The Investigation into Russia’s Influence in the 2016 Election Continues as New Information is Revealed

The Russia Investigation unravels as Google revealed the exploitation of its platform by Russian operatives, who attempted to use this platform in order to influence the 2016 election in Donald Trump’s favor.

Tens of thousands of ads were bought by Russian agents who intended to spread false information across many of its platforms, including Youtube, Gmail, and Google ads. The ads, however, do not appear to be from the same Kremlin influence that was responsible for the ads on Facebook.

Andrea Faville, a Google spokeswoman, talked about Google in a comment to the Washington Post saying that the company is “always monitoring for abuse or violations of our policies and we’ve seen no evidence this type of ad campaign was run on our platforms.” Although no evidence was found, Congress forced technology companies to figure out how Russian operatives used social media to influence the election.

According to the Washington Post, the company made a statement saying, “We are taking a deeper look to investigate attempts to abuse our systems, working with researchers and other companies, and will provide assistance to ongoing inquiries.” Google is currently looking at ads in order to distinguish whether they came from people attempting to create drama or actual Russian accounts.

Another popular social media platform, Twitter, said that it shut down accounts associated with the Internet Research Agency, and that a Kremlin linked news site spent over $200,000 on its platform in 2016. Executives for Facebook and Twitter have agreed to testify before Congressional investigators on November 1st; Google has not yet agreed.