The daily business briefing: September 22, 2017

Facebook gives Congress political ads bought with Russian accounts, Uber loses license to operate in London, and more

The Uber app and a map of London
(Image credit: BEN FATHERS/AFP/Getty Images)

1. Facebook to give Congress political ads bought with Russian accounts

Facebook will turn over to Congress more than 3,000 politically themed ads purchased with Russian accounts during the 2016 presidential campaign, Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch said Thursday in a blog post. "We believe the public deserves a full accounting of what happened in the 2016 election, and we've concluded that sharing the ads we've discovered ... can help," Stretch wrote. Facebook gave the ads to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, but had taken back ads shown to congressional investigators before they had the time to thoroughly examine them due to privacy concerns, sparking complaints from critics. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company was taking steps to prevent anyone from using the social network to "undermine democracy."

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.