‘Weaponized Ad Technology’: Facebook’s Moneymaker Gets a Critical EyeA week before the election, for instance, the Russian group paid Facebook to aim an ad at users interested in African-American history, the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X with a seemingly benign post. The ad included a photo of Beyoncé’s backup dancers. “Black girl magic!” the ad said, according to Facebook ads recently released by federal lawmakers.
Then on Election Day, the same Russian group sent the same Facebook user demographic an ad urging them to boycott the presidential election.
“No one represents Black people. Don’t go to vote,” the ad said.
“Russian groups appeared to identify and target nonwhite voters months before the election with benign messages promoting racial identity,” Professor Kim, who studies online political ads, wrote in the report. By singling out the same individuals on Facebook, she added, “these groups later appeared to interfere in the elections with voter suppression messages.”
The influence of the consciences of everyone involved in this chain of actors, from people working at Facebook to members of the Russian government, is something to keep in mind when you think something is just too malicious to do for someone that's not some bloodthirsty murderer.