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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."
I wonder if Russia is behind Facebook's reopening of this probe into Russian meddling in Brexit. If you're Russia it seems like the best way to stir up shit in opposing powers is to let them tear themselves in half over whether or not Russia was involved in influencing their government in some way.
but it was Mays own party that proposed Brexit on a gamble. After the country actually voted in favour of it, 3 separate politicians assumed responsibility for the fiasco and each stepped aside as the brakes were nowhere to be found on this train. Even Boris Johnson had a swing at the corpulent trashbag known as Brexit. the UK even went so far as to say the legislation was somehow nonbinding, and when pressed by the EU to exist in a timely fashion had the audacity to demand "a good deal" in exchange for leaving. They did not in fact get a deal.
now may's trying again, desparately, to save face and pin the blame on russia? Seriously? At some point someone has to call her bluff and ask what strategic or tactical advantage Russia gains by sabotaging a nation into exile from a trade group russia already has formal relations with (the EU)? In other words, why would russia intentionally make it more cumbersome to trade with the UK?
Good people go to bed earlier.
What are you talking about? There's been a massive amount of attention to Russian support of Jill Stein. This has included aspects of Senate investigations https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/19/jill-stein-trump-russia-investigation-documents. There were many mainstream media reports on it such as https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/why-are-senate-russia-investigators-interested-jill-stein-n831261 and https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/12/senate-intelligence-committee-jill-stein-russia.
Russiagaters are getting more and more desperately pathetic with each passing day.
...
Anything and everything can be and will be blamed on Russia,
Actually, only online propaganda and hacking has been blamed on Russia. We know Russia has excellent hackers and buildings full of online propagandists, so it seems like a logical conclusion that they have been using them.
because we need a distraction from how horrible Hillary and her party are to lose the most winnable election in history.
It's 2018 and the Republicans have controlled both Congress and the Presidency for over a year, so why are you bringing up the 2016 elections? At this rate, I swear it's 2037 and one of you retards with a faded MAGA hat is going to tell me about how that Trump and Republicans won and that I should accept it. Seriously, we get it!
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
If you only look for meddling by Russia in only decisions you dislike, then you can only find meddling by Russia only in decisions you dislike
We know that a lot of fake Russian accounts were just sowing discord, not targeting particular issues. In the US they have pretended to be BLM and AntiFa on one hand, and neo Nazis and Trump supporters on the other. They understand that a heavily polarized and divided country full of misinformation tends to break our fragile democracies, which are basically winner takes all.
A lot of the fake UK accounts were just spouting xenophobic rubbish to stir up anger. A smaller number advocated for Brexit directly, usually pretending to be people from outside London in order to push the "out-of-touch political elite" narrative.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Brexit is nothing more than the voice of racism
It's only the fucking idiots that keep telling everybody they're racist that think that.
Perhaps if the country had been able to properly debate the impacts of immigration and bring it under control without being accused of racism then people wouldn't have felt disenfranchised and used their one opportunity to vote against a status quo that didn't recognise or represent their interests.