The Russia Investigation, Twitter Edition

What impact did Russia play in the 2016 presidential election? While it may be impossible to quantify, we may soon get a better understanding of some of the inner workings, as Twitter Inc TWTR's executives will be speaking with government officials.

Twitter executives will brief members of the Senate and House intelligence committees on Thursday to discuss their investigation of Russian interference, The New York Times reported. Hundreds of accounts on the Twitter platform are suspected to have links to Russia.

Twitter's platform may have been the most-used social media platform to spread false news stories and promote articles about emails from Democratic operatives obtained by hackers originating in Russia, according to the Times. Twitter has struggled for years to rid its platform of fake accounts, as it doesn't require users to provide their real name and allows automated accounts on the platform.

Also, it is much easier to create a large number of "Twitter bots" versus rival social media platforms that can be controlled by just one person.

In the meantime, Twitter's executives have been tight-lipped on Russia's use of its social media platform. The company will likely be asked to explain in its briefing on Thursday what actions it has taken to discover covert Russian activity and to perhaps explain its reach and impact.

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