September 6, 7, 2017


News and Views


SEN. MARK WARNER WEIGHS IN

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-disclosure-russian-ads-may-be-tip-of-the-iceberg-sen-mark-warner/
CBS NEWS September 7, 2017, 12:23 PM
Facebook disclosure of Russian ads may be "tip of the iceberg," says Sen. Mark Warner

The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee wants to know more about Facebook and Twitter ads apparently bought by phony Russian accounts during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, confirmed Thursday that Senate Intelligence Committee staff had seen a presentation from Facebook about the phony accounts that appear to have originated in Russia and bought $100,000 worth of advertisements during the presidential campaign. He also said that Facebook had shared the content of the ads with committee staff, and he called on Facebook to share the ads broadly.

"The American people deserve to know both the content and the source of information that is being used to try to affect their votes," Warner told reporters Thursday.

Twitter, too, will be briefing committee staffers on similar material, Warner said. Facebook disclosed its findings about the ads on Wednesday. The Virginia senator also believes the revelations are just beginning.

"I think we may just be seeing the tip of the iceberg. They had a fairly narrow search," Warner said, adding that he has been raising the issue for months, and Facebook has been dismissing it for just as long. "We've seen them take down certain pages. It's rather minor compared to the 50,000 accounts they took down before the French election."

Warner says he still has several questions, for instance: "How extensive was the Russian involvement of using Facebook, Twitter and other social media forums?" He also wants to ensure that Americans have the tools to know -- when they're seeing something in a political context -- what the source of information is.

The Facebook ads neither mentioned the election specifically nor did they advocate for either Mr. Trump or Hillary Clinton. They did however, appear to focus on divisive social and political messages on topics like LGBT, race and immigration issues.

Facebook said it has shut down the fake accounts that were still active.

Warner spoke with reporters on Capitol Hill Thursday, as the Senate Intelligence Committee staff interviewed Donald Trump Jr. behind closed doors, over his June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer who he believed had dirt on Hillary Clinton.


SPILL THE BEANS!! THIS IS A GREAT ARTICLE ON WHAT THOSE ADS DID, BUT DOES NOT SPECIFY ANY OF THE ADVERTISERS. MAYBE WE’LL HEAR THAT SOON, THOUGH. THE SEVERAL INVESTIGATIONS ARE FEEDING ON EACH OTHER AND MAKING PROGRESS. AS FOR ZUCKERBERG, HE’S JUST ANOTHER MONEY WORSHIPPING BUSINESSMAN, AND I HAVE NEVER HELD THEM UP IN HIGH ESTEEM SINCE MY COLLEGE HISTORY COURSE. I ADMIRED WRITERS, GOOD POLITICIANS, SCIENTISTS, MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS, AND VERY GOOD ACTORS AND MUSICIANS WITH WHOM I WAS FAMILIAR. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW AND OSCAR WILDE WERE TWO OF MY HEROES. BESIDES, I HAVE NEVER LIKED BABY-FACED MEN. IN CASE ANY OF MY READERS MAY BE CONCERNED, I HAVE VERY RARELY TAKEN A NEWS STORY FROM FACEBOOK WITHOUT VERIFYING IT – YAHOO, HUFFINGTON POST, THE RACHEL MADDOW BLOG, AND SOMETIMES OTHER STRONGLY “LIBERAL” NEWS SOURCES, YES. SOMETIMES I HAVE TO DO THAT TO GET STORIES THAT THE MOST CENTRIST OR MAINSTREAM OUTLETS WON’T TOUCH BECAUSE THEY FEAR REPRISAL. MY DAILY STAPLE SOURCES ARE CBS AND MSNBC. I HAVE PLACED MANY ARTICLES ON FACEBOOK, HOWEVER.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/facebooks-role-in-trumps-win-is-clear-no-matter-what-mark-zuckerberg-says/2017/09/07/b5006c1c-93c7-11e7-89fa-bb822a46da5b_story.html?utm_term=.8d63a46b4690
Facebook’s role in Trump’s win is clear. No matter what Mark Zuckerberg says.
By Margaret Sullivan Media Columnist September 7 at 11:34 AM

Photograph -- Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

What a ridiculous notion, Mark Zuckerberg scoffed shortly after the election, that his social-media company — innocent, well-intentioned Facebook — could have helped Donald Trump’s win.

“Personally I think the idea that fake news on Facebook . . . influenced the election in any way — I think is a pretty crazy idea,” he said. “Voters make decisions based on their lived experience.”

In fact, voters make their decisions based on many factors, not just their “lived experience.”

Disinformation spread on Facebook clearly was one — a big one. That was obvious in November. It was obvious in April when Facebook, to its credit, announced some moves to combat the spread of lies in the form of news stories.

It’s even more obvious now after Wednesday’s news that Facebook sold ads during the campaign to a Russian “troll farm,” targeting American voters with “divisive social and political messages” that fit right in with Donald Trump’s campaign strategy.

The news, reported Wednesday by The Washington Post, fits right in with the findings of a fascinating recent study by Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society. Analyzing reams of data, it documented the huge role that propaganda, in various forms, played in the 2016 campaign.

“Attempts by the [Hillary] Clinton campaign to define her campaign on competence, experience, and policy positions were drowned out by coverage of alleged improprieties associated with the Clinton Foundation and emails,” the study said.

The Trump campaign masterfully manipulated these messages. Truth was not a requirement.

And Facebook was the indispensable messenger. As the Harvard study noted: “Disproportionate popularity on Facebook is a strong indicator of highly partisan and unreliable media.”

We don’t know everything about Facebook’s role in the campaign. What we do know — or certainly ought to know by now — is to not take Facebook at its word. It always plays down its influence, trying for a benign image of connecting us all in a warm bath of baby pictures, tropical vacations and games of Candy Crush.

The company recently changed its mission statement, as John Lanchester noted in a blistering takedown in the London Review of Books, mocking the “canting pieties” of such corporate efforts. What used to be just a soft ideal of “making the world more open and connected” is now giving people “the power to build community and bring the world closer together.”

The new mission statement didn’t specifically mention bringing Russia and the United States closer together. But Facebook managed to accomplish that anyway.

Here’s an undeniable fact: Facebook is about advertising. And it is so wildly successful at leveraging our eyeballs and spending power into ad dollars that it is now valued at nearly $500 billion.

But for all its power and wealth, Facebook is a terribly opaque enterprise. (It recently hired former New York Times public editor Liz Spayd, a former Post managing editor, to help with “transparency.” Let’s just say that she has her work cut out for her.)

Facebook also has never acknowledged the glaringly obvious — that it is essentially a media company, where many of its 2 billion active monthly users get the majority of their news and information. As I’ve been pointing out here for more than a year, it constantly makes editorial decisions, but never owns them.

When its information is false, when it is purchased and manipulated to affect the outcome of an election, the effect is enormous. When the information purveyors are associated with a foreign adversary — with a clear interest in the outcome of the American election — we’re into a whole new realm of power.

Would Donald Trump be president today if Facebook didn’t exist? Although there is a long list of reasons for his win, there’s increasing reason to believe the answer is no.

I don’t know how to deal with Facebook’s singular power in the world. But having everyone clearly acknowledge it — including the company itself — would be a start.

For more by Margaret Sullivan visit wapo.st/sullivan.



A RUSSIAN TROLL FACTORY – WHEN DID FACEBOOK KNOW? WE KNOW WHEN THEY CAME FORWARD AND ADMITTED IT. THERE IS SUCH A VAST DARK SIDE TO LIFE THAT I CAN HARDLY BEAR TO THINK ABOUT IT. FAME, WEALTH OF THIS PARTICULAR KIND AREN’T INDICATORS OF ANYTHING THAT SHOULD COMMAND RESPECT.

NOT WISHING TO START A RUMOR, I WILL SIMPLY STATE THAT THE HEAD OF THIS “TROLL FACTORY,” IS ONE EVIGENY PRIGOZHIN – PRONOUNCE THAT ONE IF YOU CAN – WHO, A FORMER RESTAURANT OWNER, IS CALLED “PUTIN’S COOK,” BY SOME. HOW INTERESTING THAT HE WAS PUTTING OUT MATERIAL THAT BATTLED HILLARY AND PRAISED TRUMP. HMMM.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/fire-facebook-refuses-disclose-political-ads-bought-russian-trolls-230143492.html?soc_trk=gcm&soc_src=ecd5e8af-dc90-3332-9efb-d522bf6b8dfa&.tsrc=notification-brknews
Under fire, Facebook refuses to disclose political ads bought by Russian trolls
Michael Isikoff Yahoo News September 7, 2017

Photograph -- A reputed “troll factory” in St. Petersburg, Russia, where hundreds of young workers write blogs and online comments supporting President Vladimir Putin and attacking the West. (Photo: Dmitry Lovetsky/AP)
Photograph -- A 3D plastic representation of the Facebook logo is seen in this illustration photo May 13, 2015. (Photo: Dado Ruvic/Illustration/Reuters)
Photograph -- Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., right, and committee Vice Chairman Sen, Mark Warner, D-Va., confer on Capitol Hill, June 28, 2017. (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
A reputed “troll factory” in St. Petersburg, Russia, where hundreds of young workers write blogs and online comments supporting President Vladimir Putin and attacking the West. (Photo: Dmitry Lovetsky/AP)

Facebook, which acknowledged this week that it sold $100,000 worth of political ads in the last two years to a Russian troll factory, came under stinging criticism Thursday over its refusal to release copies of the ads to the public—or to congressional investigators.

After denying for months that any Russian entities purchased ads on Facebook during last year’s election, the social media giant has admitted that it has belatedly discovered that some 470 phony accounts linked to a shadowy St. Petersburg media firm with ties to the Kremlin placed ads on highly charged issues in American politics, such as LGBT and gun rights—ads that in some cases directly mentioned Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and the 2016 election.

Facebook officials acknowledged the existence of the ads in a closed door briefing for investigators for the House and Senate intelligence committees. The company showed what it described as some “samples” of the ads, but didn’t turn them over to investigators or release them to the media. Facebook said making the ads public would violate its strict privacy rules– even thought it acknowledges that most, if not all, of the accounts in question were registered under fake names and non-existent entities and have since been removed from Facebook’s platform.

“We’re trying to be as transparent as possible, but there are certain restrictions on what we can disclose under our data policies,” a Facebook spokesman said in a response to a request from Yahoo News for copies of the ads.

That response brought a sharp retort Wednesday from campaign finance specialists and some congressional investigators who noted that the exact wording of the questionable ads was critical. If the ads explicitly advocated or boosted one candidate or another, they would fall squarely under a federal law that bars foreign nationals from spending money to influence a U.S. election, making the individuals who paid for the ads—and any U.S. persons who might have assisted them—subject to criminal prosecution by the Justice Department and heavy fines by the Federal Election Commission.

“I think this is shocking,” said Ron Fein, the legal director for Free Speech for People, one of two campaign finance groups that have already filed complaints with the FEC seeking an investigation into Russian government spending on last year’s election. “Facebook has another thing [sic] coming if it thinks it can use its self-created privacy rules to prevent an honest accounting of what happened in the 2016 election,” Fein said.

Trevor Potter, a former FEC chairman who was chief counsel for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and one of the authors of the landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, said Facebook’s stand was especially puzzling given that the company was willing to show select samples of the ads to congressional investigators.

“I don’t understand” their position, Potter said in an interview. “These advertisements were directed to the public so they’ve already been put up publicly. And if they showed samples of the ads to investigators, they’ve already violated their confidentiality rules.”

The Facebook official declined to say whether special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian interference in the election, has requested copies of the ads, or if the company has provided them. “Because there are ongoing government investigations we don’t think it’s appropriate for us to be commenting on the specifics of what we are sharing or with who. We’ve been in touch with a number of government officials, and will continue to engage with them,” the official said. (A spokesman for Mueller declined comment.)

But Rachel Cohen, a spokeswoman for Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking minority member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the senator still has “lots of questions” for Facebook, including “whether and how pages and groups may have been used to spread disinformation during the election, both through ads and user content.” She said Warner is seeking a committee hearing on the issue and left open the possibility that the senator could seek a subpoena for the material.

A possibly related effort to plant fake user content on Facebook was highlighted in a New York Times article posted Thursday that, as part of a collaboration with the cybersecurity firm FireEye, identified fake users such as a man who claimed to live in Harrisburg, Pa. and posted a Facebook message pointing users to a website, DCLeaks, that U.S. intelligence officials have concluded was a Russian front. “These guys show hidden truth about Hillary Clinton, George Soros and other leaders of the US,” the apparently nonexistent Pennsylvanian wrote on June 8, 2016. “Visit #DCLeaks website. It’s really interesting!”

View photos

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., right, and committee Vice Chairman Sen, Mark Warner, D-Va. confer on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, June 28, 2017, as the panel conducts a hearing on Russian intervention in European elections in light of revelations by American intelligence agencies that blame Russia for meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

Facebook’s stand is typical of that taken by most social media companies, who generally resist sharing any information with the government about their users, even when it involves accounts that have been linked to terrorism or other criminal conduct. “Their default position is we never provide any information about our users unless forced to under the gun of a subpoena,” said Brett Kappel, a lawyer who specializes in federal election law.

Two years ago, when the Senate Intelligence Committee first sought information from Facebook about accounts linked to spreading propaganda for the Islamic State, “they told us to pound sand,”* Sen. Richard Burr, the Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said, according to a CNN account of the panel’s clash with the social media company.

Since then, the company has expanded its efforts to remove terrorist-related content, setting up its own “counter-terrorism squad” under the direction of a former federal prosecutor, Monika Bickert, including linguists who review material posted from across the globe and take down content that violate its policies.

But the Russian political messaging, and associated “Fake news” accounts, has presented special challenges and seemed to have largely escaped Facebook’s notice during last year’s election. The phony accounts that began placing political ads first popped up on its platform in June, 2015—the same month Trump declared his candidacy for president. They continued until May, 2017 when Time magazine first reported the suspicions of U.S. intelligence officials that Russian trolls were placing political ads on Facebook; it was about the same time that Facebook says unidentified “U.S. officials” first alerted the company to what they had discovered.

What was especially alarming is that the accounts traced back to a company previously known as the Internet Research Agency, a St. Petersburg based enterpise, widely described as a “troll factory”, headed by Evigeny Prigozhin, a wealthy businessman and former restaurateur who is so close to the Russian president he is known as “Putin’s cook.”

The Internet Research Agency has been linked in multiple media accounts to the spreading of fake news stories around the world, including a phony video showing a U.S. soldier shooting a Koran and a fabricated account of an explosion at a Louisiana chemical plant.

View photos

In this picture taken on Sunday, April 19, 2015, a women enters the four-story building known as the “troll factory” in St. Petersburg, Russia. The ... troll factory ... is where hundreds of young Russians work around the clock writing blogs and posting comments on the Internet staunchly supporting President Vladimir Putin and attacking the West. (Photo: Dmitry Lovetsky/AP)

More recently, according to a recent story in the English-language Russian newspaper Moscow Times, the agency has changed its name to the Federal News Agency and has created 16 news websites that employ over 200 full time journalist and editors whose content attracts more than 30 million page views every month.

“Every day, the sites churn out dozens of articles that praise Putin, cast Ukraine as a failed Nazi state and expose the nefarious machinations of the United States,” the newspaper reported.

Read more from Yahoo News:
...What would Jesus do about ‘Dreamers’? Not what Trump did, Christian leaders say
...Bernie Sanders dismisses Hillary Clinton’s comments blaming him for her election loss
...Trump sides with Democrats in government funding deal
...Steve Bannon: The Catholic Church ‘needs illegal aliens’ to fill its pews
...Photos: Hurricane Irma thrashes the Caribbean



https://www.quora.com/Where-does-the-phrase-go-pound-sand-come-from

Word Definitions, Terminology, and Jargon
Where does the phrase "go pound sand" come from?

Answer

4 Answers [I DIDN’T INCLUDE THEM ALL SINCE THEY ARE AMAZINGLY UNIFORM WITH A LITTLE VARIATION. THEY ALL, HOWEVER, ARE COMPLETED USING THE WORD “UP.”]

Jonathon Green
Jonathon Green, Slang lexicographer. Author: Green's Dictionary of Slang
Answered Feb 13 2011

There are two takes on go pound sand. The more recent, seemingly a product of World War II, and often euphemised, is go pound sand up one's*@!. It is used to dismiss and deride, and is ultimately a vehement way of saying: 'go away'. Examples include:



THIS IS FACEBOOK’S LATEST STATEMENT OF THEIR OWN SELF-PROTECTIVE STANCE ON WHAT HAS HAPPENED. THE ARTICLE FROM “FB” IS THEIRS. IT WAS REPUBLISHED BY CBS TODAY.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-has-not-closed-the-book-on-russian-linked-internet-troll-investigation/
CBS NEWS September 7, 2017, 5:09 PM
Facebook has "not closed the book" on Russian-linked internet troll investigation

https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2017/09/information-operations-update/
September 6, 2017

An Update On Information Operations On Facebook
By Alex Stamos, Chief Security Officer

There have been a lot of questions since the 2016 US election about Russian interference in the electoral process. In April we published a white paper that outlined our understanding of organized attempts to misuse our platform. One question that has emerged is whether there’s a connection between the Russian efforts and ads purchased on Facebook. These are serious claims and we’ve been reviewing a range of activity on our platform to help understand what happened.

In reviewing the ads buys, we have found approximately $100,000 in ad spending from June of 2015 to May of 2017 — associated with roughly 3,000 ads — that was connected to about 470 inauthentic accounts and Pages in violation of our policies. Our analysis suggests these accounts and Pages were affiliated with one another and likely operated out of Russia.

We don’t allow inauthentic accounts on Facebook, and as a result, we have since shut down the accounts and Pages we identified that were still active.

The vast majority of ads run by these accounts didn’t specifically reference the US presidential election, voting or a particular candidate.

Rather, the ads and accounts appeared to focus on amplifying divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum — touching on topics from LGBT matters to race issues to immigration to gun rights.

About one-quarter of these ads were geographically targeted, and of those, more ran in 2015 than 2016.

The behavior displayed by these accounts to amplify divisive messages was consistent with the techniques mentioned in the white paper we released in April about information operations.

In this latest review, we also looked for ads that might have originated in Russia — even those with very weak signals of a connection and not associated with any known organized effort. This was a broad search, including, for instance, ads bought from accounts with US IP addresses but with the language set to Russian — even though they didn’t necessarily violate any policy or law. In this part of our review, we found approximately $50,000 in potentially politically related ad spending on roughly 2,200 ads.

We have shared our findings with US authorities investigating these issues, and we will continue to work with them as necessary.

Authentic Activity Matters

We know we have to stay vigilant to keep ahead of people who try to misuse our platform. We believe in protecting the integrity of civic discourse, and require advertisers on our platform to follow both our policies and all applicable laws. We also care deeply about the authenticity of the connections people make on our platform.

Earlier this year, as part of this effort, we announced technology improvements for detecting fake accounts and a series of actions to reduce misinformation and false news. Over the past few months, we have taken action against fake accounts in France, Germany, and other countries, and we recently stated that we will no longer allow Pages that repeatedly share false news to advertise on Facebook.

Along with these actions, we are exploring several new improvements to our systems for keeping inauthentic accounts and activity off our platform. For example, we are looking at how we can apply the techniques we developed for detecting fake accounts to better detect inauthentic Pages and the ads they may run. We are also experimenting with changes to help us more efficiently detect and stop inauthentic accounts at the time they are being created.

Our ongoing work on these automated systems will complement other planned projects to help keep activity on Facebook authentic. We’re constantly updating our efforts in this area, and have introduced a number of improvements, including:

applying machine learning to help limit spam and reduce the posts people see that link to low-quality web pages;
adopting new ways to fight against disguising the true destination of an ad or post, or the real content of the destination page, in order to bypass Facebook’s review processes;
reducing the influence of spammers and deprioritizing the links they share more frequently than regular sharers;
reducing stories from sources that consistently post clickbait headlines that withhold and exaggerate information;
and blocking Pages from advertising if they repeatedly share stories marked as false.

We will continue to invest in our people and technology to help provide a safe place for civic discourse and meaningful connections on Facebook.


MY, OH, MY. WE LIVE IN A WORLD FULL OF INTRIGUE. I’M ALMOST GETTING TIRED OF IT, BUT NOT QUITE.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/senate-panel-to-interview-trump-jr-thursday-behind-closed-doors/
CBS NEWS September 6, 2017, 9:06 PM
Senate committee to interview Trump Jr. Thursday behind closed doors

Donald Trump Jr. will take questions in private from Senate Judiciary Committee staff on Capitol Hill Thursday, as the president's son faces scrutiny for his involvement in a June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower.

"We look forward to a professional and productive meeting and appreciate the opportunity to assist the committee," Trump Jr. lawyer Alan S. Futerfas said in a statement to CBS News.

Trump Jr. became a focal point for congressional investigators and the media after he admitted to a meeting with a Russian lawyer who, according to him, was purported to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton that could help his father's presidential campaign. Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort were also present at the meeting. Emails Trump Jr. released this summer show he was told the information was a "part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump."

Officially, the Senate Intelligence Committee and House Intelligence Committee are the ones investigating Russian election meddling and any ties to Trump associates, but the Senate Judiciary is also probing related issues. The Senate Judiciary Committee had issued a subpoena for Trump Jr. to testify about foreign lobbyist registration and the Trump dossier, but settled for a private interview and documents instead.

Congress seeks phone records regarding Trump campaign's meeting with Russian lawyer
Play VIDEO
Congress seeks phone records regarding Trump campaign's meeting with Russian lawyer

The committee's ranking member, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, told reporters Wednesday that committee staff will be conducting the interview, rather than members. Feinstein said there will be a public hearing at the proper time, although she isn't ready to announce when that will be.

Feinstein said she would not be present at the interview, but CBS News caught up with committee members who plan to attend. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, said he hopes to hear the truth.

"There are penalties if he lies, and he presumably is aware that he is testifying with very severe penalties if he fails to tell the truth, so we presume he will," Blumenthal told reporters Wednesday.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, said he plans to attend as an observer. Durbin said he plans to go in with an open mind, ready to hear questions about any involvement of the Trump business empire and campaign with Russians or other foreigners.

CBS News' Brian Gottlieb and Alan He contributed to this report.



60 MINUTES OVERTIME – STORM VIDEOS

https://www.cbsnews.com/videos/hurricane-irma-lashes-puerto-rico-with-rain-historic-winds/
Hurricane Irma lashes Puerto Rico with rain, historic winds



https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-ads-were-sold-to-fake-accounts-linked-to-russia/
By IRINA IVANOVA MONEYWATCH September 6, 2017, 5:36 PM
Facebook sold political ads to fake accounts linked to Russia

Facebook (FB) said Wednesday that phony accounts that appear to have originated in Russia bought $100,000 worth of advertisements during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and in the months following the election.

Most of the ads didn't specifically mention the election or express support for a particular candidate. But they did appear to "focus on amplifying divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum -- touching on topics from LGBT matters to race issues to immigration to gun rights," said Facebook Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos in a post on the social networking site.

Between June 2015 and May of this year, roughly 3,000 ads connected with 470 "inauthentic accounts" ran on Facebook, according to the company. "Our analysis suggests these accounts and pages were affiliated with one another and likely operated out of Russia," it said.

Facebook's new initiative to fight fake news
Play VIDEO
Facebook's new initiative to fight fake news
A Facebook official confirmed to CBS News that some of the accounts are linked to a troll farm called the Internet Research Agency* in St. Petersburg.

Facebook said it shut down the fake accounts that were still active, but did not specify the number.

The Washington Post, which first reported the news, described the ad operation as a "troll farm" and said it sought to target U.S. voters. A small number of the ads mentioned either then-candidate Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton by name.

Facebook has been struggling with the issue of fake accounts, including organizations seeking to promote posts and generate traffic using bots.

Earlier this year, it purged tens of thousands of accounts that had shown up as "likes" and followers on pages belonging to media outlets. It deleted 30,000 accounts in the run-up to the French national election in May, an event that allegedly also involved fake accounts linked to Russia.


INTERNET RESEARCH AGENCY * --

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_brigades
Web brigades
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The web brigades (Russian: Веб-бригады), also known in English media as Russia's troll army,[1] are state-sponsored anonymous Internet political commentators and trolls linked to the Russian government. Participants report that they are organized into teams and groups of commentators that participate in Russian and international political blogs and Internet forums using sockpuppets and large-scale orchestrated trolling and disinformation campaigns to promote pro-Putin and pro-Russian propaganda.[2][3][4][5] It has also been found that Wikipedia articles were targeted by Russian internet propaganda activities.[6][7][8]

Background

The earliest documented allegations of the existence of "web brigades" appear to be in the April 2003 Vestnik Online article "The Virtual Eye of Big Brother" by French journalist Anna Polyanskaya (a former assistant to assassinated Russian politician Galina Starovoitova[9]) and two other authors, Andrey Krivov and Ivan Lomako. The authors claim that up to 1998, contributions to forums on Russian Internet sites (Runet) predominantly reflected liberal and democratic values, but after 2000, the vast majority of contributions reflected totalitarian values. This sudden change was attributed to the appearance of teams of pro-Russian commenters who appeared be organized by the Russian state security service.[10][11][12][13] According to the authors, about 70% of Russian Internet posters were of generally liberal views prior to 1998–1999, while a surge of "antidemocratic" posts (about 60–80%) suddenly occurred at many Russian forums in 2000. This could also be a reflection to the fact that access to Internet among the general Russian population soared during this time, which was until then accessible only to some sections of the society.