Facebook to Take Broader Look at Possible Russian Role in Brexit Vote
Milner said that We would be very interested in receiving any information, including intelligence assessments or reports,
that you and the U.K. government may have that is relevant to this work,
Facebook faces a greater challenge in identifying potential Russian activity around the Brexit vote — if any exists —
because British intelligence agencies have not identified a list of suspected accounts, as the American agencies did.
After the British Parliament asked Facebook, Twitter
and other social media companies last year for information on any Russian efforts to sway the vote, Facebook said in December that it had found no evidence of manipulation.
But lawmakers complained that Facebook’s internal research had been inadequate, and on Wednesday, the social media giant acknowledged
that its previous investigation had focused only on the Russian-linked accounts already identified by United States intelligence agencies as having been active in the 2016 presidential election.
Damian Collins, the Conservative member of Parliament leading the inquiry, said in a statement, however,
that "companies like Facebook should initiate their own research into issues like this, where there is such clear public concern, and not just act on intelligence that has been passed to them." "They are best placed to investigate activity on their platform."
Reports that the Kremlin had used Facebook and other social media to try to sway elections in the United States, France and other countries have raised widespread suspicions
that it had played the same game in the June 2016 British referendum.