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Recode Daily: Those Russia-backed Facebook ads were intended to divide Americans before the election

Plus, did Trump’s threatening tweet violate Twitter’s ToS? Also, WTF projects a 70-foot-tall pro-Obamacare ad on Congress; and how to survive the apocalypse.

Russian President Vladimir Putin watches a military exercise at a training ground at Luzhsky range near Saint Petersburg, Russia, on Sep. 18, 2017.
Russian President Vladimir Putin watches a military exercise at a training ground at Luzhsky range near Saint Petersburg, Russia, on Sep. 18, 2017.
Russian President Vladimir Putin watches a military exercise at a training ground at Luzhsky range near Saint Petersburg, Russia, on Sep. 18, 2017.
Mikhail Svetlov / Getty Images

The Kremlin-sourced ads on Facebook ahead of the 2016 U.S. presidential election were aimed at stoking social tensions and potential political unrest. So far, Facebook has provided all 3,000 ads, which played to both sides of hot-button issues like Black Lives Matter and gun control, only to former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who is leading the federal probe into Russian interference. [Tony Romm / Recode]

Twitter says President Donald Trump’s tweet that threatened North Korea was potentially in violation of its terms of service. But because the tweet was “newsworthy,” it was allowed to stay up, and the president’s account wasn’t suspended. Yesterday, Twitter said it will update its public guidance on what factors may lead to a tweet being pulled from the platform — or allowed to stay on it — to include a consideration of newsworthiness. [Kurt Wagner / Recode]

Fox’s FX is pulling more of its shows off of rival streaming services like Netflix and Amazon, and putting them on its homegrown FX+ service. Like other big studios and networks, Fox has been making noise about reclaiming shows like “The Americans” from other companies; if you want to watch old Fox shows, you’ll have to watch them on Hulu or other Fox properties. [Peter Kafka / Recode]

Levi’s and Google are selling a $350 jean jacket you can use to control your phone. It’s supposedly designed for bike commuters. [Dieter Bohn / The Verge]

Rapper Eminem’s music catalog is going public in a first-of-its-kind deal, with investors and fans able to buy shares of hit songs like “Lose Yourself,” “Stan” and “The Real Slim Shady.” Eminem is not involved in the sale; the Bass Brothers production team, which signed Eminem to a local record deal in 1995, is putting part of its multi-million dollar royalty stream up for investment. [Brian McCollum / Detroit Free Press]

Top stories from Recode

President Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka are unveiling a new federal computer science initiative with major tech backers.

Plus, tech giants like Amazon, Facebook and Google will commit new support to coding education.

A new political group backed by Mark Pincus and Reid Hoffman is running its first ad in support of Obamacare.

The latest on Win the Future, or WTF.

Where the software industry is growing outside Silicon Valley.

Indiana and North Carolina are among the states seeing the fastest growth.

This is cool

How to survive the apocalypse.


This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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