Back in April, Facebook published a report called "Information Operations and Facebook" that detailed the company's efforts to combat fake news and other misinformation campaigns on the site. The report was released in the midst of an uproar over potential Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. But the report doesn't mention Russia by name, saying only that Facebook's data "does not contradict" a January report by the Obama administration detailing Russian meddling in the election.

On Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the decision not to mention Russia was hotly debated inside Facebook. An earlier draft of the report discussed what Facebook knew at that time about Russian meddling, but that material was ultimately removed from the report before publication.

"Some at Facebook pushed to not include a mention of Russia in the report because the company’s understanding of Russian activity was too speculative, according to one of the people," according to the Journal.

In the months since that April report, Facebook has learned more about the Russian government's activities. In September, Facebook revealed that suspected Russian government operatives purchased $100,000 worth of targeted political ads on Facebook. Facebook says the ads reached 10 million users. Facebook told The Wall Street Journal that it didn't uncover key evidence about these ads until after the April report was published.

“At the time that we published the white paper we were not in a position to know for sure who was behind the activity that we described and we did not feel comfortable making a definitive attribution,” a Facebook spokesman said.

These ads are just one facet of a broader Russian campaign to influence the US political process. For example, Russia is also suspected of creating hundreds of fake accounts on Facebook and Twitter to manipulate political debate in the United States. One of these accounts, called "Blacktivist," advocated against police violence and mass incarceration and racked up 360,000 likes.

And, of course, the Russian government has been active off of Facebook, too. The Russian government is suspected of hacking the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton Campaign Chair John Podesta and leaking the e-mails to journalists.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has vowed to be more vigilant about Russian attempts to manipulate political discussion on Facebook—both in the United States and in other democratic countries.