For Tech Giants, Halting Russian Meddling in U.S. Politics Won’t Be Easy

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The US indictment handed up against three Russian companies and 13 individuals shows starkly how ill-prepared the tech giants were for the type of aggressive influence campaign the Russians allegedly mounted. The details also suggest it won’t be easy to stop such tactics in the run-up to the midterm election in less than nine months, say researchers who study social media. Facebook, Google parent Alphabet, and Twitter have more than 100,000 employees and $150 billion in annual revenue combined. But a group of fewer than 100 Russian provocateurs armed with social-media savvy and widely available technological tools was able to manipulate the companies’ platforms to sow discord for years, according to the indictment. 

It isn’t yet clear if the technology companies will put the effort required into solving Russia’s manipulation problem, but a solution is possible, said Benjamin Edelman, a Harvard University professor who has studied the role of deceptive advertising in technology. “We put a man on the moon, and we’ve got cars that drive themselves,” he said. “I do believe that we can build business processes supported by software that identify ads that demand further review.”


For Tech Giants, Halting Russian Meddling in U.S. Politics Won’t Be Easy