“We have a right to know what was going on,” Mr. Collins said. “Some of the activity took place directly before the referendum and certainly during the campaign — that’s why I wrote to Mark Zuckerberg asking him that Facebook should give us the information about Russian-backed activity on their platform.”
Earlier this month, Britain’s prime minister, Theresa May, accused Russia of meddling in Western elections and planting fake stories in the media to “weaponize information” and sow discord. She did not make specific assertions in relation to British elections, however, or to the Brexit referendum, the outcome of which her government is in the process of implementing.
The “leave” side received 52 percent of ballots cast in the referendum, a winning margin of about 1.3 million votes.
Those inclined to suspect Russian interference in the campaign say that the European Union’s economic sanctions on Russia for its intervention in Crimea — sanctions that Britain supports — may have given the Kremlin a strong interest in dividing the bloc.
An opposition lawmaker and former minister, Ben Bradshaw, called last month for a British government investigation into claims of Russian interference, adding that there were “questions” about Arron Banks, an insurance company owner and political gadfly who gave heavy financial backing to one of the campaign groups on the leave side.
That followed the publication of investigative reports into the financing of the campaign by the Open Democracy website, which included a detailed examination of Mr. Banks’s finances. No Russian link was proved, however, and Mr. Banks has dismissed the allegations.
In Facebook’s letter to Mr. Collins, Simon Milner, a policy director at the company, wrote that it had also been contacted “by the Electoral Commission’s head of regulation as they carry out their work looking at possible Russian interference in the Brexit referendum.”
“Given that your letter is about the same issue, we will share our response to the Electoral Commission with you,” Mr. Milner wrote.
Twitter’s response, by Nick Pickles, head of public policy for Twitter UK, similarly mentioned a request from the Electoral Commission. Mr. Pickles also argued that academic studies of potential disinformation campaigns on the social network “systematically underrepresent our enforcement actions,” for technical reasons.
The Electoral Commission said it was not conducting a specific inquiry into Russian involvement in the Brexit referendum but was looking for information on how the financing and use of social media during elections complied with British election law, which limits what campaigns can spend and bans them from accepting most foreign donations.
It is investigating Mr. Banks’s donations, and whether Vote Leave, the official campaign to quit the bloc, circumvented spending limits.
The post Facebook and Twitter Promise to Aid Inquiry on Russian Brexit Meddling appeared first on Article Pub.
from WordPress http://ift.tt/2zAiy0l
No comments:
Post a Comment