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Indictment: Social media firms got played by Russian agents

By Matt O'Brien And Mae Anderson | Abbey Westbury
February 16 2018 10:07 PM

CP2011679708 — FILE - In this Oct. 31, 2017, file photo, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., speaks next to a poster depicting an online ad that attempted to suppress voters as Facebook\'s General Counsel Colin Stretch, Twitter\'s Acting General Counsel Sean Edgett, and Google\'s Law Enforcement and Information Security Director Richard Salgado, testify before a Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. The Feb. 16, 2018, election-interference indictment by U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller underscores how thoroughly U.S. social-media companies like Facebook and Twitter were played by Russian propagandists. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

The election-interference indictment brought by Robert Mueller, the U.S. special counsel, underscores how thoroughly social-media companies like Facebook and Twitter were played by Russian propagandists.

And it’s not clear if the companies have taken sufficient action to prevent something similar from happening again.

Thirteen Russians, including a businessman close to Vladimir Putin, were charged Friday in a plot to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election through social media propaganda.

Tech companies have spent months pledging to fix their platforms ahead of the upcoming midterm elections this year, and they are reiterating those promises.

Researchers, however, note that the companies’ business incentives don’t necessarily align with improved security and anti-hoaxing measures that might have frustrated Russian agents.

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