Facebook has shared some details about the Russian-operated profiles it discovered on its platform with Google, as the search giant — with the rest of the tech industry — continues to probe the extent to which Kremlin-backed misinformation spread through their websites during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
It is unclear if Google has found any suspicious ads or other content after evaluating Facebook’s data, an exchange of intel confirmed to Recode today by three sources familiar with the matter. At the very least, Google’s investigation appears to be much broader in scope than a similar one by Twitter, which had drawn the ire of Congress for appearing to be incomplete.
A Google spokesperson declined to comment for this story, as did a Facebook rep.
For now, though, Google is slated to deliver a private briefing to U.S. lawmakers studying Russia’s political tactics in the coming weeks, additional sources told Recode. A date does not appear to have been set.
And the search-and-advertising giant has been asked to join Facebook and Twitter at two upcoming hearings in the House and Senate where the industry will face questions — out in the open — about its safeguards against Russian political interference in the future.Earlier this month, Facebook announced that it found 470 Russia-driven accounts that had purchased 3,000 ads on its social network. Those ads, sources told Recode at the time, sought to stoke racial, religious and other social tensions in the United States, including around issues like Black Lives Matter and gun control.
