Internet giants detect more Russia-linked vote meddling

San Francisco: Internet giants were expected to tell the Congress this week that Russian-backed content aimed at manipulating US politics during last year’s election was more extensive than first thought. 

Facebook, Google and Twitter were slated to share what they have learned so far from digging into possible connections between Russian entities and posts, ads, and even videos shared on YouTube. 

Facebook will tell Congress that some 126 million US users, a potentially large portion of the voting public here, may have seen stories, posts or other content from Russian sources, according to tech news site Recode, the Wall Street Journal and other US media. 

The reach is far broader than had originally been estimated by the world’s leading social network. Facebook did not respond to requests for comment.

Google found that two accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency spent $4,700 on search and display ads during last year’s US election cycle, Google general counsel Kent Walker and director of information security Richard Salgado said in a blog post. The ads were not targeted based on which states people lived in or their apparent political leanings, the men said.

“Like other internet platforms, we have found some evidence of efforts to misuse our platforms during the 2016 US election by actors linked to the Internet Research Agency in Russia,” Mr Walker and Mr Salgado said.

“While we have found only limited activity on our services, we will continue to work to prevent all of it, because there is no amount of interference that is acceptable.”

There were 18 channels at YouTube “likely associated” with the campaign that made English language videos available that appeared to have politically-oriented clips in the mix of offerings. 

A total of 1,108 such videos were uploaded, totalling 43 hours of content, and racked up 309,000 views in the 18 months leading up to the election won by US President Donald Trump.