Authorities Probe Facebook For Critical Answers in Russia Investigation

The social network has a history of fighting government requests for information.

July 20, 2017 10:04 am
Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ, St. Petersburg, Russia. (Getty)
Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ, St. Petersburg, Russia. (Getty)

Washington investigators will fight an uphill battle in obtaining information from Facebook about whether or not Russia interfered with the 2016 election, CNN is reporting.

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, who is a top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, reportedly met with officials from the social network more than a month ago as authorities continue to search for answers about collusion or election interference. And while President Trump’s supporters and detractors may disagree on what the outcome of this investigation will be, they all agree that Facebook holds the answers.

“There are two questions,” Warner told CNN. “One is: Was there coordination or collusion between the campaigns and these technology tools, which overwhelmed the search engine tools so that certain stories popped up at the top of your newsfeed. The second is, on a broader basis going forward: How do we prevent this from happening again?”

“We’ve been in touch with a number of government officials, including Sen. Warner, who are looking into the 2016 US Presidential election,” a Facebook spokesman reportedly told CNN. “We will continue to cooperate with officials as their investigations continue. As we have said, we have seen no evidence that Russian actors bought ads on Facebook in connection with the election.”

What Warner is interested in narrowing down is whether or not Russia had domestic operatives to “micro-target” false news to swing voters.

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