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Facebook Reopens Probe Into Russian Involvement in Brexit (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader quotes TechCrunch:
Facebook has said it will conduct a wider investigation into whether there was Russian meddling on its platform relating to the 2016 Brexit referendum vote in the UK. Wednesday its UK policy director Simon Milner wrote to a parliamentary committee that's been conducting a wide-ranging enquiry into fake news -- and whose chair has been witheringly critical of Facebook and Twitter for failing to co-operate with requests for information and assistance on the topic of Brexit and Russia -- saying it will widen its investigation, per the committee's request. Though he gave no firm deadline for delivering a fresh report -- beyond estimating "a number of weeks".
It's not clear whether Twitter will also bow to pressure to conduct a more thorough investigation of Brexit-related disinformation. At the time of writing the company had not responded to our questions either. At the end of last year committee chair Damian Collins warned both companies they could face sanctions for failing to co-operate with the committee's enquiry -- slamming Twitter's investigations to date as "completely inadequate", and expressing disbelief that both companies had essentially ignored the committee's requests... Independent academic studies have suggested there was in fact significant tweet-based activity generated around Brexit by Russian bots."
Theresa May has said Russia's attempts to "sow discord" in the West could not go unchallenged, and warned Vladimir Putin, "We know what you are up to."
Facebook's response complained that a new investigation "requires detailed analysis of historic data by our security experts, who are also engaged in preventing live threats to our service."
It's not clear whether Twitter will also bow to pressure to conduct a more thorough investigation of Brexit-related disinformation. At the time of writing the company had not responded to our questions either. At the end of last year committee chair Damian Collins warned both companies they could face sanctions for failing to co-operate with the committee's enquiry -- slamming Twitter's investigations to date as "completely inadequate", and expressing disbelief that both companies had essentially ignored the committee's requests... Independent academic studies have suggested there was in fact significant tweet-based activity generated around Brexit by Russian bots."
Theresa May has said Russia's attempts to "sow discord" in the West could not go unchallenged, and warned Vladimir Putin, "We know what you are up to."
Facebook's response complained that a new investigation "requires detailed analysis of historic data by our security experts, who are also engaged in preventing live threats to our service."
There have been a lot of media reports of massive Russian meddling in the Brexit campaign, but the first investigation found they spent £0.73:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/12/13/facebook-russians-spent-just-73-pence-ads-brexit-campaign/
Of course, this didn't stop the left wing media claiming there was Russian involvement. Sure, if they spent £0.73 then there was Russian involvement, but the scale of involvement has been intentionally misrepresented.
What the leftists can't seem to handle is that Brexit and Trump occurred, not because of Russian meddling or because people were tricked, but because a great many people wanted them to happen. If the leftists left their echo chambers for a brief moment, they might actually realise that.
At least Macron understands that people genuinely don't like the left wing agenda. When asked if given a vote on the EU would the French vote to leave, he said "probably":
https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/955019112031244288
Of course, the French will never get a vote. After the March elections it may well be that Italy do get a vote, and that would really get the ball rolling.