{"id":13524,"date":"2017-10-30T15:18:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-30T23:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/facebooks-advertising-tools-complicate-efforts-to-stop-russian-interference\/"},"modified":"2017-10-30T15:18:00","modified_gmt":"2017-10-30T23:18:00","slug":"facebooks-advertising-tools-complicate-efforts-to-stop-russian-interference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/facebooks-advertising-tools-complicate-efforts-to-stop-russian-interference\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook's Advertising Tools Complicate Efforts To Stop Russian Interference"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Aarti Shahani<\/a><\/span> <\/p>\n

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\n Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., (left) and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., holds a news conference Oct. 19 to introduce legislation designed to increase the transparency of political ads on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.<\/p>\n

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Drew Angerer\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

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Drew Angerer\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

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Facebook says 126 million people may have seen Russian content aimed at influencing Americans. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill want to weed out Russian operatives and extremist propaganda from Facebook. <\/p>\n

But savvy marketers \u2014 people who’ve used Facebook’s advertising platform since its inception \u2014 say that social media giant will find it hard to banish nefarious actors because its technology is designed to be wide open and simple to use.<\/p>\n

Unlike traditional ad buying, Facebook’s ad platform is self-service and automated, says Marty Weintraub, a marketing executive with the firm Aimclear. All an advertiser needs is a valid email address and a credit card. Facebook’s ad targeting software does the rest.<\/p>\n

Advertisers have flocked to it because it works. Facebook’s done a great job of building “psychographic data”<\/a> \u2014 not just facts about you that you offer up (like your birthday), but things you don’t say and your behavior reveals anyway (like your wedding anniversary, income level, if you own a home or play tennis). And this sophisticated targeting has been critical to Facebook’s success. Last year, the platform raked in nearly $27 billion<\/a> in ad revenue<\/p>\n