After meeting with a Facebook executive on Wednesday, the House Intelligence Committee investigating possible Russia interference turned its attention to Cambridge Analytica, the data mining company that worked on President Donald Trump's campaign.
A top executive from Facebook on Wednesday met with House members conducting investigations into Russia-linked ads ahead of a Nov. 1 House Intelligence Committee hearing at which Facebook, Twitter and Google will testify, Fox News noted.
California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the panel, said Facebook's chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg was serious about the issue despite members of Congress harbouring concerns that the company was not willingly sharing information.
Sandberg said Facebook was "determined to take whatever steps are necessary to ferret out foreign actors creating fake identities and using their platform," Schiff noted, according to Fox News.
More than 3,000 ads Facebook traced to a Russian internet agency were turned over to congressional committees, Fox News reported, adding that. Schiff and Rep. Mike Conaway said they expect those ads will eventually be released.
According to The Daily Beast, part of the House’s investigation into Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 race will now include the work that Cambridge Analytica did for Trump’s campaign.
A source familiar with the committee’s work revealed that the company was handing over documents to the House, while another source close to investigations said the probe on Cambridge Analytica was proving to be "fruitful," The Daily Beast reported.
A Cambridge Analytica spokesman took issue with the report, saying it had "significant inaccuracies," The Hill reported.
"As one of the companies that played a prominent role in the election campaign, Cambridge Analytica has been asked by the House Intelligence Committee to provide it with information that might help its investigation," the spokesman said, according to The Hill.
"We believe that other organizations that worked on the campaign have been asked to do the same. [Cambridge Analytica] is not under investigation, and there is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by the company," he said.
When profiling voters for targeting political ads, Cambridge Analytica claims to look at the whole picture, including Facebook likes, to compile its data.
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