Yahoo News: Under fire, Facebook refuses to disclose political ads bought by Russian trolls
Facebook, which acknowledged this week that it sold $100,000 worth of political ads in the last two years to accounts linked to a Russian troll factory, came under stinging criticism Thursday over its refusal to release copies of the ads to the public — or to congressional investigators.
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Trevor Potter, a former FEC chairman who was chief counsel for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and one of the authors of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, said Facebook’s stand was especially puzzling given that the company was willing to show select samples of the ads to congressional investigators.
Potter said in an interview, “These advertisements were directed to the public, so they’ve already been put up publicly. And if they showed samples of the ads to investigators, they’ve already violated their confidentiality rules.”