Donald Trump on Wednesday accused Facebook of colluding against him with the “fake news” media, tweeting:
“Facebook was always anti-Trump.The Networks were always anti-Trump hence,Fake News, @nytimes (apologized) & @WaPo were anti-Trump. Collusion?..But the people were Pro-Trump! Virtually no President has accomplished what we have accomplished in the first 9 months-and economy roaring.”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/913034591879024640
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/913035855509491712
Trump’s attacks on Facebook come amid reports that Russians bought more than 3,000 ads to exploit divisions among voters in the 2016 election along racial and religious lines.
“The batch of more than 3,000 Russian-bought ads that Facebook is preparing to turn over to Congress shows a deep understanding of social divides in American society, with some ads promoting African American rights groups, including Black Lives Matter, and others suggesting that these same groups pose a rising political threat, say people familiar with the covert influence campaign.”
Politico reported that Jill Stein, Bernie Sanders, and Trump were beneficiaries of the ads:
The ads show a complicated effort that didn’t necessarily hew to promoting Trump and bashing Clinton. Instead, they show a desire to create divisions while sometimes praising Trump, Sanders and Stein. A number of the ads seemed to question Clinton’s authenticity and tout some of the liberal criticisms of her candidacy.
There is no indication Stein, Sanders or Trump was aware of the advertisements, which were described to POLITICO by people with knowledge of them.
Last week, Trump claimed the Russia probe was a “hoax”.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/911179462745710593?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F09%2F22%2Fus%2Fpolitics%2Ftrump-russia-hoax-facebook-ads.html
