This post was made on 09/16/2018.
In 2016 it surfaced that Facebook had some Russian hackers meddling in the 2016 presidential election. It showed that these “hackers” made several political ads and websites in order to get more votes for presidential candidate Donald Trump. Facebook also shared data with Cambridge Analytica, which is a data-mining firm that had connections to Donald Trumps presidential campaign.
Since then, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckeeberg, has claimed that they have “gotten better” at dealing with such political hackers.
They have removed fake accounts, and have removed pages spreading disinformation. Not only has Facebook removed these dishonest pages, they have programmed the algorithm that makes users less likely to find themselves on these pages of disinformation.
Facebook has also made getting political ads a bit trickier. If you want to get a political ad on Facebook, you will have to verify that you are a U.S. citizen before you can get any ads. Facebook has also made a searchable database of all the political ads to keep track of all the data that is being collected from them.
Mark Zuckerberg is also very aware that in the future the “hackers” will get more complicated and harder to track down. He hopes that Facebook will evolve enough to avoid these types of attacks but only time will tell.
Zuckerberg also points out that Facebook was not the only social media website that was effected by these disinformation attacks. Reddit, Instagram, and Twitter are just some of the other social media platforms that have been effected too. These Social media companies need to communicate with each other if they are going to try and stop these cyber attacks on their platforms, Zuckerberg claims.
I think it is very important to point out that Facebook was not the only one effected by these “hackers”. I am certain that other social platforms have been effected, I just think it was Facebook who got caught doing it and the social media crucified them for it.
If we are going to blame the Russian hackers for causing Donald Trump to win the presidency in 2016, then we are willfully ignoring other factors that went into play over the election year. There were other things that caused Donald Trump to win, however I cannot deny that the Russian hackers had a part in it.
We have to remember that social media is still very new to us. We still have not been able to fully comprehend the power it has to influence people. Hopefully over the next political election we have, we will be more prepared and alert for these types of political ads that target people and get them caught in an echo-chamber of disinformation.
Source: Mark Zuckerberg Caims Facebook is “getting better” at Fighting Political Interference
Cyberleech 