Facebook and Russian election interference: some Americans say Facebook should be fined
More than a quarter of Americans in a recent survey believe Facebook should receive a fine for its role in Russian interference during the 2016 presidential election.
The online survey of 1,000 people from market research firm Honest Data — conducted in the two days before special counsel Robert Mueller released a 37-page indictment charging 13 Russian nationals and three businesses with crimes related to election interference — casts new light on the American populace's view of Facebook's role in those alleged crimes.
After initially dismissing a suggestion that Facebook may have played a part in a foreign influence campaign, CEO Mark Zuckerberg has acknowledged the interference and vowed to stop it. But messages have been mixed.
Over the weekend, Facebook's head of advertising sought to distance Russian-bought Facebook ads from election results, noting that more of the ads were bought after the election. He also said, citing the 3,000 ads Facebook supplied to Congress, that the Russians' main goal was not to sway the election. That conclusion contrasted with Mueller's findings, which said overall efforts by the Russian manipulators were aimed at "supporting the presidential campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump" and to spread distrust towards the political system.
President Trump seized on the Facebook tweet that noted more of the ad spending happened after the election, using it as a chance to castigate the media.
According to Honest Data, a polling firm founded by ex-Facebook employee Tavis McGinn, 28% of online Americans believe Facebook should be required to pay a fine for allowing the spread of Russian misinformation. The possibility of a fine for Facebook stems from calls by Democratic lawmakers to more strongly regulate the social network and online political ads.
The 1,000 respondents, weighted to mirror the demographics of Census research, responded to a single survey question they would answer before entering a paywalled Internet site, like a news article or video. Another 15% of those surveyed said Facebook shouldn't be fined and 56% said they didn't know.
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Mueller's conclusions detailed how a Russian troll farm, or influence operation, used Facebook more than any other social network to reach U.S. voters. On Saturday, Facebook's vice president of ads, Rob Goldman, tweeted that "there are key facts about the Russian actions that are still not well understood."
“I have seen all of the Russian ads, and I can say very definitively that swaying the election was *NOT* the main goal,” he wrote. “The majority of the Russian ad spend happened AFTER the election. We shared that fact, but very few outlets have covered it because it doesn’t align with the main media narrative of Trump and the election.”
Trump retweeted Goldman's remark, using it to scold the "fake news media."
During an interview with CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, former national intelligence director James Clapper called Goldman's assertion "false."
"Clearly, the Russians were trying to affect the election," said Clapper.
Ads were only one of several ways Russian meddlers attempted to sway Facebook users. Operatives working on troll farms — or operations designed to create division among users through misinformation — also assumed fake identities on the social network to create organic posts that touched on hot-button social issues and that were then widely re-shared.
Also on Saturday, Katie Harbath, Facebook's global director of policy programs, said the company would start verifying the identities and location of people who want to purchase U.S. election-related advertising by sending them postcards. Anyone buying ad that mentions a specific candidate running for a federal office would be sent a postcard with a specific code, she said, Reuters reported.
"You will have to use that code to prove you are in the United States,” Harbath said at a weekend conference of the National Association of Secretaries of State, where executives from Twitter and Google also spoke. “It won’t solve everything,” she told Reuters.
The special counsel's indictment also spells out how operatives used Facebook groups to coordinate events supporting both Trump and Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
Initially, Facebook had revealed more than 10 million users saw Russian-linked advertising, with 44% of it viewed before the election.
However, Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch testified before the Senate last October as many as 126 million people — roughly one-third of the U.S. population — were exposed to posts from Russian accounts, thanks to the impact of organic posts along with the ads. The following month, Facebook revealed the number was 146 million.
A spokesperson for Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, criticized Goldman's comments on Saturday, saying focusing on "ad spend" missed the big picture.
"Ads were only a small percentage of the content pushed by IRA," the Internet Research Agency, said Warner press secretary Rachel Cohen on Twitter.
Earlier this year, Facebook acknowledged its negative impact on democracy, claiming it's taking steps to prevent future foreign meddling ahead of the 2018 U.S. midterm elections.
During an interview with USA TODAY last year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg vowed to stop election interference but admitted he did not know whether that would happen by November midterm elections. "We have a pretty good track record as a company of — once we set our mind to doing something — we eventually get it done."
Joel Kaplan, Facebook's vice president of global policy, said the Mueller indictment "confirms our announcement last year that foreign actors conducted a coordinated and sustained effort to attack our democracy."
Kaplan pointed to investments Facebook is making, including doubling the number of people working on security from 10,000 to 20,000. "We know we have more to do to prevent against future attacks."
Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.