After US, Russia May Target Elections In India, Brazil, Says Oxford Expert

An Oxford University, England, social media expert warned Russian hackers may target media in countries like India and Brazil to influence the upcoming elections in these nations. During a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Foreign Influence on Social Media Platforms on Wednesday, Philip N. Howard spoke about Russia’s interference through media.

A professor of internet studies at the Oxford Internet Institute, Howard said the situation could be more dangerous in countries where the media was not as professional as that of the United States.

The explanation was in response to a question from Sen. Susan Collins after Howard gave examples of such interference in the Hungarian media.

“The United States actually has the most professionalised media in the world. It's learned certainly to evaluate their sources and no longer report tweets as is given,” he said. “I would say that the greater concern would be amongst the media institutions in our democratic allies. I believe that the Russians have moved from targeting us, in particular, to Brazil and India; other enormous democracies that will be running elections in the next few years.”

“While we still see significant Russian activity, those countries have the media institutions that need learn, need to develop,” he added, without explaining his allegations further, Indian daily Business Standard reported.

The hearing was held on all social media platforms with focus on the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.

“The committee in a bipartisan fashion, has addressed this issue head-on. In May, we released the initial findings of our investigation into Russia's targeting of election infrastructure during the 2016 election. Today's hearing is an extension of that effort,” Sen. Richard Burr said.

Sen. Mark Warner, Senate Intelligence Committee's vice chairman, alleged, “Russian active measures have revealed a dark underbelly of the social media ecosystem."

“These active measures have two things in common: First, they're effective. And second, they are cheap. For just pennies on the dollar, they can wreak havoc on our society and in our elections. And I'm concerned that even after 18 months of study, we are still only scratching the surface when it comes to Russias information warfare,” Warner said.

Speaking about Russia’s interference in the elections, Sen. Dianne Feinstein claimed Facebook alleged the former’s Internet Research Agency (IRA) activity on its platform alone reached 126 million people.

“What can you say about the extent to which the IRA activity reached real Americans?" he asked.

Apart from Facebook, Laura Rosenberg, director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy and senior fellow at The German Marshall Fund of the United States, said Reddit also confirmed hundreds of IRA-created accounts and Tumblr is being used to target the African-American community particularly.

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence conducted a probe on Russian meddling in the U.S. elections in January 2017 following a declassified report by Director of National Intelligence describing the efforts led by Russian President Vladimir Putin to interfere with the presidential election by releasing damaging information about candidate Hillary Clinton to help Trump.