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Instagram uses Stories to encourage voter registration
The US midterm election is right around the corner, and Instagram is doing its part to encourage as many people as possible to register to vote. It launched a registration push Tuesday, helping 'Grammers get the information they need to sign up to vote using ads in feeds and stories.
Facebook expands security measures for political campaign staff
The US midterm elections are just weeks away, and Facebook is still scrambling to prevent election meddling with every means at its disposal. It's launching a pilot program that will expand its protections for American political campaigns. Candidates at the federal or state levels, as well as their staff and party committees, can apply to receive extra protection for their Pages and individual accounts. Facebook will help activate two-factor authentication, proactively monitor accounts (through both automation and human staff), and prioritize reports of suspicious activity from campaign members. If there's an attack against one person, Facebook will check other related accounts.
YouTube pulls Russian opposition ads ahead of elections
YouTube is no stranger to pulling videos based on their content, but now it also has to worry about when a video is available. The Google-owned service has removed ads from Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny following officials' claims that the videos would violate a campaign silence law by remaining available ahead of regional governor elections on September 9th. In a statement, YouTube's Russian branch said it responded to "all justified appeals from state bodies" and said advertisers had to honor local laws. Whether or not the law was an issue is another matter.
Google shares ‘testimony’ for Senate hearing it won’t attend
Tomorrow, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey will appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee to discuss election meddling and security. Google was invited to send a representative as well and it offered Chief Legal Officer Kent Walker, but the committee rejected Walker as a witness, insisting that higher-level leaders like Alphabet CEO Larry Page or Google CEO Sundar Pichai would be more appropriate. Now, however, Walker has released the company's "testimony" online even though it appears that no one from Google will be at the hearing to deliver it.
Facebook tells Senate it needs help stopping election interference
Facebook has been scrambling to fight election meddling ahead of the 2018 midterms, but it doesn't want to go alone. The social network has released COO Sheryl Sandberg's prepared testimony ahead of her Senate appearance on September 5th, and she uses the presentation to call for more government help in battling interference from countries like Russia. Facebook's staffers "can't stop interference by ourselves," she said, noting that Facebook doesn't have "all the investigative tools" of government and can't always identify perpetrators or their motivations.
Twitter will also label issue ads under its new advertising policy
Back in May, Twitter laid out its upcoming policies to improve transparency for election-related ads aimed at US citizens leading up to the midterms this fall. In addition to rules dictating how advertisers must present themselves on the platform, the social network is requiring them to certify their identity and prove that they live in America. While news organizations can petition Twitter to be exempt from these restrictions, everyone else who wants to advertise election-related material -- including, now, on hot-button issues -- must be certified by the social network by September 30th or their advertisements won't go up.
EU may fine political groups misusing personal data to skew elections
The European Union is determined to prevent a Cambridge Analytica-style scandal where politicians misuse personal data for strategic gains. The Financial Times has learned of a European Commission draft amendment that would fine political organizations if they benefit from surreptitious personal data gathering. The details are reportedly still in flux, but the penalty would represent about 5 percent of a political party's yearly budget -- not necessarily fatal to a campaign by itself, but it would stack on top of GDPR-related fines.
DNC cyberattack scare was just a phishing test
Yesterday, reports surfaced that the Democratic National Committee had been the target of a phishing scheme aimed at collecting officials' login information for a voter database. But it turns out the incident was just a security test. "We, along with the partners who reported the [fake] site, now believe it was built by a third party as part of a simulated phishing test on VoteBuilder," DNC Chief Security Officer Bob Lord said in a statement to the Washington Post. "The test, which mimicked several attributes of actual attacks on the Democratic party's voter file, was not authorized by the DNC, Votebuilder nor any of our vendors," he said.
Facebook makes it easier for researchers to analyze its ad archive
Back in May, Facebook made good on earlier promises and started labeling US election- and issue-related ads with who paid for them, and also linked to a searchable archive of such advertisements. Today, the platform started releasing an API that researcher and journalists can use to more easily analyze ads appearing on Facebook, though it's only open to certain groups and individuals during an initial test period.
DNC reports attempted cyberattack targeting its voter database
The Democratic National Committee appears to be the target of another cybersecurity attack, CNN reports, and it has alerted the FBI about a phishing attempt aimed at gaining access to its voter database. A fake login page created to look just like the one Democratic officials use to log into a service called Votebuilder was spotted by a the cybersecurity firm Lookout earlier this week. Lookout then informed the DNC of its findings.
California primary candidate faced cyberattacks for a year
It's not just sitting politicians that have faced cyberattacks ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. Former California congressional primary candidate Dr. Hans Keirstead has reported to Rolling Stone that his campaign faced hacking attempts for roughly a year, starting in August 2017. They began with phishing emails sent to Keirstead's address at his biomedical company in a briefly successful attempt to obtain his login details. By December, the intruders started direct attempts to hack Keirstead's campaign, including over 130,000 "brute force" login attempts, attempts to hijack his Twitter account and short-lived hacks against his company.
Dozens of kids hack election site replicas in just minutes
The Def Con hacker conference has been demonstrating how vulnerable voting machines are to hacks through its Voting Village, wherein adults are given the chance to compromise various models of voting devices. But this year, Def Con also let kids get in on the game, opening up replicas of states' election websites to children aged eight to 16. The event, put on by r00tz Asylum and supported by the University of Chicago and the Democratic National Committee, showed just how vulnerable these sites are to attack.
Senator says Russia has ‘penetrated’ Florida election systems
Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL) told the Tampa Bay Times today that Russian operatives have "penetrated" Florida election systems. "They have already penetrated certain counties in the state and they now have free rein to move about," Nelson said. The remarks reportedly caused a stir among the state's election officials, who are busy preparing for midterm elections in November. Because despite today's statements and ongoing concerns over election security, state leaders don't appear to be keeping election officials in the loop. "There has been no current communication with anyone about any breach or problem," Okaloosa Supervisor of Elections Paul Lux told the Tampa Bay Times.
Iraq reportedly ignored concerns over electronic voting machines
Iraq is learning first-hand about the potential pitfalls of electronic voting machines in the wake of its disputed May 12th national election. Reuters has discovered that the country's election commission ignored an audit board warning that the vote counting machines, provided by Miru Systems, were unsuitable and susceptible to tampering. The commission committed a "clear legal violation" by moving forward, according to the board.
Facebook's tougher policies delay Hispanic political ads
Facebook's stricter ad policies may be creating further complications for legitimate campaigns. Strategists for Hispanic organizations have told the Washington Post that their political ads typically require "several days" to reach Facebook simply because they're targeting a Spanish-language audience. As the social network's policies require it to both review ads targeted at ethnic groups and fight racial discrimination, the process takes considerably more time than ads aimed at a general audience.
Recommended Reading: Plz vote 4 me
Campaigns enter texting era with a plea: Will u vote 4 me? Kevin Roose, The New York Times Political candidates have a number of tools at their disposal to try and win your vote. Slick branding, TV commercials and social media ads are just the beginning. The New York Times dives into how campaigns in 2018 are hitting us up via the good ol' text message and the questions that arise from that method of outreach.
DNC-led Def Con event tests election websites against child hackers
At the Def Con hacker conference next week, the Democratic National Committee is co-sponsoring a contest that will pit child hackers against replicas of state government websites, Wired reports. Kids between the ages of eight and 16 will try to break into replicas of the websites secretaries of state use to post election results, and the one that devises the best defensive strategy will win $500 from the DNC. Another $2,000 will be awarded to whoever can penetrate a site's defenses. The University of Chicago and a non-profit called r00tz Asylum that offers cybersecurity lessons for children are also sponsoring the event.
Facebook removes fake accounts targeting 2018 US midterms
History appears to be repeating itself: Facebook has discovered evidence of a "coordinated" election influence campaign targeting the 2018 US midterm elections. The social network said it had removed 32 bogus Pages and accounts (created between March 2017 and May 2018) from both its main service and Instagram. While it didn't yet know who was responsible for the campaign, the accounts and their ads tried to stoke social tensions in the same way as the Russia-linked ads from 2016 -- and the creators went out of their way to hide their origins.
Russian hackers targeted Democratic senator ahead of midterms
Russian hackers targeted the campaign of Sen. Claire McCaskill in the Kremlin's first identified attempt at interference this midterm election season, The Daily Beast reports. "While this attack was not successful, it is outrageous that [Russia thinks it] can get away with this. I will not be intimidated. I've said it before and I will say it again, Putin is a thug and a bully," Missouri Democrat McCaskill said in a statement.
Facebook cracks down on fake news ahead of Brazil elections
Facebook took down 196 pages and 87 accounts used by a right-wing Brazilian activist group to spread fake news, Reuters reports. According to the publication's sources, the group, Movimento Brazil Livre, was running fake pages to spread its political message throughout Brazil ahead of the country's general election in October. In a statement given to Reuters, Facebook, which didn't name the pages or who was behind them, said the deactivations were instituted because the pages were part of "a coordinated network that hid behind fake Facebook accounts and misled people about the nature and origin of its content, all for the purpose of sowing division and spreading misinformation."
