foreign policy, and saying that the US allegations of meddling had been unfounded.

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