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A new report details how a covert influence operation linked to the Kremlin continued to place ads on Facebook despite U.S. and E.U. prohibitions on doing business with the organization.
By Steven Lee Myers and Adam Satariano
The authors have written extensively about Russia and other foreign disinformation and propaganda on social media.
A Russian organization linked to the Kremlin’s covert influence campaigns posted more than 8,000 political advertisements on Facebook despite European and American restrictions barring companies from doing business with the organization, according to three organizations that track disinformation online.
The Russian group, the Social Design Agency, evaded lax enforcement by Facebook to place an estimated $338,000 worth of ads aimed at European users over a period of 15 months that ended in October, even though the platform itself highlighted the threat, the three organizations said in a report released on Friday.
The Social Design Agency has faced punitive sanctions in the European Union since 2023 and in the United States since April for spreading propaganda and disinformation to unsuspecting users on social media. The ad campaigns on Facebook raise “critical questions about the platform’s compliance” with American and European laws, the report said.
The report follows the announcement by Facebook’s parent company, Meta, that it was changing its rules for content it allows on its social media platforms, including eliminating fact checks that flagged or removed posts. The changes will almost certainly intensify Meta’s confrontation with regulators in Europe over how it handles disinformation a
