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| Social Media Giants Go Before Congress Over Russian Meddling In 2016 Campaign | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Oct 31 2017, 02:15 PM (166 Views) | |
| Webster | Oct 31 2017, 02:15 PM Post #1 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) Facebook, Google and Twitter go before Congress Hello and welcome to our live coverage as representatives of three American tech giants appear before Congress to explain how and why Russian operatives were given free rein on their networks to tamper with the 2016 presidential election. Starting at 2.30pm ET, representatives from Facebook, Google and Twitter are scheduled to appear before the Senate judiciary committee. Tomorrow the same three companies are to appear before the Senate and House intelligence committees. All three companies have admitted extensive Russian infiltration. On Monday, Facebook announced that Russia-backed posts had reached 126 million Americans during the election. But the tech companies have been slow to hand over information about what happened on their networks, and some analysts believe the true extent of the digital Russian invasion may have been even greater. Google has said Russian operatives bought election-related ads on YouTube and Gmail as well as on its search engine. On Thursday, Twitter suspended advertising from all accounts owned by the Kremlin-allied media outlets Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik. The hearing is titled “Extremist Content and Russian Disinformation Online: Working with Tech to Find Solutions.” Testifying are a couple lawyers (from Facebook and Twitter) and a security officer (from Google). We’ll have a live video stream for you when it begins. Will public outrage over the failure of the tech companies to prevent widespread election tampering last fall register at the hearing? Or will the committee play nice? Will the witnesses be challenged to provide more information about what happened on their networks? Will they accept responsibility? One explosive charge against the companies, especially Facebook and Twitter, is that they failed (do they continue to fail?) to stop imposter Russian accounts from attacking the American social fabric where it is most vulnerable, along lines of race, gender, class and creed. The imposter accounts took on the identities of activists or extremists on various sides of hot-button issues and interacted with Americans who might respond to messaging around those issues, and whose preferences they hoped to shape, reinforce, and track. One question is how sophisticated the effort was to micro-target Americans who might belong to key voter groups, meaning swing voters or voters who lived in swing areas. Highly sophisticated micro-targeting may have had an effect, though difficult to gauge, on the vote tally. -Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/14/russia-us-politics-social-media-facebook -Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/19/big-tech-franklin-foer-book-world-without-mind |
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| Webster | Oct 31 2017, 03:28 PM Post #16 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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--Whitehouse asks for comments on effectiveness of California’s disclosure law. Model for federal legislation? (Julian Sanchez, 31 Oct. 2017) |
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| Webster | Oct 31 2017, 03:29 PM Post #17 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) 'Russia does not have loyalty to a political party in the US' --Chuck Grassley cameo. He has a beef with reporting about a Facebook ads targeting Hillary Clinton. His staff has reviewed the ads. “Overall the ads do not support a specific candidate... and about half of the ads were placed after the election” and exploit racial and social divisions. It might be true that these ads were intended to influence the election... Russia does not have loyalty to a political party in the US.” |
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| Webster | Oct 31 2017, 03:30 PM Post #18 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) Stretch says Facebook is working broadly in questions of authenticity on its platform. What they’ve learned has helped them create new automated tools, he says. Stretch says “We have produced [turned over to Congress] everything that we have identified that is the product of what we call coordinated inauthentic activity.” But he doesn’t say he’s sure they ID’d all of the accounts. Stretch says the internal investigation “continues and we expect to keep the committee up to date on any further discoveries.” Grassley: OK. Edgett: The same goes for Twitter. Salgado: For Google the answer is similar. Grassley: OK. |
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| Webster | Oct 31 2017, 03:31 PM Post #19 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) Feinstein asks about Facebook’s custom audiences tool. Can FB explain who was targeted with the tool? Stretch says the content is “imitative of social causes” which “is what makes the content to vile, so upsetting so cynical, its attempt to aggravate divisions in our society.” He describes “broad geographic targeting” – 75% targeted USA as a whole, 25% targeted to states. And “they were targeted to interest groups.” Has FB tweaked the tool? Stretch says “we’re making a number of changes to our ad targeting policies” including stopping hate speech and sensitive tagging and tightening standards with divisive ads to make sure they’re not targeting particular communities or individuals. Salgado is asked why RT was allowed to participate in a preferred status ads program and she simply blames “algorithms”. |
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| Webster | Oct 31 2017, 03:32 PM Post #20 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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--it's important to again note that of the three tech companies --Facebook, Google or Twitter-- none of them sent their CEOs to testify today. (Mike Isaac, 31 Oct. 2017) |
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| Webster | Oct 31 2017, 03:34 PM Post #21 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) Senator Sasse asks for Twitter numbers. Edgett says 330m monthly active users (guilty!). Feinstein whispers, did he say 330m! Hot mic. Less than 5% are automated, Edgett says. “We look at whether it looks like there is a human behind it or not..” but people can use synonyms so it’s tricky. Sasse says on politics Twitter it’s obvious people have fake followers. Can Twitter tell how much of traffic around a Tweet is automated? Edgett says yes Twitter “prioritizes automated activity.” To weed out “malicious and automated” content, “what’s not actually realy.” He says Twitter is getting closer to being able to tell “What a real human tweets versus what a robot tweets.” |
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| Webster | Oct 31 2017, 03:34 PM Post #22 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) Edgett on how Twitter polices content: “We have a very respected trust and safety team.” |
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| Webster | Oct 31 2017, 03:55 PM Post #23 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) Facebook’s Stretch says they have 10,000 people working on safety and security and they’ll double that number by 2018. |
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| Webster | Oct 31 2017, 03:57 PM Post #24 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) Here’s senator Dick Durbin. He tells Stretch anti-bias organization have raised the alarm about Russia-backed pages spreading bigoted messages. He accuses Facebook of providing consultant help to an “anti-Muslim effort.” Stretch says the content they’ve turned over “is vile, and it’s vile for precisely the reason you say. It’s particularly exploitative.... [of] groups that have every reason to expect us to protect the authenticity of the debate on FB... we are reviewing and tightening our ad policies.” |
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| Webster | Oct 31 2017, 03:58 PM Post #25 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) Facebook admits it can't identify ad buyers Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, says he’s proud these companies are American but “your power sometimes scares me.” Then he lights this sleeping hearing up. Kennedy asks Stretch if North Korea ran ads on Facebook. Stretch says he’s not aware. “How could you be aware!” Kennedy says. You have 5m ads a month! “You’re telling me you have the ability to trace through all of these corporations and find the true identity of every one of your advertisers?!” Kennedy says. Stretch: “We’re not able to see beyond the activity we see on the platform, the technical signals that we get... can be used to identify ...” Kennedy: “I’m trying to get us down from la la land here. The truth of the matter is... you don’t have the ability to know who every one of these advertisers is, do you?” “Of course the answer is no,” Stretch says. “We can’t see behind the activity.” Kennedy further challenges Stretch on what FB knows about the average user. Stretch insists the company is blind to certain details. Stretch insists there are limits to what the company knows about its users. That’s your testimony under oath? Kennedy asks. Yup. |
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| Webster | Oct 31 2017, 04:00 PM Post #26 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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--Kennedy on FB targeting: “Say I want to know everything about Sen. Graham; the bars he goes to…” (“ooooohs” in hearing room) (Julian Sanchez, 31 Oct. 2017) |
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| Webster | Oct 31 2017, 04:04 PM Post #27 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) Then Kennedy asks Google if they’re a tech platform or a media company. That’s an easy one. Tech platform, says Salgado. But Kennedy, who is on fire, asks Salgado if Google delivers news (and makes decisions about what news people see?) – isn’t that what a newspaper does? Salgado insists that Google is not a media company. |
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| Webster | Oct 31 2017, 04:06 PM Post #28 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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--Stretch concedes they only have the info that’s on their platform. “We cannot see behind the activity” of shell corporations, he says. (Emma Loop, Buzzfeed News - 31 Oct. 2017) --None of the representatives will commit definitively to supporting the Klobuchar/Warner/McCain legislation to increase ad transparency. (Emma Loop, Buzzfeed News - 31 Oct. 2017) |
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| Webster | Oct 31 2017, 04:11 PM Post #29 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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--this entire hearing: Senator asks question to Facebook, facebook answers, twitter and google say "yeah us too" (Mike Isaac, 31 Oct. 2017) --Response to Sen Kennedy here on Twitter suggests just how much bipartisan voter support could be found in dragging tech cos (Derek Mead, 31 Oct. 2017) |
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| Webster | Oct 31 2017, 04:12 PM Post #30 |
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Wasatch Storyteller & Resident Forum Curmudgeon
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(The Guardian) Senator Coons brought a poster-size imposter FB ad targeting Clinton in the name of veterans. He asks Stretch about it. Stretch: Senator, that advertisement has no place on Facebook, and we are committed to preventing that sort of behavior... it makes me angry, it makes everyone at our company angry. Why has it taken FB 11 months to come forward and help us understand the scope of this problem.. when former President Obama cautioned [Zuckerberg] nine days after the election? Stretch says Facebook has redoubled “our efforts to understand what we now see as a sophisticated and systemic effort to interfere in the election.” As evidence he brandishes an April white paper. But the Wall Street Journal reported that FB removed references to Russia in the paper. Seems like less than total transparency. |
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