"Renee DiResta has been tracking disinformation on Facebook and other sites.“We told the tech companies that they had created a mass way to reach Americans. As a society we are asking how much responsibility these companies have toward ensuring that their platforms aren’t being gamed, and that we, aren’t being pushed toward disinformation. At congressional hearings, the tech companies admitted that the problem was far larger than they had originally said.Last year, Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged to Congress that more than 150 million users of its main site and Instagram, potentially saw inflammatory political ads bought by a Kremlin-linked company. DiResta says this is still just the tip of the iceberg. Minimizing the scope of the problem is “a naïve form of damage control.This isn’t about punishing Facebook or Twitter. This is us saying, this is important and we can do better.”
At www.nytimes.com
