A political ad campaign ran on Facebook in September, targeting users over the age of 40 labeled as "very liberal" that tricked them into clicking on a headline about President Donald Trump's approval ratings in order to launch a malware attack on their computers, according to a ProPublica report.
Clicking on the ad froze the users' computers and warned them their machines had been "infected with viruses, spywares and pornwares." Although it was later determined users could restart their computers to unlock them, the message prompted users to call a number that asked them to pay to restore access.
Facebook officials told ProPublica it is working to improve its ability to stop harmful advertising but knows that some bad ads still slip through the cracks.
"There is no tolerable amount of malware on the site. The tolerance is zero, but unfortunately that's not the same as zero occurrence," said Rob Goldman, Facebook's vice president of ads, according to ProPublica.
The company also has rules against fraudulent ads that lead people to "any software that results in an unexpected or deceptive experience," and it rolled out a policy last year to address deceptive ads that incentivize users to click on them.
Click here to read the full ProPublica report.
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