Russian meddling in the 2016 election: Facebook, Twitter, and Google are testifying to Congress

Facebook has removed dozens of pages that were using “coordinated inauthentic behavior” intended to “mislead” other users ahead of the 2018 U.S. midterm elections, the company announced today.

It’s the first known coordinated effort that Facebook has discovered and announced ahead of the midterms. The company says it’s unclear who is behind the efforts, but CNN reported Tuesday that it is believed a “Russian group” is behind the coordinated campaign.

Congress finally published all of the political Facebook ads purchased by Russian groups hoping to sow discord before and after the 2016 U.S. election.

The House Intelligence Committee Democrats published downloadable files with more than 3,500 ads to their website on Thursday. You can find them and download them here.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said Thursday he’s “absolutely” willing to come talk to the U.S. Congress as lawmakers continue to probe Russia’s efforts to spread disinformation on social media during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Thing is, lawmakers previously and repeatedly called on Dorsey and other tech executives to make the trip to Capitol Hill — and they’ve apparently declined.

The Republican leader of the U.S. Senate suggested on Saturday that tech giants like Facebook, Google and Twitter could help the United States “retaliate” against Russian forces that spread disinformation on social media around the 2016 presidential election.

In doing so, though, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also revealed that he is “skeptical” of new efforts to regulate political ads that appear on top tech platforms.

The tweet that opened a story in the Washington Post on Feb. 11, 2016 seemed innocuous: It was an attempt to illustrate Syrian territory occupied by clashing government and ISIS forces.

Problem is, the account behind that tweet — @WarfareWW — was one of 2,752 Twitter trolls identified this week as tied to the Russian government and suspended for spreading disinformation.

On a recent episode of Too Embarrassed to Ask, Recode’s Tony Romm returned to the podcast to answer questions about the Congressional investigation into Facebook, Twitter and Google. These three companies sent their lawyers to Capitol Hill to try to explain how their platforms were used by Russian trolls and bots to influence the 2016 presidential election.

You can read some of the highlights from their discussion here, or listen to it in the audio player above. Below, we’ve posted a lightly edited complete transcript of their conversation.

Take two.

Facebook, Google and Twitter executives are back in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to take questions from Congress on how Russian sources used their respective platforms to try and influence last year’s presidential election.

Senior executives from Facebook, Google and Twitter will submit on Wednesday to two more grillings by U.S. lawmakers who are investigating Russia’s suspected interference in the 2016 presidential election.

In the morning, it’s the Senate Intelligence Committee; in the afternoon, it’s the House’s panel. And the focus is again on the extent to which Kremlin-backed agents and trolls sought to spread disinformation and extremist content on major social media platforms — and what exactly the U.S. Congress should do about it.

Senior executives from Facebook, Google and Twitter will submit on Tuesday to the first of three grueling grillings before U.S. lawmakers who are investigating Russia’s suspected interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Kicking it off is the Senate Judiciary Committee’s top crime and terrorism panel, chaired by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. The focus is on the extent to which Kremlin-backed agents and trolls sought to spread disinformation and extremist content on major social media platforms — and what, exactly, the U.S. Congress should do about it.

Here’s what the tech industry says it wants if the U.S. Congress tries to write a new law about online political ads: Rules that are clear, apply to everyone, emphasize disclosure but not too much, and certainly don’t inhibit free speech.

And here’s what that really means: The biggest brands in Silicon Valley aren’t exactly ready to embrace a new, bipartisan bill in the U.S. Senate that would subject them to a whole host of tough regulations.

Here come the lawyers.

Congress is set to grill Facebook, Twitter and Google this week for more information about how their respective platforms were used by Russian sources to try and sway last year’s U.S. election. Recode already reported that Russia’s efforts were more widespread than initially thought, and Facebook and Twitter are both expected to update Congress with new data around how many accounts and people were possibly impacted by Russian propaganda.