What the Russians
did on social media during the 2016 election was not illegal. It may have been mean-spirited or morally
dishonest, but it did not violate the law.
It's not illegal to create bots on social media, and it's not illegal to
spread fake news, unless it violates an old, somewhat irrelevant law, such as
libel. See
This article reports
on the creation of millions of Twitter bots, many based on real people, which
are sold to minor celebrities and others to increase the number of their
Twitter followers. The article implies
in passing that fake users may also be a problem for Facebook, but it only
reports on Twitter. Facebook has
somewhat more stringent controls on who can open a Facebook account, while
Twitter has almost no controls. It does,
however, claim that it does not want fraudulent users and removes them when
they are called to its attention.
The Twitter bots in
the article are mostly used for advertising, but some are political; usually
there are bots that espouse both sides of controversial issues, some leftist
bots, some conservative bots. However,
the article does not claim that this activity violates any laws, although it
may violate Twitter policies.
If it's not illegal
for a company in Miami to do this, it doesn't seem like it is illegal for a
business (or government) in Moscow to do so.
Fake news is a problem, but so far not illegal. The bigger problem is that Americans are so
gullible that they fall for it. I don't
see how the government is going to limit fake news without getting into
censorship. Alreeady I think some of the
procedures instituted by Twitter and Facebook border on censorship, although as
private entities they do not have same high bar that the government does.
Another
consideration is that through the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe the US has
directed news at the old Soviet Union, and now at Russia for many years.
Although it was not fake, it was intended to bring down the Soviet Union, and
it did. I would guess, although I do not
know of an example, that the CIA has planted fake news over the years.
In a brief web
search, I found this article about the CIA deceiving not only the Soviet Union,
but the American people as well.
What's going on now
with fake news is bad, but it's not new.
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