The fact that Russian-linked bots penetrated social media to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election has been well documented, and the details of the deception are still trickling out.
In fact, on October 17, Twitter disclosed that foreign interference dating back to 2016 involved 4,611 accounts — most affiliated with the Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm. There were more than 10 million suspicious tweets and more than 2 million GIFs, videos and Periscope broadcasts.
In this season of another landmark election — a recent poll showed that about 62 percent of Americans believe the 2018 midterm elections are the most important midterms in their lifetime — it is natural to wonder if the public and private sectors have learned any lessons from the 2016 fiasco — and what is being done to better protect against this malfeasance by nation-state actors.
There is good news and bad news here. Let’s start with the bad.
About the Author
More Content by Tiffany Olson Kleemann
