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By Georgia Wells 

Facebook Inc. is contending with a new wave of criticism prompted by the U.S. indictment detailing how Russia manipulated social-media platforms -- and by a Facebook executive's attempts to address the issue.

The indictment on Friday against Russian companies and individuals described how an organization called the Internet Research Agency systematically used Facebook, Twitter Inc., and the YouTube arm of Alphabet Inc.'s Google to sow discord in the U.S. starting in 2014. The document's description of events showed that Facebook and its Instagram photo-sharing unit were particularly central to the alleged Russian attempts to influence U.S. public opinion.

The indictment renewed scrutiny of Facebook's role in the Russia influence campaign, with researchers who study social media saying it demonstrated that the company was ill-prepared for such efforts.

Comments by Facebook's head of advertising, Rob Goldman, after the indictment was handed down fueled further criticism. Mr. Goldman, writing on Twitter, said there are "easy ways to fight" the Russian campaign, starting with having a "well educated citizenry." He also said the Russian's main goal wasn't to sway the 2016 election, but more broadly to sow division in the U.S.

Mr. Goldman's series of eight tweets provoked a backlash, with more than 9,000 responses, many of them angry -- an unusual level of engagement for an account with fewer than 10,000 followers.

"You really are not in a position to preach and your astonishing tweets have created confusion and anger," Mainardo de Nardis, a senior executive at advertising giant Omnicom Group Inc., said in a tweet Sunday. "Enough damage done over the past 2+ years. In the absence of real actions silence would be appreciated." Mr. de Nardis didn't respond to requests for comment.

Mr. Goldman didn't respond to a request for comment. A Facebook spokesman said Mr. Goldman had sent his tweets in a personal capacity. The company pointed to a statement from Joel Kaplan, Facebook's vice president of global public policy, saying "Nothing we found contradicts the Special Counsel's indictments."

Russia's government has repeatedly denied any government effort to influence the U.S. election.

Facebook has struggled for much of the past year to respond to mounting ire from users, politicians, customers and others over its role in facilitating the spread of misinformation and divisive content.

While Facebook's role in the Russian campaign is in the spotlight, some researchers who have studied the efforts note that it was far from the only institution to fall short. "Let's not mince words. The Obama administration did not react quickly enough to this problem. The intelligence community did not react quickly enough to this problem," said Thomas Rid, professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Facebook has said it is taking a number of steps to prevent efforts like the Russian campaign from happening again, including hiring 10,000 new employees tasked with policing hate speech, as well as coming up with ways to uproot fake accounts. Facebook officials also have emphasized that the company provided information to special counsel Robert Mueller, who secured Friday's indictment as part of his investigation into whether Russia meddled in the 2016 campaign.

Mr. Goldman, too, emphasized that Facebook is taking "aggressive steps to prevent this sort of meddling in the future," including verification for all political advertisers.

Still, his comments struck some observers as tone deaf.

"It was an almost perfect example of Silicon Valley overconfidence and lack of sophistication when it comes to politics," said Josh Hendler, former director of technology for the Democratic National Committee, which suffered a cyberattack ahead of the 2016 election that U.S. officials blamed on Russia. "The tweets hit such a chord," said Mr. Hendler, who is now chief technologist of Purpose, a consulting firm focused on growing social movements.

The comments also fueled disagreement about the intent of the Russian efforts. One of Mr. Goldman's tweets said "swaying the election was *NOT* the main goal" of the Russian ads, and that "the majority of the Russian ad spend happened AFTER the election."

On Saturday, President Donald Trump cited Mr. Goldman's comment in support of the idea that Russia's actions didn't affect the election.

Following criticism that he was obscuring the intent of the Russians, Mr. Goldman later tweeted that "the Russian campaign was certainly in favor of Mr. Trump." He also dialed back some of his claims. "I am only speaking here about the Russian behavior on Facebook. That is the only aspect that I observed directly," he tweeted.

--Robert McMillan contributed to this article.

Write to Georgia Wells at Georgia.Wells@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 19, 2018 14:02 ET (19:02 GMT)

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