Facebook plans to hire more than 1,000 workers to review advertisements on social media. The tech giant approved the changes after the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election started by Congress, Bloomberg reported. Congress asked Twitter, Facebook, and Alphabet to reveal any information connected with Russian influence in the US election.

Facebook announced its policy changes

On Monday, Facebook announced that it shared the information with the investigators of about 3,000 advertisements, allegedly bought by Russians to be used for the political and economic propaganda.

According to Facebook data, more than $100,000 was spent on these advertisements.

The company also announced that its new staff would review advertisements, and the whole ad-buying process would be updated. Facebook has introduced strict restrictions on content and context of ads. The rules for the advertisements include the necessity of an authenticity demonstration before any purchases.

In the middle of September, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the changes in the political ad spending and stressed his intention to hire 250 workers to check the election integrity. Facebook CEO explained that “I don’t want anyone to use our tools to undermine democracy.” Zuckerberg also expressed his sorrow that his product had been used to divide people.

According to Facebook data, the ads' auditory was around 10 million people. 44 percent of the ads were seen before the election, 56 percent were seen after it, and 25 percent were not shown at all. 50 percent of them got $3, 99 percent got $1,000 in ad spend. The main issues of the ads were: race issues, gun rights, LGBT treatment, and immigration.

Some of the ads were purchased with roubles, which is Russian currency, TechCrunch reported.

Officials' point of view

Senator Mark Warner criticized Facebook and Twitter for the shared information related to the Russian meddling. Particularly, he stressed that Facebook’s shared data was insufficient.

Congres is responsible to decide whether it should reveal to the public any personally identifiable information, such as personal names of accounts which 'liked' the suspects' posts.

No agreement had been made to keep this information private.

On Monday, a California Democrat Adam Schiff stated that he was going to publicly reveal these ads soon, and he was going to continue "Working closely with Facebook to address any privacy considerations.”
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