Facebook Estimates 126 Million People Saw Russian-Backed Content
October 30 2017 - 6:42PM
Dow Jones News
By Deepa Seetharaman
Facebook Inc. estimates that about 126 million people may have
seen content posted by Russian-backed accounts over more than two
years that sought to disrupt American society, the social-media
giant plans to tell congressional investigators Tuesday, according
to a prepared copy of the remarks obtained by The Wall Street
Journal.
The potential audience for the content spread by Russian-backed
accounts connected to a single pro-Kremlin firm, the Internet
Research Agency, reveals for the first time the reach of the
alleged Russian disruption. Facebook previously had focused
narrowly on the 3,000 advertisements spread by the 470
accounts.
But critics including lawmakers said the accounts likely had
much broader scope including their organic content, such as free
posts and events listings. In all, the accounts churned out 80,000
pieces of content -- organic posts and ads -- on Facebook between
January 2015 and August 2017, the social-media company plans to
say.
Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch is scheduled to testify
in front of the Senate judiciary subcommittee on crime and
terrorism Tuesday afternoon, alongside the general counsels for
Twitter Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google. Twitter and Google also
have found evidence of Russian activity on their platforms during
the 2016 U.S. presidential election period.
In his testimony, Mr. Stretch plans to say that "any amount" of
fake or malicious activity is "too much," while at the same time
playing down its importance, according to the prepared remarks. Mr.
Stretch plans to argue that these posts were a small fraction of
the content consumed by Americans during this period -- 0.004% of
posts, or one out of 23,000 pieces of content.
Executives from the three companies are scheduled to testify on
Wednesday in front of the House and Senate intelligence committees,
which are both conducting probes of Russian activity during the
2016 election to uncover what happened during the campaign for
president. Facebook has given posts and ads created by the 470
accounts to the committees.
Facebook has said the ads and posts were meant to exploit social
and political divisions in the U.S.
"Many of the ads and posts we've seen so far are deeply
disturbing -- seemingly intended to amplify societal divisions and
pit groups of people against each other," Mr. Stretch plans to say,
according to the prepared remarks. "They would be controversial
even if they came from authentic accounts in the United States. But
coming from foreign actors using fake accounts they are simply
unacceptable."
Russia has denied any interference in the election.
Write to Deepa Seetharaman at Deepa.Seetharaman@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 30, 2017 18:27 ET (22:27 GMT)
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