WASHINGTON — For weeks, Facebook has been
under intense scrutiny in Washington after revelations about Russian
attempts to use the platform to influence the 2016 elections. Now, some
lawmakers are talking about turning that scrutiny into action.
There are new calls on Capitol Hill for
stronger federal regulation of Facebook, possibly requiring greater
transparency and disclosures for digital political ads. But lawmakers
have yet to take up more sweeping reforms that some internet policy
experts and advocates believe are necessary to protect users of the
social-media platform, given Facebook’s outsize influence and vast
stores of personal data.
In early September, Facebook said it had
traced $100,000 in politically motivated ads that ran during the 2016
presidential campaign to a Russian troll farm, reaching about 10 million people. Testifying before Congress a few weeks later, Facebook officials revealed
that the total audience for Russian-backed content was many times
larger, reaching an estimated 126 million Americans — a third of the
U.S. population — during the 2016 campaign.
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Source: NBC News
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