Russia Probe Could Change; Robert Mueller Obtains Warrant

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16 Sep 2017, 3:25 pm

http://www.businessinsider.com/mueller-obtains-warrant-for-russia-linked-facebook-ads-and-accounts-2017-9


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16 Sep 2017, 3:51 pm

Why we can’t trust Facebook’s story about Russian ads
Facebook’s shifting Russian ads stories have damaged its credibility
by Casey Newton Sep 8, 2017, 2:18pm EDT
https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/8/16277144/facebook-russian-ads-political-explainer-credibility

Quote:
Until this week, Facebook’s official position was that the company was unaware of any cases of Russian agents buying ads designed to influence US politics. As recently as July 20th, more than eight months after the election, the company said, “We have seen no evidence that Russian actors bought ads on Facebook in connection with the election.” It was the latest in a long series of statements about its role in the election that the company has later disavowed. In the election’s immediate aftermath, CEO Mark Zuckerberg famously said the idea that misinformation spread on Facebook had influenced the election was “crazy.”

Then on Wednesday, the company told congressional investigators that it had found thousands of suspicious ads. As reported by the Post, Facebook found 470 likely fraudulent profiles and pages, which it linked to the promotion of 3,300 ads designed to sway public opinion in America. The most likely culprit behind the ads was the Internet Research Agency, which Facebook described as a “troll farm” that is known to have promoted pro-Kremlin propaganda.

Quote:
Independently of the Russia inquiry, Facebook has suffered a series of embarrassing revelations this year about its advertising metrics, requiring the company to apologize at least three times. In one case, it admitted to overestimating the average viewing time for video ads for two years; in another, it admitted to inflating the number of visitors to businesses’ pages. Another glitch resulted in some advertisers being overcharged. On the same day as the Russian ad buy revelation, an analyst said Facebook overstated the number of people its ads reach by at least 10 million, using US Census data as a reference point. (Facebook said the estimates “are not designed to match population or census estimates.")

On one level, the glitches have little to do with Facebook’s ability to track the purchase of ads by Russian agents. But they suggest a sloppiness with data practices that places anything Facebook says about ad-buying efforts — the number of ads bought by fake pages, for example — under a cloud of suspicion. The fact that Facebook initially found no evidence of Russian involvement in the ad-targeting scheme has lessened the credibility of its subsequent disclosures.


Quote:
Now, nearly a year after the election, it seems clear that Facebook played a greater role in the election’s outcome than any other tech platform. At first, attention was focused on how bad actors used Facebook to achieve massive distribution for hoaxes and misinformation. Now, scrutiny is shifting to the company’s advertising platform — the core of Facebook’s business, where it has consistently misreported relevant data.


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16 Sep 2017, 3:54 pm

Mark Zuckerberg’s Russia Problem Is Bigger Than Facebook
With Mueller bearing down and Congress demanding answers, Silicon Valley is losing its political firewall.
by Maya Koso
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/09/mark-zuckerbergs-russia-problem-is-bigger-than-facebook

Quote:
The mounting scrutiny comes at a precarious time for Facebook and other major Silicon Valley companies, which are quickly seeing their political firewall in Washington eroded. For years, the Big Five tech oligopoly (Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, and Alphabet) has managed to stay off Congress’s radar, ensconced in a halo of consumer goodwill that has mostly protected them from the sorts of regulatory threats that have resulted in anti-trust investigations and large fines in Europe. Now, the Era of Good Feelings seems to be coming to an end, just as the federal government is taking a harder look at the ways in which social-media platforms were weaponized in 2016. Suspicion of Facebook is a bipartisan enterprise; Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, has said that it’s “probably more of a question of when” than if Facebook officials will have to testify. The committee’s top Democrat, Senator Mark Warner, argued this week that “the whole notion of social media and how it is used in political campaigns is the wild wild west.” He added that Facebook’s earlier denials “in the immediate aftermath of our elections” raises questions about what they knew, and when they knew. (Facebook said in a statement that “we have shared our findings with U.S. authorities investigating these issues, and we will continue to work with them as necessary.”)


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16 Sep 2017, 3:57 pm

Facebook’s disclosure of Russian-funded ads is likely just ‘the tip of the iceberg’
The company refuses to share the ads themselves or any information about how many people were reached.
Adam Peck
Sep 11, 2017, 11:21 am
https://thinkprogress.org/facebook-russia-ads-13c38a9ac939/

Quote:
What the company did reveal was that roughly 470 fake Russian accounts were used to purchase $100,000 in targeted Facebook ads to reach American voters in an effort to sway the outcome of the 2016 election in favor of Donald Trump. To the untrained eye, those figures don’t sound all that nefarious: 470 fake accounts barely registers on a network that boasts more than 2 billion users, and a $100,000 ad buy wouldn’t even net you a single 30 second commercial on primetime television. Donald Trump’s own campaign spent roughly 900 times more on digital advertising. How widespread could Russia’s meddling be?

More than Facebook seems willing to admit.


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16 Sep 2017, 4:06 pm

Facebook Acknowledges Russian Ads In 2016 Election. Will Investigations Follow?
September 8, 201712:21 PM ET
Peter Overby

Quote:
Common Cause isn't raising questions about disclosure of the advertisers. FEC disclosure rules at least theoretically would apply to all of the ads identified by Facebook. But the rules are out-of-date. For several years, the FEC has debated updating its rules to cover Twitter, Facebook and other platforms where TV-style disclaimers don't seem to fit. But there has been little public interest.

Will be interesting to see how much that changes from today forward.
http://www.npr.org/2017/09/08/549284183/facebook-acknowledges-russian-ads-in-2016-election-will-investigations-follow


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Tom Mueller of SpaceX, in Air and Space, Jan. 2011