Acquiescing to Congressional pressure, Facebook developed a tool to show users if they were exposed to a Russian Internet company responsible for disseminating Kremlin propaganda. Congressional investigators, led by co-chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), seek to prove that Kremlin propaganda brainwashed unsuspecting Facebook users, handing the 2016 presidential election to Donald Trump. Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton raised the issue of Trump’s Kremlin collusion in the Oct. 19, 2016 presidential debate in Las Vegas. Since Trump’s election, the House Intelligence Committee, Senate Intelligence Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee has investigated Russian influence in the presidential election. Also investigating Trump-Kremlin collusion is Special Counsel former FBI Director Robert Mueller.
No one in the House or Senate Intel committees, Senate Judiciary Committee or Mueller’s Special Counsel has shown a link between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Yet House and Senate investigators have pressured Facebook to disclose all its Russian-generated content to prove that some 150 million users were exposed. Instead telling Congress that the Facebook’s social networking platform isn’t a place of credentialed journalism, Facebook capitulated to Congressional bullying. Democrats on the House and Intel Committees and Senate Judiciary Committee buy Hillary’s narrative that Russia “influenced” voters in the 2016 election. Yet they all know that Hillary won nearly 3 million more popular votes than Trump, blowing their wild speculation that the Kremlin helped Trump.
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Facebook should have told Congress that our users read a whole variety of blogs, not just ones attributed to devious little men-or-women in the Kremlin. No one in Congress can state with any certainty that Russia blogs on Facebook had any impact on the 2016 election. What’s known for sure is that Hillary captured nearly 3 million more popular votes than Trump. Congressional investigators want Facebook to believe that the Kremlin only impacted Facebook users-voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida, the so-called battleground states. No rational person can believe Congressional nonsense about Russian bloggers impacting the vote. Facebook executives, instead of coming up with a new algorithm to identify Russian bloggers, should have told Congress they hold no responsibility for the open blogging platform on Facebook. No one on Facebook certifies content of any blogs.
Facebook was so intimidated by Congress they violated their free speech rights to accommodate Capitol Hill bullies looking for a scapegoat. Hillary lost the election because she had too much baggage and ran a bad campaign. “This is part of our ongoing effort to protect our platforms and the people who use them from bad actors who try to undermine our democracy,” wrote Facebook in a corporate press release. Whether or not bad actors publish garbage on Facebook, it’s a wild leap suggesting that Facebook users are so gullible to influence votes. Judging by Hillary’s nearly 3 million more popular votes, it’s reasonable to say the Russians helped her, not Trump. Whatever garbage appeared on Facebook, it’s not the company’s responsibility to control content. Millions of Facebook users publish garbage daily, not requiring Congress to step in and cry foul when it comes to elections.
Unless Congressional officials can show proof of how Facebook’s Russian-based content influenced voters, there’s no basis for concluding nefarious content had any impact on Facebook users. Again, the fact that Hillary won nearly 3 million more popular voters runs counter to Democrats’ contention that Facebook users were bamboozled by unidentified Russian content. “It is important that people understand how foreign actors tried to sow division and mistrust using Facebook before and after the 2016 election.,” wrote Faceebook. When U.S. bloggers insert pro-Western propaganda into the Russian media, there’s no difference in what renegade Russians do. There’s far more domestic propaganda from political operatives circulated on Facebook than anything from Russia or any other foreign source: Circulating endless fake news stories on U.S. broadcast and print media outlets.
All the Russian hysteria sweeping Capitol Hill has created a toxic atmosphere in Washington and Moscow. Russian TV [RT] was forced by the Justice Department Nov. 16 to register as a foreign agent. When you consider all the accusations coming from Congress about Russian meddling and Trump collusion in the 2016 election, registering RT as s foreign agent was inevitable. Retaliating in kind, Putin signed a Kremlin bill today requiring all U.S. media sources to register as foreign agents. Schiff praised Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for tracking Russian content. “The move by Facebook to allow users to see if they liked or followed pages created by the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency is a very positive step,” said Schiff. Schiff doesn’t question any pernicious propaganda coming from the Democratic or Republican National Committees or any other U.S. or foreign source.
