Facebook admits showing Russian-funded propaganda adverts

US social media giant Facebook has admitted to receiving money from a Russian-funded campaign which was spread across its network in the last two years.

The company said it had received $100,000 from the campaign for 3,000 adverts, until it was halted in May of this year.

While the ads did not support any political entity specifically, they were based on issues such as immigration and rights.

Facebook said the activity originated from 470 fake accounts and were operated as part of larger operation based in Russia.

Mark Zuckerberg’s company has led a campaign to prevent the rise of fake news in the aftermath of the 2016 US presidential election.

In a statement from the firm’s chief security officer Alex Stamos, it said that it had handed its evidence to special prosecutor Robert Mueller, The former FBI chief is leading an investigation into Russian interference in last year’s campaign.

"We don’t allow inauthentic accounts on Facebook, and as a result, we have since shut down the accounts and pages we identified that were still active,” Stamos said.

“We have shared our findings with US authorities investigating these issues, and we will continue to work with them as necessary,” he added.

The FBI has said that there was a high likelihood that the Kremlin attempted to exert an influence over last year's election, which was surprisingly won by Donald Trump as he defeated Hillary Clinton.