emptywheel

And how does that stat disprove that?

It shows that the Lakhta digital troll effort (think "earned media" vs. paid) DWARFED their ad effort, confirming my view that the paltry amount on FB was *seeding* rather than persuasion.

Oh. I get your point now. Thanks.

OK. How are you separating out the US part of Lakhta?

Maybe my assumption about the indictment is wrong -- I thought they were focusing their budgetary figures on the TRANSLATOR program but maybe I am wrong. Nonetheless, 90 person TRANSLATOR team is much more significant than the Facebook ads that FB has so far acknowledged.

It's not. That's global, including RU, which is why I raised that. But now you're treating TRANSLATOR as exclusively FB, not FB plus Twitter plus everything else. I think Twitter far too often gets a pass as FB gets all the attention, FWIW.

Due to my ex ante views of Facebook, their market scale (Twitter & Snap are teetering under FB's assault in ways that pique my interest as former DOJ antitrust lawyer), and import of platform I use them for synecdoche re social media writ large. Youtube also key.