The formal indictment of electoral interference in 2016 that the special prosecutor Robert Mueller presented on Friday against several people highlights the way Russian propagandists took advantage ...
The formal accusation of electoral meddling in 2016 that special prosecutor Robert Mueller presented on Friday against several people highlights the way Russian propagandists took advantage of social networking companies such as Facebook and twitter.
And it is unknown if those technological companies adopted sufficient measures to prevent something similar from happening again.
Thirteen Russians, including a businessman close to Vladimir Putin, were accused on Friday of being part of a conspiracy to interfere in the 2016 presidential election in the United States with propaganda on social networks. According to the indictment, the Russian conspiracy had in part to help the Republican Donald Trump and damage the chances of victory of his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.
The alleged plan was directed by the Internet Research Agency, a trolley farm based in St. Petersburg, Russia, which spread false messages and propaganda that was made to appear as if Americans had bought it, in order to influence the fight. for the White House.
"I created all these images and messages, and the Americans believed they were written by their people," one of the accused persons, Irina Kaverzina, wrote in an email addressed to a family member that was obtained by the researchers.
Technology companies have spent months promising to fix their platforms before the next legislative elections this year in the United States, and did it again on Friday. Twitter said Friday night in a statement that it is "committed to addressing, mitigating and ultimately preventing any future attempts at meddling in elections and democratic processes, and doing so in the most transparent way possible." Facebook thanked US researchers for taking "crackdown" and highlighted their own research assistance.
However, the researchers stressed that the commercial incentives of these companies do not necessarily result in the adoption of measures that improve security or prevent deception, something that could have frustrated Russian agents.
"I've never been convinced that these sites are motivated to fix a problem like this," said Notre Dame business professor Timnothy Carone, adding that security controls make it difficult for sites like Facebook to offer users new features and keep advertisers happy "It's really a very difficult problem"
. The indictment confirms the previous findings of the Congressional investigations that Russian agents manipulated social networks to encourage social divisionism by simulating political activity of alleged electoral bases. It also highlights that the problem was not simply "bots" - automated accounts on social networks - but human conspirators who refined propaganda and built online relationships with American activists.
"The idea was not necessarily to help one political party have an advantage over another, but to sow as much discord as possible," said Melissa Ryan, a Democratic expert on social media marketing. "It was an aggression against the United States."