Jan 25, 2018 - Technology

Russian Facebook campaign included 100+ event pages

David McCabe

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a suit — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Photo: Guillermo Gutierrez/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Facebook told the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this month that public pages involved with the Russian 2016 election interference campaign created 129 events on the platform that tens-of-thousands of users said they planned to attend.

Why it matters: It's become increasingly clear that one tactic of Russian operators was to create the potential for offline events that would sow discord among Americans. In at least some cases they were successful.

About 338,300 "unique accounts viewed these events," according to Facebook's response to written questions from the committee.
Roughly 25,800 accounts said they were "interested in an event," which were created by 13 pages associated with a Russian troll farm, and about 62,500 said they were attending.

Yes, but: "We do not have data about the realization of these events," Facebook said.

Go deeper: Read Facebook, Twitter and Google's full responses to the committee.

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Russian Facebook campaign included 100+ event pages

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