Facebook had its role in promoting Romania's pro-Russian presidential candidate, report shows

Meta Platforms Inc. allowed a network of Facebook pages to post more than 4,100 political ads attacking Romania's pro-EU presidential candidate Elena Lasconi and promoting far-right figures, including Călin Georgescu, in the run-up to the country's elections, a report says, according to a Bloomberg investigation.

The campaign was run on 25 apparently separate Facebook pages for entities whose websites shared hosting, advertising, and email infrastructure, indicating an organized effort to influence the election, according to a report by digital threat research groups Reset Tech and Check First.

It is unclear who was behind the network, which boosted political posts on Facebook and Instagram with advertising spend of up to EUR 264,909 (USD 279,610), according to the report.

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