Report Digs Into Russian Disinformation for Trump, Washington Post Says

(Bloomberg) -- The Senate Intelligence Committee will release a report this week that was the first to study the millions of social media posts provided to Congress detailing Russian efforts to help elect President Donald Trump, according to a Washington Post story Sunday.

The panel hasn't endorsed the conclusions in the report, prepared for the Senate by Oxford University researchers, according to the Post, which said it obtained a draft. But the findings rely on data provided to the committee and members of the House Intelligence panel by companies such as Alphabet Inc.'s Google and Facebook Inc. It will be one of two reports the committee will release this week, according to the Post.

The report by Oxford University researchers provides details of known efforts by the Russian government's Internet Research Agency to support Trump's election in 2016 and stoke divisions in the U.S. electorate, with posts on topics such as race or guns, the newspaper said.

According to the Post, the report said the companies did not provide all useful information, and it accused Facebook of sharing only posts from Russian accounts that bought ads and not those from other government accounts. “The researchers struggled to interpret” data from Google's YouTube as well, the newspaper said.

The companies did not immediately comment to the Post, nor did the Senate panel, the newspaper said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Brody in Washington at btenerellabr@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, Mark Niquette, Virginia Van Natta

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.