Based on the fact they were targeting Sanders, Trump, and Stein voters I imagine they were probably just making money off of clickbait with advertisements on their pages. It was election season so naturally most of the clickbait farms transitioned into politics rather than 'how to get an 8-pack' or whatever other health/lifestyle garbage they were peddling before.
What is "Russian operatives"? When John Oliver says something against the current US president is that equivalent to saying that an "English operative" is "aimed at fostering division in United States"?
A good definition would be someone paid by the Russian government is a Russian operative. Presumably, John Oliver is not remunerated by England in any way, therefore he's not an English operative.
Not to say there isn't potentially a legitimate problem here, but this article is blatant fear mongering from the washington post. There is literally no content in this article.
> The Silicon Valley giant has found that tens of thousands of dollars were spent on ads by Russian agents who aimed to spread disinformation across Google’s many products
Literally nothing compared to the $5 billion spent in the 2016 election. No proof of Russian "agents" or "disinformation".
> The discovery by Google is also significant because the ads do not appear to be from the same Kremlin-affiliated troll farm that bought ads on Facebook -- a sign that the Russian effort to spread disinformation online may be a much broader problem than Silicon Valley companies have unearthed so far.
So more than 2 russian people have bought facebook ads somehow related to politics. Doesn't sound like a much broader problem. More "disinformation".
> a set of ads that cost less than $100,000 and that it is still sorting out whether all of the ads came from trolls or whether some originated from legitimate Russian accounts
So we're aren't sure if the money is even russian. But at least the dollar amount has grown.
> Internet Research Agency, a Russian-government affiliated troll farm
The question is where the $90+ million Parscale spent on FB and other places came from.[1]
My issue with all these articles lately is that it addresses the stupid obvious ads that came from Russia that amount to very low dollar amounts in spend. I suspect the answer to where the $90m+ Parscale referenced came from is a lot more interesting than this <$100k campaign.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 25.4 ms ] thread> The Silicon Valley giant has found that tens of thousands of dollars were spent on ads by Russian agents who aimed to spread disinformation across Google’s many products
Literally nothing compared to the $5 billion spent in the 2016 election. No proof of Russian "agents" or "disinformation".
> The discovery by Google is also significant because the ads do not appear to be from the same Kremlin-affiliated troll farm that bought ads on Facebook -- a sign that the Russian effort to spread disinformation online may be a much broader problem than Silicon Valley companies have unearthed so far.
So more than 2 russian people have bought facebook ads somehow related to politics. Doesn't sound like a much broader problem. More "disinformation".
> a set of ads that cost less than $100,000 and that it is still sorting out whether all of the ads came from trolls or whether some originated from legitimate Russian accounts
So we're aren't sure if the money is even russian. But at least the dollar amount has grown.
> Internet Research Agency, a Russian-government affiliated troll farm
What the fuck does that even mean? Come on WaPo.
My issue with all these articles lately is that it addresses the stupid obvious ads that came from Russia that amount to very low dollar amounts in spend. I suspect the answer to where the $90m+ Parscale referenced came from is a lot more interesting than this <$100k campaign.
[1] https://twitter.com/parscale/status/876079606092230657