In an official statement released on Thursday, Alphabet Inc’s search engine Google (NASDAQ:$GOOGL) revealed that it discovered no evidence on its advertising platforms of the ongoing suspected Russian propaganda during President Trump’s election campaign. This report came after Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:$FB) reported a positive finding under the same scenario.
In its official statement, Google indicated: “We’re always monitoring for abuse or violations of our policies and we’ve seen no evidence that this type of ad campaign was run on our platforms.”
The ongoing investigation began in March, when a disturbing report hit the desks of U.S. counterintelligence officials in Washington. This report revealed details of Russia’s influence operation against the 2016 presidential election. Specifically, Russians were speculated to have sent expertly tailored messages carrying malware to more than 10,000 Twitter users in the Defense Department. It is understood that the vast openness and anonymity of social media was used to generate a new route for anti-democratic forces.
In Facebook’s case, Brad Parscale, Trump’s campaign digital strategist played the most significant role in the investigation. The campaign had designated liaisons from both Facebook and Google working inside Parscale’s San Antonio-based office who were intimately involved in the inner workings of the digital and data team. During the campaign, the Trump campaign implemented up to 50,000 variants of its Facebook ads a day. After a thorough internal investigation, Facebook officially reported a total of $100,000 worth in advertising spending by hundreds of fake accounts and pages, likely operated out of Russia.
Google intends to implement an ongoing investigation on such subject matter, especially within its advertising platforms.
Featured Image: twitter
