“So if you were championing the best things about the internet, it was easy to be disappointed that it was hijacked to subvert the very things it could foster,” Ms. Kornbluh said. But she said few people in government were looking with a full view of how social media and other internet services posed national security, economic and other risks.

Mr. Ghosh and Mr. Scott played a leading role in helping to create the tech-friendly policies that helped companies like Facebook and Google flourish during the Obama administration. But as more information trickled out about the role played by technology firms in Russia’s attempts to influence the presidential election, they, like many Democrats, became disillusioned.

“We were always careful to condition our optimism and our advocacy that this technology was potentially a double-edged sword,” said Mr. Scott, who is a senior adviser to the Open Technology Institute at New America. “But I guess we didn’t expect them to hit home quite as hard as it did.”

Titled “#DigitalDeceit: Exposing the Internet Technologies of Precision Propaganda,” their report argues that the interests of internet giants in helping advertisers run persuasive campaigns are aligned with those of someone looking to spread misinformation.

The authors suggest a few ways to regulate the advertising technology industry, including requiring more transparency for political advertising, restricting data collection or ad targeting on political issues, and strengthening consumer protection and competition policies.

Republicans have also expressed concerns about internet giants. Many on President Trump’s campaign suspected that Google rigged search results in favor of Mrs. Clinton, questioning the influence of high-profile supporters of hers like Eric Schmidt, who is the former executive chairman of Google’s parent company, Alphabet. They were outraged by claims that Facebook manipulated its trending topics feature to push down results related to Republicans.

But increasingly, the most vocal criticism is coming from Democrats. Tom Wheeler, Mr. Obama’s head of the Federal Communications Commission, recently called for social media firms to make it easier to figure out how certain information goes viral, who is sending those posts and what impact that activity may have.