Russia-backed Facebook posts 'reached 126m Americans' during US election
Russia-backed content reached as many as 126 million Americans on Facebook during and after the 2016 presidential election, according to the company’s prepared testimony submitted to the Senate judiciary committee before hearings this week.
Facebook believes 120 fake Russian-backed pages created 80,000 posts that were received by 29 million Americans directly, but reached a much bigger audience by users sharing, liking and following the posts.
The social network plans to disclose these numbers to the Senate judiciary committee on Tuesday, according to someone familiar with the testimony.
The tech giant’s testimony will follow dramatic developments in the investigation into Russian interference in the election by the special counsel, Robert Mueller, with three indictments, including two top Trump campaign aides....
...Colin Stretch, a lawyer for Facebook, will explain on Tuesday that Russia’s Internet Research Agency posted the material between 2015 and 2017. The posts spread widely, although many of those 126 million people may not have actually seen the material.
Although 126 million people is equivalent to about half of Americans eligible to vote, Facebook plans to downplay the significance at the congressional hearings.
“Our best estimate is that approximately 126 million people may have been served one of their stories at some point during the two-year period. This equals about four-thousandths of 1% (0.004%) of content in news feed, or approximately one out of 23,000 pieces of content,” Stretch says in his written testimony, obtained by several news outlets.
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The discovery of Russian interference has, according to Stretch’s testimony, “opened a new battleground for our company, our industry and our society”.
Facebook closed the accounts and reported malicious actors tied to Russia to US law enforcement....
More at https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...ts-126-million
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