Daily Mail: Facebook says 126 million Americans may have seen Russia-linked political posts over a two-year period - far more than previously thought
* Facebook Inc said Monday Russia-based operatives published about 80,000 posts on the social network over a two-year period
* It's estimated that 126million Americans saw posts that were an effort to sway U.S. politics
* New data was included in written testimony to lawmakers ahead of key hearings with social media and technology companies about Russian meddling
* Twitter Inc separately has found 2,752 accounts linked to Russian operatives
* Google, owned by Alphabet Inc, said in a statement on Monday it had found $4,700 in Russia-linked ad spending during the 2016 U.S. election cycle
Facebook Inc said Russia-based operatives published about 80,000 posts on the social network over a two-year period in an effort to sway U.S. politics and that about 126 million Americans may have seen the posts during that time.
Facebook's latest data on the Russia-linked posts - possibly reaching around half of the U.S. population of voting age - far exceeds the company's previous disclosures.
It was included in written testimony provided to U.S. lawmakers on Monday ahead of key hearings with social media and technology companies about Russian meddling in elections on Capitol Hill this week.
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WNU Editor: I for one am scratching my head right now on this Facebook claim. I have spent the past decade trying to understand the art of doing legitimate posts that will generate legitimate web traffic to WNU (and to some other web sites that I have an interest in). During this time I also talked and shared notes with others who have succeeded in generating significant traffic to their site .... and I always asked the same question .... how did they do it. Their answers have all been the same .... patience, hard work, luck, unique content, a search engine friendly site, and a little advertising. But with the exception of Instapundit .... no one has come close to achieving the results that Facebook is claiming that these Russian sites received in two years. I know in the case of WNU .... this site has been online for 10 years, and during this time I have done 86,701 posts. (this post will be 86,702). In terms of traffic .... according to Google .... there has been 78 million page views (which I estimate came from about 50,000,000 real visitors). In the beginning I had maybe 2 or 3 page views a day .... today I will probably hit 30,000 .... and that is the recipe for growing a website. But as for these Russian posts on Facebook .... I have seen some of these posts .... and they are junk. But this junk resulted in 126,000,000 Americans seeing it!?!?!?! And without the benefit of Google and other search engines?!?!?! As I said .... I am scratching my head. The numbers simply do not make sense. In closing .... sorry for going into the weeds on what is involved when it comes to web traffic. But if someone has a better explanation on how Facebook got this number as well as explaining to me how did these Russian operatives accomplished this .... I am all ears.
Hat tip to Fred for this post.