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It’s not just Twitter, Facebook and Google that have faced heavy criticism on how things were handled during the 2016 election. Tumblr faced accusation from both researchers and Buzzfeed, the company has come out today to confirm that it’s uncovered 84 user accounts that have been linked to the Russian government and its Internet Research Agency (IRA).
The company says that the IRA employed more than thousand people to engage in electronic disinformation campaigns around the world by using fake social media accounts. In addition, the IRA-linked Tumblr accounts seemed to only be focused on the US and weren’t advertising. Instead, they were engaging in organic content.
Responding to this situation, Tumblr will be emailing everyone who liked, reblogged, replied to or followed an IRA linked account with the usernames included. The company will also be keeping a public record of usernames linked to the IRA or other state-sponsored propaganda groups.
The company says it will continue to monitor its service for similar activity in future events, and will take the same steps as it’s now to appropriately handle the situations, should evidence present itself. Tumblr adds that it’s the general public’s responsibility to be aware of the possibility of this type of disinformation occurring and everyone needs to remain skeptical.
