Elections and Media

Facebook, Google and Twitter arrived on Capitol Hill for two days of marathon hearings that started on Oct 31 with the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on crime and terrorism. Top executives for the social media giants are being grilled by lawmakers investigating Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, including how the online platforms were used to spread misinformation and propaganda. Ahead of the hearings, all three companies announced on Oct 30 that the number of Russian-linked accounts on their sites were higher than previously disclosed.

In whatever corner of the world Facebook is operating, it has become clear that people are using this powerful platform as a communications tool in ways that Mark Zuckerberg never envisioned. He started the company as a young Harvard undergrad 13 years ago to connect students. It expanded exponentially since then under his supremely techno-utopian vision of connecting the world. For Zuckerberg, connecting the world means bringing people together. But increasingly the platform is being used by some very powerful elements to do the exact opposite: sow divisions.

The guilty plea of a 30-year-old campaign aide — so green that he listed Model United Nations in his qualifications — shifted the narrative of the Trump campaign’s interactions with Russia: Court documents revealed that Russian officials alerted the campaign, through an intermediary in April 2016, that they possessed thousands of Democratic emails and other “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. That was two months before the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee was publicly revealed and the stolen emails began to appear online.

Facebook, Google and Twitter are set to divulge new details showing that the scope of Russian-backed manipulation on their platforms before and after the US presidential election was far greater than previously disclosed, reaching an estimated 126 million people on Facebook alone, according to people familiar with the matter, prepared copies of their testimonies and a company statement. Facebook estimates that 470 Russian-backed accounts connected to a single pro-Kremlin firm, the Internet Research Agency, churned out 80,000 posts on Facebook between January 2015 and August 2017, the social

This week, Sen Mark Warner (D-VA), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, will push for new answers. Executives from Facebook, Google and Twitter are set to testify at congressional hearings on Oct 31 and Nov 1 about the election and the power of their platforms Lawmakers are increasingly taking a critical tone with Silicon Valley, with Sen Warner among the harshest. He has already pushed a bill requiring the companies to disclose who paid for digital political ads, the biggest legislative effort so far to regulate the companies. Sen Warner’s position is a sharp reversal.

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, made a big bet on Hillary Clinton winning the 2016 presidential election. Employees donated $1.6 million to her campaign, about 80% more than the amount given by workers at any other corporation, and Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt helped set up companies to analyze political data for the campaign. Schmidt even wore a badge labeled “STAFF” at Mrs. Clinton’s election-night bash. His support of the losing side didn’t go unnoticed among the victors.

[Commentary]  In order to preserve our political democracy, which elevates the most popular among us (though perhaps not the finest) to power, we’ll seemingly abandon a total democracy of thought, which does the same for ideas. You can judge a people by how much freedom they can tolerate without destroying themselves. It seems the power for anyone to go viral and attain a global audience, through articulate reasoning or just clickbait-y libel, was a just bit too much freedom for us to bear.

[Commentary] If we want to reduce the dangers of political ignorance and deception, we should focus less on the details of technology and more on the structure of incentives we have created for voters and political elites. The painful truth about online fake news is that it is just a new symptom of a longstanding problem.

[Ilya Somin is Professor of Law at George Mason University.]

Facebook is trying to make it easier to identify political ads in your News Feed. The company announced it will soon require advertisers — especially political candidates — to disclose more information about their advertising efforts on the platform as the company seeks to temper concerns from the US Congress about Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Facebook’s new policies include labeling political ads so they’re easier to identify, and creating a catalogue of these and other ads so users can see how much advertisers are paying and who they are targeting. But many of the changes intended to create more transparency don’t appear to address the most problematic ads purchased in 2016 by Kremlin-backed, online trolls. These ads, referred to as "issue ads," sought to stir social and political unrest in the United States around issues like Black Lives Matter, not necessarily to promote candidates like Donald Trump. Still, the announcements come as Facebook prepares for what could be a brutal grilling before the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. The panels are investigating Russia’s suspected interference in the 2016 presidential election, and they’ll also hear from senior executives at Google and Twitter during back-to-back hearings on Nov. 1.

Sen Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is demanding that Facebook and Twitter turn over reams of new data about Russian disinformation spread on their platforms during the 2016 US presidential election. Her requests — detailed in exhaustive letters to the two tech giants’ chief executives — are part of her broader probe into the Kremlin’s potential coordination with President Donald Trump’s campaign.

Specifically, Sen Feinstein seeks information about any Russian-connected user accounts, pages, organic content and ads that targeted their efforts at the United States. And with Twitter, in particular, she asks the company to share some direct messages sent and received by Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. In both cases, though, Sen Feinstein demands answers by Nov 6. That’s five days after Facebook and Twitter are set to send their senior legal advisers to Capitol Hill for back-to-back hearings before the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, which have spearheaded lawmakers’ Russia investigations.