By Shelby Holliday and Rob Barry
Major U.S. tech companies have yet to provide to the public all
the details of Russian troll activity on their platforms despite
their pledge to tackle the problem and pressure from some
lawmakers, The Wall Street Journal has found.
Six months after social-media firms agreed in congressional
hearings to work with lawmakers investigating Russian efforts to
interfere in U.S. politics, many specifics about the foreign
interference operation remain undisclosed.
"We know something happened, but the public doesn't know exactly
what," said Clint Watts, a former FBI counterterrorism agent who
now tracks Russian propaganda.
The companies said they have largely wiped the Russian content
from the internet -- an effort that included deleting from their
platforms thousands of social-media accounts, photos, videos and
podcasts tied to an alleged Russian influence operation. Facebook
Inc. created a tool allowing users to find out whether they liked
or followed accounts backed by Russian trolls, and Twitter Inc.
notified over one million users who had engaged with Kremlin-linked
handles. Social-media firms also turned over reams of information
to authorities, they said.
Releasing details publicly, however, carries privacy and legal
risks, in part because many ordinary Americans were caught up in
the Russian efforts, legal experts said. The companies could also
be subject to defamation lawsuits if they wrongly claim accounts
are Russia-linked, the experts added.
Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet Inc.'s Google said they are
working with investigators probing the alleged election
interference, and the companies pointed to their previous
statements on the issue, including Congress' role in the
matter.
"We think Congress is best placed to use the information we and
others provide to inform the public comprehensively and
completely," Facebook's general counsel said last September.
Some lawmakers say the companies are uniquely qualified to
release the information, which comes from the platforms they own
and control.
"It is deeply in the public interest and it's in the technology
companies' own interest to be proactive and transparent and not
wait until the government comes calling or hounds them for
information," said Rep. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.) -- whose House
panel has investigated the Russian campaign -- in an interview.
Well over 100 million Americans were likely exposed to
Kremlin-aligned propaganda online, the major tech companies have
said. In February, the U.S. indicted 16 people and organizations
associated with the Internet Research Agency, a St.
Petersburg-based troll farm with ties to the Kremlin, for meddling
in the American election. Russia has denied having interfered in
the election.
Much of the propaganda was removed from social media sites
before those moves were made.
Sen. James Lankford (R., Okla.), who serves on a committee
investigating Russia's interference effort, said in an interview
that Americans needed to see the propaganda so they could learn to
tell it apart from legitimate news.
The identities of many of the Russian-linked accounts remain
unknown to the public. Twitter said it found more than 50,000
"Russian-linked" accounts, but the names of fewer than 3,000 have
been revealed. Facebook said it shut down 470 Russian troll
accounts, but only about 20 have been named by Congress. Google
hasn't publicly revealed any Russia-linked channels it says posted
1,108 videos to YouTube.
Facebook in December set up a tool allowing users to check
whether they liked or followed Russian troll accounts, and Twitter
said it notified 1.4 million people who interacted with
Russian-controlled handles.
While Facebook's tool shows users if they liked or followed
Russian-backed Facebook pages and Instagram accounts, it excludes
other relationships, like friendships and messages -- as well as
information about as many as 180 fake profiles set up by the troll
farm, the Journal found.
For example, the tool doesn't show anything about alleged black
activist Erika Dixon, according to several people who communicated
with the account -- which used Facebook to drum up support for
pages and groups now believed by investigators to be
Russian-controlled.
The Dixon persona also emailed from an address at
Black4Black.info, a defunct website once registered to a Moscow
street address, according to a message reviewed by the Journal and
records from cyberforensics company DomainTools. A Twitter account
in Dixon's name using her Facebook profile picture was identified
by Congress as controlled by the troll farm. Both the Twitter and
Facebook accounts have been closed.
A Facebook spokesman said the company never claimed the tool
detailed every interaction and relationship. "We've always been
explicit that the tool would show people the [Internet Research
Agency] pages and accounts they liked or followed," he said. He
declined to comment further.
The Facebook tool's limits leave "the public in the dark about
the actual accounts through which they were being targeted," said
Jonathan Albright, research director of the Tow Center for Digital
Journalism at Columbia University.
Accounts belonging to Skwad55, a podcast group whose racially
charged episodes encourage blacks to protest and form their own
"authority," were taken down by Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and
social blogging service Tumblr, which publicly said the group was
tied to a "state-sponsored" campaign in March. Tumblr confirmed to
the Journal that the account was connected to the Internet Research
Agency. Operators of the account couldn't be reached for
comment.
As recently as last month, Skwad55's episodes were still
available on the group's accounts on YouTube and music-sharing
platform SoundCloud.
One Charlotte, N.C. hip-hop artist who communicated with Skwad55
said he had no idea the podcast was linked to Russian
propaganda.
"Wow, this is news to me," said Jason Watkins, who gave the
group permission to use his music in 2016. He said he was skeptical
about the claimed ties to the Kremlin, however, because the man he
spoke with didn't have a Russian accent.
Both SoundCloud and Google, which owns YouTube, removed the
podcast for violating their terms of use after the Journal inquired
about them.
Not all firms wiped the Russian material off their platforms.
Instead of deleting the 944 accounts suspected of ties to the troll
farm, Reddit Inc. is allowing users to browse their roughly 14,000
posts.
"We are doing this to allow moderators, investigators, and all
of you to see their account histories for yourselves," CEO Steve
Huffman wrote in a post.
Write to Rob Barry at rob.barry@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 04, 2018 11:49 ET (15:49 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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