What Russian trolls could have bought for $100,000 on Facebook

$100,000 might not sound like much when it comes to a presidential election. But the Russian troll farm that bought $100,000 worth of Facebook ads could have reached millions of American voters using the social media company's sophisticated software, which allows ad-buyers to target Facebook users based on anything from their age to their hobbies and political interests.

Facebook told congressional investigators on Wednesday that it sold approximately $100,000 in ads to a so-called Russian troll farm that was looking to target American voters.
"In reviewing the ads buys, we have found approximately $100,000 in ad spending from June of 2015 to May of 2017 — associated with roughly 3,000 ads — that was connected to about 470 inauthentic accounts and Pages in violation of our policies," Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos said in a statement.
Facebook won't say publicly what exactly the ads were or how the trolls targeted them, but the process of targeting audiences using Facebook is not a secret.