Some lawmakers say Congress should start regulating Facebook after the social media giant said Russia tried to sow division and mistrust before and after the 2016 U.S. election, NBC News reports.
Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Mark Warner, D-Va., along with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., last month introduced a bill to help prevent foreign interference in future elections and improve the transparency of online political ads.
Rep. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., and Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., introduced the same legislation in the House.
"This is a very good start in terms of setting up expectations of transparency and disclosure," said Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md., House chairman of his party's Democracy Reform Task Force. "Online platforms have a great deal of political power."
A group known as the Internet Research Agency, which U.S. intelligence says is a "state-funded organization that blogs on tweets on behalf of the Kremlin," purchased over 3,000 Facebook ads which focused on racial issues, the LGBT movement, gun rights, and illegal immigrants designed to disrupt the 2016 presidential election and further divide an already polarized nation.
Facebook last month revealed as many as 126 million people saw Russian-linked posts on its platform between 2015 and August 2017.
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