US Presidential elections

Twitter To Notify Users Exposed To Russian Propaganda During U.S. Elections

20Jan By reutersNo Comments

USA

Twitter To Notify Users Exposed To Russian Propaganda During U.S. Elections

Twitter Inc, which is reviewing Russian interference during the 2016 U.S. elections, said on Friday it would notify some of its users whether they were exposed to content generated by a suspected Russian propaganda service. The company said it would email 677,775 people in the United States who followed, retweeted or liked content from accounts associated with the Internet Research Agency (IRA) during the election. The IRA is a Russian organization that according to lawmakers and researchers, employs hundreds of people to push pro-Kremlin content under phony social media accounts. Twitter added that because it has already suspended these accounts, the relevant content is no longer publicly available on its platform. Twitter executives on Wednesday told U.S. lawmakers that it ma...

Russian Twitter Accounts Promoted Brexit Ahead Of EU Referendum: Times Newspaper

15Nov By reutersNo Comments

USA

Russian Twitter Accounts Promoted Brexit Ahead Of EU Referendum: Times Newspaper

Russian Twitter accounts posted almost 45,000 messages about Brexit in the 48 hours around last year’s referendum in an attempt to sow discord during the vote on whether to leave the European Union, the Times newspaper reported on Wednesday. The Times cited research from an upcoming paper by data scientists at Swansea University and the University of California, Berkeley, which it said showed accounts based in Russia had tweeted about Brexit in the days leading up to the June 23 vote. The Times said most of the tweets seen by the newspaper encouraged people to vote for Brexit, although a number advocated remaining in the EU. It quoted Tho Pham, one of the paper’s authors, as saying “the main conclusion is that bots were used on purpose and had influence”. The research tracked 156,...

These Russian Ads Deceived Users on Facebook and Instagram- Leaked

2Nov By RishabhNo Comments

USA

These Russian Ads Deceived Users on Facebook and Instagram- Leaked

The Russian ads that influenced the Americans came under many disguised faces. They ran all across Facebook and Instagram attempting to influence the public's opinion through social media in a manner we hardly can imagine! The content that went along with it could hardly be traced now, but we managed to get some of the screenies of those social media ads. It's clear from the testimony of internet companies that these ads aimed at "election interference". Go through the examples in the below images of how they planned to discredit a candidate (Clinton being the reliable target), and foment division on existing issues. The Russian ads targeted the far left and the far right, seeking to manipulate black activists, Muslims, Christians, LGBTQ people, gun owners and even fans of Ivanka ...

Facebook Says 126M Americans May Have Seen Russia-Linked Political Posts

31Oct By reutersNo Comments

USA

Facebook Says 126M Americans May Have Seen Russia-Linked Political Posts

Facebook Inc said on Monday that Russia-based operatives published about 80,000 posts on the social network over a two-year period in an effort to sway U.S. politics and that about 126 million Americans may have seen the posts during that time. Facebook’s latest data on the Russia-linked posts - possibly reaching around half of the U.S. population of voting age - far exceeds the company’s previous disclosures. It was included in written testimony provided to U.S. lawmakers, and seen by Reuters, ahead of key hearings with social media and technology companies about Russian meddling in elections on Capitol Hill this week. Twitter Inc separately has found 2,752 accounts linked to Russian operatives, a source familiar with the company’s written testimony said. That estimate is up from a ...

Tech Firms Must Do More On Extremism: World Economic Forum

30Oct By reutersNo Comments

News

Tech Firms Must Do More On Extremism: World Economic Forum

U.S. tech firms such as Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc should be more aggressive in tackling extremism and political misinformation if they want to avoid government action, a report from the World Economic Forum said on Monday. The study from the Swiss nonprofit organization adds to a chorus of calls for Silicon Valley to stem the spread of violent material from Islamic State militants and the use of their services by alleged Russian propagandists. Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet Inc’s Google will go under the microscope of U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday and Wednesday when their general counsels will testify before three U.S. congressional committees on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The report from the World Economic Forum’s human rights council warn...