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Alexey Druzhinin | AFP | Getty Images
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin smiles in the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow, on April 18, 2014.
The Facebook ads that Russian operatives purchased to try and influence U.S. voters during the 2016 election highlighted the Black Lives Matter movement and other hot-button, divisive issues, said a person familiar with the situation.
The content of the ads was previously reported by the Washington Post.
This person, who requested anonymity, also said the ads will be shared with Congressional investigators in a matter of days.
Facebook said earlier this month that an internal investigation had found that groups with ties to Russia had spent $100,000 on ads designed to influence the attitudes of U.S. voters in the last Presidential campaign.
The investigation found approximately $100,000 in ad spending from June 2015 to May 2017 associated with roughly 3,000 ads.
That was a reversal from late last year, when CEO Mark Zuckerberg argued that fake news on Facebook did not play a key role in the election’s outcome.
Facebook had contacted the FBI during the summer of 2016 when it first suspected Russian involvement but was unable to confirm its suspicions until recently.
Senator Richard Burr, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said last week that a hearing on the matter is a matter of ‘when.”
