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Facebook Says 126 Million Americans May Have Seen Russia-Linked Political Posts (reuters.com)

Facebook 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. Reuters reports: 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 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 tally of 201 accounts that Twitter reported in September. Google, owned by Alphabet, said in a statement on Monday it had found $4,700 in Russia-linked ad spending during the 2016 U.S. election cycle, and that it would build a database of election ads. Facebook's general counsel, Colin Stretch, said in the written testimony that the 80,000 posts from Russia's Internet Research Agency were a tiny fraction of content on Facebook, equal to one out of 23,000 posts.

4 of 370 comments (clear)

  1. Oh no by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    My virgin eyes!!!! Why Facebook why didn't you protect me from the interwebs. I so was going to vote for Hillary until those adds showed me that Trump was a kind hearted, attractive, beautiful haired, honest, intelligent, and amazing guy. I was duped.

  2. Smart russians by manu0601 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Those pesky russians are smart! They can change an election outcome with just an ad! I wonder why US politicians did not think about doing the same.

  3. Re:What made facebook work so great by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Funny

    So folks could pour money into it with impunity.

    Indeed. If we let people go around speaking with impunity, we will lose our freedom.

  4. Re:Article misses so much information, on purpose? by 0123456 · · Score: 1, Funny

    But the three million voters were either dead or illegal.

    Because, as history has proven, 99% of corpses vote Democrat.