The question of whether Russia materially interfered in the 2016 elections, and if so, just how far it went has preoccupied Robert Mueller ever since he was appointed special counsel into the issue. It’s a complicated topic, and one factor is whether or not the Trump campaign assisted Russian propaganda operations on social media with disseminating fake events and starting online arguments. As part of unraveling that, it appears that Facebook’s staff are facing some tough questions from Mueller’s staff over who knew what, and when.
Wired reports that at least one Facebook employee has spoken to Mueller’s staff about how much the Trump campaign, and Facebook, knew about Russian propaganda operations:
Facebook and other social platforms have emerged as a key part of that investigation, not only because the company embedded staff with the San Antonio-based digital team working on Trump’s campaign, but also because it sold more than 3,000 Facebook and Instagram ads to fake accounts linked to the Russian propaganda group Internet Research Agency. All in, content shared by those accounts reached 126 million Facebook users, including more than 62,000 of whom signed up to attend events organized by those fake accounts.
It’s unlikely that there’s a vast Zuckerberg-led conspiracy to put Trump in office. But that said, Facebook has struggled over the last year to explain its role in newsgathering, as its fake account problem turned out to be vastly worse than the company believed and it tried to put at least some of the onus for spotting false links and poorly reported news onto readers. Ultimately, the company decided to deemphasize news altogether in what many interpreted as a tacit admission it had failed to solve the problem of political agencies exploiting its platform.
It’s not clear, yet just how many employees may speak to Mueller, and whether or not any of the company’s members is in truly hot water. But it is safe to say that Facebook, as much as it might have hoped, isn’t done with the 2016 election yet.
(via Wired)