Social media companies face Congressional committee fire about Russia-linked political ads

Facebook Inc, Google and Twitter Inc received an unaccustomed grilling and even ridicule in their first appearance before Congress over Russian meddling in last year’s presidential campaign. (File Photo)

Facebook Inc, Google and Twitter Inc – technology powerhouses actively cultivating their influence in Washington – received an unaccustomed grilling and even ridicule in their first appearance before Congress over Russian meddling in last year’s presidential campaign. Two hearings on Wednesday may bring more of the same for top attorneys from the companies, who were forced to acknowledge to a Senate Judiciary subcommittee Tuesday that they aren’t sure they’ve measured the full extent of foreign manipulation of their social networks and don’t yet have the technology to ensure it won’t happen again.

“We need to understand the behavior and we need to have the capacity both as a company and as an industry to be able to track it and eradicate it,” said Colin Stretch, Facebook’s general counsel. He said the company will double its safety and security staff to 20,000, including contract workers, by the end of 2018 to help track foreign interference and extremist postings.
The companies stopped short of endorsing proposed legislation that would require them to disclose all purchasers of political advertising, as old-line broadcasters have long been required to do. While some Republicans said such requirements would raise constitutional questions, Democrats on the panel said Congress must act.

The ridicule came from Democratic Senator Al Franken, who expressed amazement that Facebook had failed to detect Russians were behind American political ads on its platform even though some of them were paid for in rubles. “People are buying ads on your platforms with rubles! They’re political ads,” the senator from Minnesota said. “You can’t put together rubles with a political ad and go like, ‘Hmmm, those two data points spell out something bad?’” “It’s a signal we should have been alert to and in hindsight, it’s one we missed,” said Stretch, who received the most questions among the internet-company witnesses and the most prodding from lawmakers to respond directly rather than sticking to Facebook talking points.

The debate over proposed legislation will be rejoined as attorneys for the companies appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee in the morning and the House Intelligence Committee in the afternoon. Judiciary Committee member Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, told reporters Tuesday that legislation is needed because “I doubt they found all the ads and posts. The practice and potential abuse are ongoing right now. Disinformation is going to become exponentially more rampant.” Some Republicans said they were skeptical not only about legislation but also efforts the companies may make to restrict what can be said on their platforms.

“The prospect of Silicon Valley companies actively censoring speech or the news content is troubling” to anyone who cares about the First Amendment, said Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. He cited Twitter blocking a campaign video by Republican Representative Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee in which she underscored her opposition to abortion with a reference to the “sale of baby body parts.” “Free expression and free speech are at the core of the Twitter mission and we do everything we can to enable that,” said Sean Edgett, Twitter’s acting general counsel.

The scope of Russian interference was drawn in prepared testimony to the subcommittee by Facebook’s Stretch. He said that 29 million people on the platform were directly served content from accounts backed by the Internet Research Agency, a pro-Kremlin Russian group.

After those posts were liked, shared and commented on via Facebook’s social network, they landed in the News Feeds of about 126 million people at some point over a two-year period, the testimony shows. That’s equivalent to about 40 percent of the US population. There was also some jousting among lawmakers over whether Moscow may have helped swing the presidential election.

Under questioning from the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dianne Feinstein of California, Stretch said about 25 percent of the ads linked to the Internet Research Agency were targeted to specific states. But he said he didn’t have details about timing and whether those were swing states in the presidential election.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, sought to underscore that the bulk of ads being reviewed by his committee didn’t favor one presidential candidate over the other. He said many were designed simply to foment racial tension and division. After the presidential election, Stretch testified, Facebook “saw a lot of activity fomenting discord about the validity” of President Donald Trump’s victory.