Russian Facebook ads showed a black woman firing a rifle, amid efforts to stoke racial strife
Source: The Washington Post
By Adam Entous, Craig Timberg and Elizabeth Dwoskin October 2 at 1:44 PM
One of the Russian-bought advertisements that Facebook shared with congressional investigators on Monday featured photographs of an armed black woman “dry firing” a rifle — pulling the trigger of the weapon without a bullet in the chamber, according to people familiar with the investigation.
Investigators believe the advertisement may have been designed to encourage African American militancy and, at the same time, to stoke fears within white communities, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the probe. But the precise purpose of the ad remains unclear to investigators, the people said.
The apparent tactic underscores how the Russians used U.S.-based technology platforms to target Americans with highly tailored and sometimes-contradictory messages to exploit divisions in American society over the past two years.
The ad was among more than 3,000 Facebook ads delivered to congressional investigators that the company says were bought by 470 accounts and pages controlled by a Russian troll farm, the Internet Research Agency, based in St. Petersburg.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/russian-facebook-ads-showed-a-black-woman-firing-a-rifle-amid-efforts-to-stoke-racial-strife/2017/10/02/e4e78312-a785-11e7-b3aa-c0e2e1d41e38_story.html
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I really hope we can stop them. 
