Facebook, Twitter and social media's road to federal regulation (And Google too.)
Facebook, Twitter and social media’s road to federal regulation
And Google too.
Edgar Alvarez, 3h ago in Politics
The extent of Russia's meddling in the 2016 US presidential election remains unclear, but it's no secret that social media played a major role. This year brought with it a great deal of scrutiny for tech giants, particularly Facebook, Twitter and Google. These three companies came under the US government's microscope after news that Kremlin bots and trolls, spearheaded by a group known as the Internet Research Agency, used their sites to tamper with the 2016 presidential election.
They spread misinformation (fake news!) and dubious ads across Facebook, Twitter and Google to hundreds of millions of users in the US, with the aim of fomenting hostility among Americans. And it's safe to say they succeeded.
In October, Facebook revealed to Congress that more than 145 million Americans were exposed to Russian-linked pages and ads in the lead-up to the election -- a revelation that laid bare the scope of the Kremlin's misinformation campaign. That, as it turns out, was actually more damaging than originally disclosed: Facebook first said that 10 million people had seen these types of ads. Twitter discovered more than 2,500 accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency, while Google found Russian-bought ads on its most popular platforms, including Gmail and YouTube.
https://www.engadget.com/2017/12/29/facebook-twitter-google-social-media-government-regulations/
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