TWITTER TESTIFIES BEFORE US CONGRESS --- 27SEPT-2017

Both DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0, which spread the leaked emails and documents and were identified as having been created by Russian intelligence, used accounts that Twitter has not suspended, though they have been dormant for months. In some cases, the Russian exploitation of Facebook and Twitter was linked: “Heart of Texas,” a Facebook page advocating the secession of Texas that was identified as one of 470 fake profiles and pages linked to Russia, also had a Twitter feed — now suspended — called @itstimetosecede. Experts on Russia inside and outside the government say President Vladimir V. Putin had multiple goals in last year’s campaign of hacking, leaking and stealth propaganda. He hoped to damage, if not defeat, Mrs. Clinton, whom he blamed for encouraging pro-democracy protests in Russia and neighboring states. But Mr. Putin also sought to darken the image of the United States, making it a less attractive model for other countries and reducing its international influence, said Mark R. Jacobson, a Georgetown professor and co-author of a new report on Russian influence operations.

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Representatives of Facebook, Google and Twitter faced tough questioning before a US Senate hearing on Oct. 31, 2017. Al Franken a Democratic senator demanded to know why the social network accepted political advertisements paid for in Russian rubles. Anger over their role in Russian information operations is just one aspect of a rising tide of public discontent with Silicon Valley’s big tech firms. Once seen as the poster children for free market innovation, they now face scrutiny on both sides of the aisle for anti-competitive practices, tax avoidance and privacy-infringing data practices. In order to stave off regulation, tech firms have been pouring money into lobbying efforts in Washington to the point where they now outspend Wall Street two to one.