Geek News

UK officials have been pressing Facebook and Twitter to investigate whether Russian-based accounts attempted to influence the 2016 Brexit vote . Previous responses from both platforms were found to be inadequate by the chair of the UK's digital, culture, media and sport select committee and both companies were asked to do better . Now, BuzzFeed News reports that Twitter has in fact found some evidence of Russian meddling, albeit small in scope. Twitter's UK policy chief Nick Pickles told the House of Commons select committee at a hearing taking place today in Washington DC that 49 accounts linked to Russia's Internet Research Agency tweeted a collective 942 times during the Brexit campaign. They were retweeted 461 times and liked 637 times. "Forty-nine such accounts were active during the referendum campaign, which represents less than 0.005% of the total number of accounts that tweeted about the referendum," he said. A Twitter spokesperson told us, "As...

Last week, Representative Adam Schiff and Senator Dianne Feinstein asked Facebook and Twitter to investigate whether Russia-linked accounts were involved in spreading the #ReleaseTheMemo campaign. The hashtag refers to a memo written by Republican Representative Devin Nunes that claims the FBI has abused its power. Democrats, however, have maintained that the memo is misleading and largely meant to undermine Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into inappropriate interactions between Russian officials and the Trump administration. Both Facebook and Twitter responded to that letter, but neither Congressperson is satisfied with their answers and they've sent another letter reiterating their requests. Facebook's response to the first letter, just two paragraphs long, basically says it's continuously monitoring its platform for any foreign interference and it will update Congress if anything seems noteable. "We are committed to protecting our platform...