Facebook, Google, Twitter Reportedly Called To Testify For Senate Intelligence Committee
By: Kayla Pasacreta
According to Buzzfeed, the Senate Intelligence Committee has called representatives from Facebook, Google, and Twitter to testify about Russian attempts to sway the election. No members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have confirmed it to be true that they called on these companies to testify, but two members of the committee confirmed they spoke with Facebook CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg. This comes after Facebook's confirmation that a Russian toll force purchased up to 3,000 ads on Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg, photo via Getty Images
Senator Richard Burr (R-NC) and Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) confirmed public hearings with tech companies will begin in early November.
Ironically, Donald Trump bashed Facebook today for being anti-Trump. Trump tweeted today, "Facebook was always anti-Trump," Mark Zuckerberg responded to Trump's comments with disappointment in himself for not taking claims that Facebook had a role in spreading fake news seriously,
“After the election, I made a comment that I thought the idea misinformation on Facebook changed the outcome of the election was a crazy idea...Calling that crazy was dismissive and I regret it. This is too important an issue to be dismissive.”
There certainly was fake news floating around during the 2016 election, but this evidence is starting to suggest the fake news mainly benefitted Trump and helped secure his win. This certainly forces Americans to be more aware of what they consider to be news. The evidence also shows that intelligence agencies should now be on the look-out for non-traditional methods to sway the general public. With the popularity and prevalence of social media, it's clearly the best target to influence. People may not have voted illegally and election poll sites may not have been hacked, but it looks like Russian officials were certainly at work to hack the minds and ideals of voters.
