Facebook finds ‘sophisticated’ efforts to disrupt elections

Published 8:05 am Wednesday, August 1, 2018

NEW YORK — Facebook set off a firestorm Tuesday, announcing that it had uncovered “sophisticated” efforts, possibly linked to Russia, to manipulate U.S. politics and by extension the upcoming midterm elections.

The company was careful to hedge its announcement; it didn’t connect the effort directly to Russia or to the midterms, now less than a hundred days away. And its findings were limited to 32 apparently fake accounts on Facebook and Instagram, which the company removed because they were involved in “coordinated” and “inauthentic” political behavior.

But official Washington went ballistic anyway, not least because the reported activity so closely mirrored Russian influence efforts during the 2016 presidential election. Nearly 300,000 people followed at least one of the newly banned accounts and thousands expressed interest in events they promoted.

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“This is an absolute attack on our democracy,” said Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee and one of several lawmakers Facebook had briefed in advance. “I can say I think with pretty high confidence that I think this was Russian related.”

A spokesman for Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley said Facebook had informed his office that “that a limited group of Russian actors has attempted to spread disinformation using its platform and that the affected groups are affiliated with the political left.”

The identified accounts sought to “promote divisions and set Americans against one another,” wrote Ben Nimmo and Graham Brookie of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab in a blog post Tuesday.