Leaders of the House Intelligence Committee said on October 11 that they planned to make public the thousands of Facebook ads linked to Russia that appeared during the 2016 presidential election campaign, the first indication that the ads would be released.
The lawmakers told reporters about their plans after an afternoon meeting with Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer. They said the 3,000 ads would probably be released after a Nov. 1 hearing on the role of social media platforms in Russia’s interference in the election. That hearing, and a similar one that the Senate Intelligence Committee plans to hold with Facebook, Google and Twitter, will place Silicon Valley’s top companies under a harsh spotlight as the public perception of the giants shifts in Washington.
