Tech giants reveal Russian disinformation campaign was bigger than first thought
Three tech giants plan to disclose to Congress on Tuesday how Russian content during the 2016 elections was far more pervasive than what had initially been reported.
Facebook Inc., for instance, told Congress early in October that about 10 million Americans may have seen ads bought by Russian-based operations intended to sway opinions on divisive issues, including politics. It’s reported that the social media giant will disclose to Congress that that number is now closer to 126 million people during and after the election.
Google LLC is also set speak to Congress on Tuesday. The company has confirmed the Kremlin-backed Internet Research Agency spent as much as $4,700 on advertising. Google will disclose that Russian groups created 18 YouTube channels during the elections, and in total posted 1,108 English-language videos.
Google has already made its findings public, stating that it found only “limited activity” on its video platform but that there is “no amount of interference that is acceptable.” Unlike on Facebook, American eyes on content coming from Russia were relatively few. Google said that the videos in total had generated only 309,000 U.S. views from June 2015 to November 2016.
Google also said that the channels were not targeted “to the U.S. or to any particular sector of the U.S. population” and some of the channels showed content unrelated to politics or any kind of divisive issue in the U.S.
Twitter Inc. will also stand in front of the same committee. It’s reported that the company will reveal that it has now found 2,752 accounts thought to be linked to Russia’s Internet Research Agency. This number is 14 times more than Twitter had initially suspected and included the use of 36,000 bots that produced as many as 1.4 million tweets during the election.
The companies will testify at three separate hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday. All three companies have made efforts to ensure more transparency on their platforms, but during the hearings they will need to assure Congress that their efforts are enough and that government regulation doesn’t have to be enacted.
That could prove to be a tall order, especially as a backlash against the power of big technology companies continues to build steam in the U.S. and Europe.
Image: annca via Pixabay
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