2016 ELECTION/CYBERWAR/RUSSIA: “Twitter Inc. on Thursday [9-28-17] offered its first public information on Russian use of its platform during the U.S. presidential election, but its limited disclosure only fueled criticism from lawmakers who are pushing for greater transparency from internet companies over how their platforms are manipulated.
In presentations to congressional investigators and a post on its site, Twitter said it found 201 accounts on its service linked to Russian actors that Facebook Inc. recently identified as having run ads meant to sow political and social division. In addition, Twitter said the Russian-backed news site RT, which a U.S. intelligence report said aimed to meddle in the election, bought $274,100 of ads on Twitter last year. That compared with $152,000 that Facebook said Russian actors spent on its site.
But Twitter’s comments left unclear the extent of the problem, including how many accounts attempted to spread misinformation or violated Twitter’s rules, and how users interacted with those tweets…
Twitter’s announcement is likely to further heighten tensions between technology companies and regulators for how their platforms are used to spread misinformation and affect the democratic process, in ways that the companies struggle to grasp.”
-Georgia Wells, Byron Tau, and Robert McMillan, “Twitter’s Disclosure of Russian Activity Sparks Criticism From Lawmakers,” The Wall Street Journal online, Sept. 28, 2017 07:50pm