Did Russia Meddle in Brexit? A Social Media Study Casts Doubt
Twitter, in a separate response to the same committee, said it had examined accounts "previously identified as likely funded from Russian sources." The company said it found only one of those accounts
that promoted content about Brexit in the two months before the referendum: the Twitter account of Russia’s English-language news network, Russia Today.
Academics, lawmakers and journalists have raised the possibility
that Russian entities might have used social media around the time of the referendum — known as Brexit — just as the Kremlin was aggressively exploiting Facebook, Twitter and other platforms to try to influence the American presidential election.
Supported by By David D. Kirkpatrick LONDON — An academic study set to be released on Tuesday casts doubt on speculation
that Russia might have exploited social media to try to influence Britain’s 2016 referendum to leave the European Union.
Last week, Facebook said in response to a parliamentary committee examining the question
that the company had also found no evidence of significant Russian advertising on its platform around Brexit, although the details of the company’s internal inquiry were not disclosed.
Examining two weeks of tweets in June 2016, shortly before the June 23 referendum, the study found
that only 84 of the identified Russian accounts posted about the referendum, and they generated only 6,734 tweets or retweets.