The Russians exploited this system by creating English-language sites and Facebook pages that closely mimicked those created by U.S. political activists. A Facebook spokesman declined to comment on Russia’s exploitation of the Custom Audiences system. In addition to Custom Audiences, Russian operatives used other Facebook tools to target groups by demographics, geography, gender and interests, according to the people familiar with the investigation. The Custom Audiences tool differs because it allows advertisers to feed into Facebook’s systems a specific list of users they want to target. Facebook introduced Custom Audiences in mid-2012, in the middle of the presidential election contest between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.

Source: Washington Post October 03, 2017 00:00 UTC