influence last year s presidential poll. some of facebook s huge profits came from entities that wanted to influence the u.s. election the internet giant has now admitted that fake accounts created in so-called troll factories and russia had an impact with posts that were widely shared the question is how big of an impact. the messages were incendiary that were heavily partisan the content is really really striking and that s the kind of stuff that gets shared for free and you don t have to pay to get that to too many people one of facebook s legal advisers has admitted that the platform should have done more tech clamp down on fake accounts the most recent numbers indicate that in the space of the two years ahead of the last election one brush based group generated some eighty thousand posts that reached around one hundred twenty six million users that s roughly half of the people eligible to vote in the u.s. election facebook says it s now taking steps to address the problem c.e.o.
your chairman says he planned to have a public hearing next month. i think one of the big questions is we know russian bots and troll factories took out fake news ads on facebook. is there any indication that any of these russians who were behind the social media campaign were givenny information fromny americans on the best way to in influence the election via social media? well, jake, we don t have the answer to that yet. it s one of the reasons why we want to hear from facebook. we ll hear from fwitwitter next week. what we do know in terms of the investigations russian hacked into and released information on one party to help mr. trump and hurt clinton. they attacked 21 states electoral systems and unfortunately our department of homeland security hasn t shared that information. so i m not premard how we stop them coming back next year. and we increasingly know that
that struck me yesterday, too, and didn t get a lot of pick up in the discussion. it was comey s comment about how russia remains the biggest threat the world over. yes, i mean, i thought it was quite an extraordinary statement that didn t get enough attention. they are the most maligned actor on the world stage. not just affecting the united states but nations all around the world. they continue to undermine democracy, undermine democratic world organizations like the u.n., like nato. they are doing it in nefarious ways. they are using organized crime. they are using troll factories. they are all along a continuum they have been using for decades now. comey is aware of their role in world politics. i think it s fair that he talks about it. are you worried sort of in your former role, in our former life, are you watching what is
thank for being here with us. thank you. we were talking before we came on the air about something that struck me yesterday, too, and didn t get a lot of pick up in the discussion. it was comey s comment about how russia remains the biggest threat the world over. yes, i mean, i thought it was quite an extraordinary statement that didn t get enough attention. they are the most maligned actor on the world stage. not just affecting the united states but nations all around the world. they continue to undermine democracy, undermine democratic liberal organizations like the u.n., like nato. and they re doing it in nefarious ways. they re using organized crimes, they re using troll factories. they are all along a continuum they have been using for decades now. comey is aware of their role in
joining our conversation is rick stengel. thank for being here with us. thank you. we were talking before we came on the air about something that struck me yesterday, too, and didn t get a lot of pick up in the discussion. it was comey somment autow russia remains the biggest threat the world over. yes, i mean, i thought it was quite an extraordinary statement that didn t get enough attention. they are the most maligned actor on the world stage. not just affecting the united states but nations all around the world. they continue to undermine democracy, undermine democratic world organizations like the u.n., like nato. they are doing it in nefarious ways. they are using organized crime. they are using troll factories. they are all along a continuum they have been using for decades now.