electioninterference
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YouTube will remove videos that encourage election meddling
It'll also yank ones containing hacked information that could interfere with elections.
HBO’s 'Kill Chain' doc highlights the flaws in US election machines
While COVID-19 might be putting just about everything else on hold, we're still marching towards a presidential election later this year. After the high-profile interference of 2016, election security and foreign meddling are still critical issues, but many states still aren't doing enough to ensure the integrity of the process. A documentary premiering tonight on HBO proves a sobering reminder of the fragility of America's voting infrastructure.
Florida governor says Russians accessed voter databases in 2016
Hackers from Russia gained access to voter databases in two Florida counties before the 2016 presidential election, Gov. Ron DeSantis said. While the hackers didn't compromise election results or manipulate any data, the fact that they gained access at all is significant.
Twitter banned 2,600 Iran-linked accounts for election meddling
Since September, Twitter has suspended 2,617 accounts linked to Iran, it said in a report on its US midterm election efforts. Some of the accounts claimed they were American news outlets and discussed US political and social issues. Twitter claims it proactively suspended most of the accounts prior to Election Day.
Canada doesn't trust social networks to warn of election interference
Social networks like Facebook and Twitter have set up war rooms and disclosure systems to warn of potential election meddling, but the Canadian government doesn't believe that's good enough. The country's Democratic Institutions Minister has established a panel of five politicians that will warn the public when there's evidence of attempted interference during election periods, including the upcoming October federal election. If they believe there's a threat, they'll not only alert the Prime Minister, party officials and Elections Canada, they'll hold a press conference to reveal the details to everyone.
US Treasury sanctions Russians for hacking and election meddling
The US government isn't done taking action against Russians accused of hacking and interference campaigns. The Treasury Department has leveled sanctions against 16 current and former GRU intelligence officers (some of whom were targeted in earlier indictments) for their involvement in multiple campaigns against the US, including the Democratic National Committee hacks, World Anti-Doping Agency hacks and election meddling efforts.
Facebook shut down a spam network in Brazil
Facebook's crackdown on misleading content continues, this time in Brazil. The social network gave the boot to 68 pages and 43 accounts -- all linked to a single marketing group -- for violating the company's policies on misrepresentation and spam.
Facebook says recent data breach wasn't 'related to the midterms'
Even though the number of users affected by Facebook's most recent hack was lowered to 29 million, from 50 million, it's still safe to say the attack was worse than originally thought. That's because we now know that the breach, which Facebook revealed a couple of weeks ago, exposed very detailed information of 14 million of those users, including their username, birthdate, gender, location, relationship status, religion, hometown, self-reported current city, education, work, the devices they used to access Facebook and the last 10 places they checked into (or were tagged in) on the site. The attackers, whose identities Facebook won't reveal because of an ongoing FBI investigation, were also able to view which people/Pages were followed by these 14 million users, as well as their 15 most recent searches on Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg op-ed describes the election interference 'arms race'
Ahead of Senate hearings that will see Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testifying about foreign election interference, Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg has chimed in via an op-ed in the Washington Post. While we wait to watch the hearings in the morning, you can have a look at his essay, which is mostly a rehash of things we've been hearing about for months in terms of fighting fake accounts, fact checking hoaxes, tracking influence networks and the efforts it has made around elections in France, Germany, Mexico and Italy. Zuckerberg said that Facebook has strengthened its defenses, but it remains to be seen how that will go over with members of Congress and the public. In closing, the CEO said "It's an arms race, and it will take the combined forces of the U.S. private and public sectors to protect America's democracy from outside interference." Whether or not Facebook has done enough, if there are other weak points allowing for misinformation and propaganda -- as researchers found when they were easily able to buy Google ads for Russian troll-inspired material using rubles and known IRA identities -- it may not matter.
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.
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.
