Russia Investigation Has Tech Giants Shying From ‘Social’ Label
- 6 years ago
Russia Investigation Has Tech Giants Shying From ‘Social’ Label
“The bigger issue is that some of these tools are used to divide people, to manipulate people, to get fake news to people in broad numbers,
and so to influence their thinking,” said Mr. Cook in an interview with NBC News.
But as social media has become increasingly connected to unpleasant bickering, race-baiting
and Russian propaganda, the must-have “social” label has become an albatross, said Joseph Bayer, an assistant professor at Ohio State University who focuses on social networks.
There also were short-lived efforts like Google Buzz
and Google Wave, or geographically specific sites like Orkut — popular in Brazil but ignored elsewhere.
Many of those videos had only a small number of views, though they were “frequently posted to other social media platforms,” Richard Salgado, Google’s senior counsel in law enforcement
and information security, told a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday.
“The mere fact that a tech company is trying to minimize its overall influence is a telling signal of the moment we’re in,” said Mr. Bayer.
“Without sufficient oversight, these companies never imagined hostile intelligence services would misuse their
platforms in this way,” said Renee DiResta, an independent security researcher at Data for Democracy.
Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive and an outspoken critic of the data-collection practices of his company’s technological rivals, said Wednesday
that he was concerned that social networks could be weaponized against the people who use them.
Google said accounts believed to have ties to the Kremlin had uploaded more than 1,100 videos to YouTube on racial, religious and political topics.
“The bigger issue is that some of these tools are used to divide people, to manipulate people, to get fake news to people in broad numbers,
and so to influence their thinking,” said Mr. Cook in an interview with NBC News.
But as social media has become increasingly connected to unpleasant bickering, race-baiting
and Russian propaganda, the must-have “social” label has become an albatross, said Joseph Bayer, an assistant professor at Ohio State University who focuses on social networks.
There also were short-lived efforts like Google Buzz
and Google Wave, or geographically specific sites like Orkut — popular in Brazil but ignored elsewhere.
Many of those videos had only a small number of views, though they were “frequently posted to other social media platforms,” Richard Salgado, Google’s senior counsel in law enforcement
and information security, told a Senate subcommittee on Tuesday.
“The mere fact that a tech company is trying to minimize its overall influence is a telling signal of the moment we’re in,” said Mr. Bayer.
“Without sufficient oversight, these companies never imagined hostile intelligence services would misuse their
platforms in this way,” said Renee DiResta, an independent security researcher at Data for Democracy.
Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive and an outspoken critic of the data-collection practices of his company’s technological rivals, said Wednesday
that he was concerned that social networks could be weaponized against the people who use them.
Google said accounts believed to have ties to the Kremlin had uploaded more than 1,100 videos to YouTube on racial, religious and political topics.