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.

Comments

so THAT'S why i voted for Trump

[turkeydance]

i just knew it wasn't my fault

Re: Enough with the Russia spin

[Anonymous Coward]

How much do you get paid to post that on every post that questions the leftist dogma? Clearly you get paid by the post and not the word.

I'm looking forward to 2018 when the Democratic Party is yet again taught the lesson of 2016: you've lost the support of the common people. Continuing to cry "Russia! Russia!" is not helping.

Re:Article misses so much information, on purpose?

[DogDude]

And if we are only talking Divisive advertisements, what about ShareBlue or Correct the record? How many millions did these companies pay to change social media, 50 Million? 100 Million? How much did the DNC and related political pacs pay, 500 Million?

Hey, Dickhead, does "ShareBlue" or "Correct the record" have their own nukes? There's a big difference between PAC's and hostile foreign nuclear nations.

Re:Divide and conquer

[ScentCone]

I see Fox and Russians have converged on "blame Hillary Clinton" as the deflection

Wait. How is identifying the fact that she was a terrible candidate who lost the election a "deflection?" The people trying to deflect are the ones implying that it was the RUSSIANS that made her call half the country deplorable people. That it was the RUSSIANS who somehow made her forget to even set foot in states like Wisconsin even once. That it was the RUSSIANS who somehow made her look her supporters in the eye and lie to them for a year straight about her conduct as Secretary of State. You're confusing "deflection" with "pointing out the facts." The Democrats have been trying to deflect reality ever since the night of the election, and their hilarious Russian Collusion narrative is just part of that, and another stellar example of just how dumb they think everyone is. And that misunderstanding of all the people the Dems hold in such contempt is exactly why they've lost nearly a thousand legislative seats, most of the governorships, both houses of congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, and the good will of millions of two-time Obama voters who turned away from She Who Shall Be Queen in disgust.