Victims of online harassment weren’t alone in having their warnings ignored, however. As Silicon Valley and the State Department celebrated the role of social media in the Arab Spring, scholars like Harvard’s Rebecca Mackinnon and Stanford’s Evgeny Morozov observed that open platforms were also useful to dictators. Indeed, this “networked authoritarianism” as Mackinnon called it, can help propaganda spread more effectively.
Unlike other authoritarian states, Russia appears to have realized early on that a partially open Internet was more advantageous than a completely censored one. Given the Kremlin’s surveillance culture and imperialistic ambitions, it should have surprised no one that it might extend those technological aims toward the West.
In 2015, scholars of Russia noticed an infiltration of what appeared to be Kremlin-backed propaganda on US media platforms, the baffling promotion of then long-shot candidate Donald Trump in Russian state media, and the rise of crude Russian propaganda efforts like “Heart of Texas”, a Texas secessionist Facebook group. The group was documented by Russian-speaking journalist Casey Michel beginning in early 2016, but only in August 2017 did Facebook remove it. Today, “Heart of Texas” exists only as evidence presented at congressional hearings.
It is erroneous to say that Russian propaganda sealed Trump’s victory: a conflagration of factors made it possible, with Russia propaganda being just one part. Furthermore, the examples of Russian meddling that we have uncovered largely exploited preexisting social rifts and lent support to notoriously controversial US citizens, like conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. This makes sense when you look back at Clint Watt’s testimony. Having mapped the social media landscape years ago, foreign agents would have known who and what could help them reshape it.
Some Russian efforts, like “Heart of Texas,” were sloppy; others, like inviting Jones to appear on Kremlin-backed media outlet RT, were done in public. (Jones has denied any improper Russian contact.) The most troubling efforts were the believable impersonations of good-faith Americans and the swarms of anonymous bots who attempted to influence the public — spurring protests or causing topics to trend, for example — while remaining largely undetected.
But again, while these tactics were harder to observe, Russia’s overall agenda should not have surprised Congress or social media companies, given the long-running concerns of citizens and scholars knowledgeable both of social media and Russia’s historical geopolitical ambitions.
Unfortunately, the past few days of Congressional testimony suggests that tech company leaders remain obstinate and opaque. After confirming months ago that America had been targeted in a massive Russian propaganda op — and gradually admitting that the number of people exposed was much higher than initially admitted — Facebook and Twitter still refuse to make public the Russian propaganda accounts, although on Tuesday the House released dozens they had identified during their investigation. This is important, because without this information citizens cannot take stock of how they might have been influenced.
At the end of Tuesday’s hearings, Democratic Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island told Facebook’s General Counsel Colin Stretch that, under the First Amendment, Americans “who have been deliberately misled by a foreign government” must be notified. Stretch replied that this was such a tremendous undertaking that Facebook might not do it.
This answer is not good enough, especially given the resources companies like Facebook have and the responsibility they have to prevent their platforms from being used as propaganda tools. Facebook itself has acknowledged the need to stamp out “fake news.”
For years, social media users called on these companies — which now wield tremendous collective power — to protect people from harm. They did this while supplying ample evidence that the harm existed.
Now that the harm has led to a congressional inquiry involving alleged foreign actors, the old problems of online abuse and impersonation are finally being taken more seriously. But it should have never gotten this far, and an honest and transparent account of what happened is the only way to make sure it stops. Scholars and users have long supplied helpful warnings: Now it is Silicon Valley’s turn.
Sarah Kendzior is a journalist who lives in St. Louis, Missouri and covers politics, the economy and media.