Report: FBI Monitored Social Media On Election Day For 'Fake News' From Russia
- 7 years ago
The FBI reportedly had a team spend Election Day monitoring social media for activities related to a possible “Russian disinformation campaign utilizing ‘fake news.’”
The FBI reportedly had a team spend Election Day monitoring social media for activities related to a possible “Russian disinformation campaign utilizing ‘fake news.’”
CNN broke the story, based on multiple sources, Friday, stating, “On Election Day, dozens of agents and analysts huddled at a command center arrayed with large monitoring screens at the FBI headquarters in Washington watching for security threats.”
The piece explained that social media was included in their work because the Bureau suspected that “at least some [users’ accounts] were part of a Russian disinformation campaign, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.”
The overall consensus has been that these stories largely painted Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in a negative light.
In fact, a study published by two economics professors about the 2016 election states that “fake news was both widely shared and heavily tilted in favor of Donald Trump.”
According to the paper, they found “115 pro-Trump fake stories that were shared on Facebook a total of 30 million times, and 41 pro-Clinton fake stories shared a total of 7.6 million times.”
Though the FBI reportedly had concerns about impeding on free speech with the monitoring, CNN says the activity continued throughout the day and potential issues were regularly discussed with other security agencies.
Despite some minor problems, officials reportedly believed at the time that the day had gone smoothly.
However, since then, special counsel Robert Mueller has been assigned to investigate Russia’s interference in the election.
While there has been speculation that he may be looking into whether the Trump campaign’s digital team helped spread the fake news, a recent WIRED article has argued that Russia could have achieved a similar outcome on its own.
The FBI reportedly had a team spend Election Day monitoring social media for activities related to a possible “Russian disinformation campaign utilizing ‘fake news.’”
CNN broke the story, based on multiple sources, Friday, stating, “On Election Day, dozens of agents and analysts huddled at a command center arrayed with large monitoring screens at the FBI headquarters in Washington watching for security threats.”
The piece explained that social media was included in their work because the Bureau suspected that “at least some [users’ accounts] were part of a Russian disinformation campaign, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.”
The overall consensus has been that these stories largely painted Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in a negative light.
In fact, a study published by two economics professors about the 2016 election states that “fake news was both widely shared and heavily tilted in favor of Donald Trump.”
According to the paper, they found “115 pro-Trump fake stories that were shared on Facebook a total of 30 million times, and 41 pro-Clinton fake stories shared a total of 7.6 million times.”
Though the FBI reportedly had concerns about impeding on free speech with the monitoring, CNN says the activity continued throughout the day and potential issues were regularly discussed with other security agencies.
Despite some minor problems, officials reportedly believed at the time that the day had gone smoothly.
However, since then, special counsel Robert Mueller has been assigned to investigate Russia’s interference in the election.
While there has been speculation that he may be looking into whether the Trump campaign’s digital team helped spread the fake news, a recent WIRED article has argued that Russia could have achieved a similar outcome on its own.