From Gennady Rudkevich (@grudkev), Assistant Professor in International Relations at Georgia College:

While it’s troubling Russia used social media to interfere in the US election, the claim this had a major impact currently lacks support.

The Russian effect was minimal for 2 sets of reasons: the impact of social media in general and the Russian share of the social media pie.

(This argument is limited to the effectiveness of Russia’s social media campaign, not its cyberattacks or relationships with US officials.)

1. Social media spending by the GOP/DNC was ~$500m. Interest groups added to that tally. Russia spent a few million.

2. Russia's blamed for 80k Facebook posts, many w/o political content. There were 1 billion political tweets in '16.

3. The Russian trolls' main emphasis was inciting communal hatred. Political ads were a small part of that campaign.

4. The largest Russian accounts had 50-150k Twitter followers. Top political influencers (like Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter) have millions.

5. The main social media impact is on the same side’s voter turnout (see article). GOP turnout didn’t increase.

6. For fake news: the largest effect is on the converted. The impact would be on turnout. Turnout didn't increase

7. Fake news in general has an insignificant effect. A truly effective fake news ad can increase vote share by 0.01% (same source as above).

8. Social media can influence elections when one of the candidates has low name recognition. Wasn't the case here

9. Social media has no more of an impact than TV ads. The 2 parties spent $4.4 billion on TV ads. Russia did not.

10. Lastly, it's too soon. It takes years to conduct & publish studies. It's irresponsible to make serious claims without serious evidence.
Sources: