The Russian government interfered in our 2016 U.S. presidential election to harm the campaign of Hillary Clinton, boost the candidacy of Donald Trump, and sow political and social discord here. Not only were influence specialists within Russia's Internet Research Agency (IRA) purchasing normal social media advertisements, they were also authoring their own posts, memes and other content – while posing as Americans. They also reached out to politically active Americans, posing as like-minded supporters, and helped organize rallies and other events in the real world. Facebook says the IRA may have reached as many as 126 million people. Twitter announced that about 1.4 million people may have been in contact with IRA-controlled accounts. It is known Trump’s campaign manager furnished internal polling data to the Russians to enable the IRA to target specific ads at specific groups of people. Although many of these deceptive actions are not technically illegal, democracy advocates wish to make them so.

Pending legislation: H.R.2599 - Honest Ads Act
Sponsor: Rep. Derek Kilmer (WA)
Status: House Committee on House Administration
Chairperson: Rep. Bryan Steil (WI)

Tweet