Mark Zuckerberg on Russian election meddling: 'What they did is wrong and we're not going to stand for it'
- Facebook's CEO says Russia-linked efforts to meddle in the US presidential election using its service were "wrong"
- He vowed to double staff working on safety and security this year
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg kicked off the company's Q3 earnings call on Thursday by training his fire on Russia, warning that efforts by some in the country to influence the US presidential election using Facebook would not go unanswered.
"What they did is wrong and we are not going to stand for it," Zuckerberg said.
"You know that when we set our minds to something we're going to do it," he continued.
Facebook warned on Thursday that its future profits would be negatively impacted by increased spending on security in the wake of the Russia-related revelations. Facebook plans to double the number of staffers focused on safety and security issues next year to 20,000, up from its current headcount of 10,000.
Facebook recently acknowledged that 126 million Americans are likely to have seen Russia-backed posts on its service aimed at swaying US politics between 2015 and 2017. Just before the 2016 US presidential election, for example, a Russian-backed group with 217,000 Facebook followers posted an illustration that depicted Hillary Clinton as a devil fighting Jesus.
Executives from Facebook, Twitter, and Google appeared before lawmakers on Tuesday and Wednesday to answer questions about their services' roles in spreading political disinformation.