Reports indicate that online search giant Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is conducting an internal investigation with a view to determining whether entities connected to Russia used its services or ads to manipulate votes before the 2016 U.S. presidential election. This follows revelations by Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) and Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) that their sites were used by Russian actors during the same period.

At the same time Google is also in communication with congressional officials who are carrying out investigations into the efforts by Russia to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Once the internal investigation has been completed Google intends to share the findings with the congressional officials.

“We will of course cooperate with inquiries. We’re looking into how we can help with any relevant information,” a Google spokesperson said.

Online scrutiny

In the past month congressional officials have scrutinized Twitter and Facebook for evidence of Russians using their platforms to influence the outcome of the election. In the days leading to the potential encounter with congressional leaders, Google has revealed little. Earlier in the month the search giant indicated that it had not come across any evidence suggesting that actors linked to Russia bought any election-related ads on its platform. However, Google did not say how deep or broad its investigation was. It also did not reveal whether Russia-linked actor may have exploited its platform in other ways in their election-meddling efforts.

Google has also not revealed whether it will honor an invitation to testify on November 1 from the Intelligence committee of the U.S. Senate. Twitter and Facebook had also been invited but they have also not disclosed whether they will honor the invitation.

YouTube user base

Though it is not clear what kind of activity, if at all there was any activity by Russians, took place on Google’s platforms, the search giant runs the largest advertising business in the world as well as the biggest online video platform – YouTube, and there are thus few reasons for investigators not to seek more information. YouTube is also one of the biggest social media communities in the world boasting of monthly users numbering over 1.5 billion compared to Twitter’s 328 million and Facebook’s two billion.

On Friday shares of Alphabet Inc rose by 0.92% to close the day at $973.72.