Dado Ruvic/Reuters
Bloomberg: Mueller Probe Has ‘Red-Hot’ Focus on Social Media, Officials Say
* Facebook officials likely to face Congress, key lawmaker says
* Russia still ramping up cyber espionage: intelligence chief
Russia’s effort to influence U.S. voters through Facebook and other social media is a “red-hot” focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the 2016 election and possible links to President Donald Trump’s associates, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
Mueller’s team of prosecutors and FBI agents is zeroing in on how Russia spread fake and damaging information through social media and is seeking additional evidence from companies like Facebook and Twitter about what happened on their networks, said one of the officials, who asked not to be identified discussing the ongoing investigation.
The ability of foreign nations to use social media to manipulate and influence elections and policy is increasingly seen as the soft underbelly of international espionage, another official said, because it doesn’t involve the theft of state secrets and the U.S. doesn’t have a ready defense to prevent such attacks.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: Where was the focus last year when many conservative groups were accusing Facebook of being politically biased in their news feeds for liberal causes .... Facebook's Zuckerberg meets U.S. conservatives over bias controversy (Reuters). And now we are being lead to believe that a $100,000 ad buy on Facebook influenced a $2,000,000,000.00 election cycle to favor then candidate Donald Trump? .... When it comes to Facebook, Russia’s $100,000 is worth more than you think (Christine Emba, Washington Post).
Update: Here is an interesting post from the Guardian (before last years election) on how Facebook's ads were being used (and targeted) during the election .... 'The end of Trump': how Facebook deepens millennials' confirmation bias (Scott Bixby, The Guardian). If this report is true .... these ad buys did not influence last years election at all because these ads were only being targeted to those who were already supporting Trump.
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