January 27, 2018
More Proof That Russiagate Is a DNC/FBI Conspiracy Against American
Democracy and President Trump
By POLITICO MAGAZINE
The companies, under the microscope for their role in facilitating
Russian outreach in the 2016 U.S. elections, sought to downplay the extent of
that influence in written answers released Thursday. | AP Photos
Tech companies say they didn't see Russian social media infiltration in
2017 elections
By NANCY SCOLA, ASHLEY GOLD and LI ZHOU
01/25/2018 07:19 PM EST
Google and Twitter told lawmakers they've found no evidence of Russian
influence efforts via their platforms in the handful of U.S. elections held
last year.
The companies, along with Facebook, responded to written questions from Senate
Intelligence Committee members as the next step in lawmakers' scrutiny of how
and how much Russian-affiliated interests used U.S. social media networks to
sow chaos and influence the country's 2016 elections.
In answers released Thursday, Google and Twitter said they aren't aware of any
"state-sponsored attempts to interfere in any American elections"
last year. Two states — New Jersey and Virginia — held gubernatorial elections
in 2017, but there were few national or state wide races in the off-year
election.
"While we have not specifically detected any abuse of our
platforms in connection with the 2017 state elections, our work is ongoing, and
we will continue to develop tools and processes to combat evolving
threats," Google General Counsel Kent Walker wrote.
Twitter acting General Counsel Sean Edgett said his company "is
not aware" of any state-sponsored interference attempts last year, while
Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch didn't directly answer the question but
disclosed no known incidents.
The companies, under the microscope for their role in facilitating
Russian outreach in the 2016 U.S. elections, sought to downplay the extent of
that influence in written answers released Thursday by the Senate Intelligence
Committee.
The questions were a follow-up to a Nov. 1 hearing when Intelligence Committee members
grilled representatives from the three companies. The committee extended the deadline for written responses to lawmakers'
questions to Jan. 8 after the companies requested more time.
The companies expanded on their answers from the hearing as they
continue to probe the causes and effects of Russian use of their sites.
Facebook said the Internet Research Agency, a troll farm linked to the
Kremlin, created 129 real-world event pages during the 2016 election, with
about 25,800 accounts marking "interested" and about 62,500 marking
"going" to the events.
In response to a question from Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Facebook
said it has seen only "what appears to be insignificant overlap between
the targeting and content used by the IRA and that used by [President Donald]
Trump's campaign," including by its third-party vendors.
Facebook also said targeting used by the IRA for advertisements was
"relatively rudimentary," lacking the level of sophistication
candidates use, such as Facebook's Contact List Custom Audiences, which is
based on voter profile information.
Facebook didn't answer the question from Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.)
about whether it had seen evidence of Russian meddling in 2017 elections in
Virginia and New Jersey.
It wrote in its response to Harris: "We have learned from the 2016
election cycle and from elections worldwide this last year. We have
incorporated that learning into our automated systems and human review and have
greatly improved in preparation for the upcoming elections. We hope to continue
learning and improving through increased industry cooperation and dialogue with
law enforcement moving forward."
Twitter told lawmakers it has beefed up both machine learning and
human-driven content screening capabilities since the 2016 elections, including
its ability to flag accounts that appear to be working in concert.
The company also revealed that users had reported Russian-linked
accounts, but it elected not to act on those reports at the time.
“We received user reports for a small minority of the IRA accounts
previously identified to the Committee, prior to the suspension of these
accounts from Twitter,” Edgett wrote. “A large percentage of those reports
related to content from two accounts: @TEN_GOP and @SouthLoneStar. While many
of these reports were not actioned at the time, Twitter has since made
substantial changes to its operations and policies to respond more effectively
to user reports.”
Twitter says it intends to officially launch its Advertising
Transparency Center, a hub dedicated to disclosing information about political
ads on the platform, in the first quarter of 2018. The company had said it was
due to go live in the “coming weeks” when it was first announced in October.
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