Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sat for a grilling from Congress this afternoon.
Dorsey delivered lengthy testimony before the House Energy and Commerce committee to fend off charges of bias against the social media group. He also delivered something of a lecture about what Twitter is doing to crack down on disinformation campaigns, election meddling and problems ranging from cyber-bullying to the company's emergency outreach efforts during Hurricane Harvey.
The hearing adopted a more political mood than the Senate hearing this morning, with Congressman Pete Welch of Vermont complaining that the session was being held to address President Trump’s specious charges of anti-conservative bias on the part of social media groups.
President Trump has recently taken aim at Twitter, Facebook and Google, accusing them of political prejudice and saying just last month that they are “treading on very, very troubled territory and they have to be careful”.
A question was put to Dorsey from Greg Walden, the Republican chairman of the House committee about the extent to which the company's algorithms could squelch conservative opinions voiced via Twitter.
Joe Barton, a Republican from Texas, also accused Twitter of discriminating against conservatives.
But Dorsey fended off charges of bias from the contentious crowd.
“Let me be clear about one important and foundational fact: Twitter does not use political ideology to make any decisions, whether related to ranking content on our service or how we enforce our rules,” Dorsey said in his opening remarks which he read from his mobile phone.
“We believe strongly in being impartial and we strive to enforce our rules impartially. We do not shadowban anyone based on political ideology,” he added. “In fact from a simple business perspective and to serve the public conversation, Twitter is incentivized to keep all voices on the platform.”
Dorsey's testimony came after the Justice Department revealed it had arranged meetings with state attorneys general to discuss concerns that Facebook, Google and Twitter are “hurting competition and intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas”.
The Justice department said it had listen closely to today’s Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in which Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey were called to Capitol Hill to defend their failure to prevent cyber attacks from Russia on their platforms ahead of the last presidential election.
In a statement, the Justice Department said Attorney General Jeff Sessions “has convened a meeting with a number of state attorneys general this month to discuss a growing concern that these companies may be hurting competition and intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas on their platforms.”
11:00 AM: Facebook and Twitter chieftains face questions in US Senate over foreign influence peddling
In the Senate hearing earlier in the day, Dorsey and Sandberg were contrite about their companies' responses to the Russian cyber-attack on the 2016 presidential election this morning in delivering their testimonies before US senators who are orchestrating an investigation into the matter.
The pair of executives both apologized to leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee for failing to fully address the attacks by Russia on their platforms ahead of the US presidential election two years ago.
“We were too slow to spot this and too slow to act. This is on us,” Sandberg said at the Senate hearing. “This interference was completely unacceptable.”
Dorsey was similiarly apologetic in his testimony. “We acknowledge the real world negative consequences of what happened and take full responsibility to fix it,” he said.
Leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee extended an olive branch to both Sandberg and Dorsey after the Senate hearing kicked off at 9:30 and praised both Facebook and Twitter's efforts to bring an end to recent examples of foreign meddling arising on their platforms.
“My instinct is to applaud the diligence of your security teams and credit you with taking the problem seriously,” Committee chairman Richard Burr, a Republican of North Carolina, said.
Investors responded poorly, however, to the Congressional hearings which revealed social media platforms' vulnerability to hacking and data breaches.
The tech-laden Nasdaq composite tumbled 1.3% lower in the wake of Dorsey and Sandberg's testimony. Twitter shares dropped 1.9%, while Facebook lost 1.3%, and Google-parent Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) shed 2.1%.
Alphabet Inc's Google was invited to participate in today’s discussions, but no senior executive from the search engine came to Washington to testify.
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Burr had asked Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai or Alphabet’s CEO Larry Page to appear before the committee. Both declined, however, and the Senators were not satisfied with the company’s move to put forth general counsel Kent Walker as its representative.
In the interim, Google has posted Walker’s prepared testimony on its website.
“We have continued our efforts and work diligently to identify and remove actors from our products who mislead others regarding their identity,” Walker said in his statement. “We’ve continued to investigate activity by the Internet Research Agency and other Russia-affiliated entities since we testified before the Committee last year.”
Today’s hearing marks the second attempt by the Senate intelligence committee in the last year to arrange a discussion about the extent to which Facebook, Twitter and Google can influenced by foreign players.
And Facebook and other tech companies have disclosed in recent months a number of attempts whereby foreign governments have attempted to peddle misinformation via their platforms.
Facebook revealed, for example, in July that it had taken down a series of accounts that were attempting to gain political traction and had ties to the Russian government.
Just last month, Facebook and Twitter also both shut down accounts used for political disinformation that came from Iran.
Working with our industry peers today, we have suspended 284 accounts from Twitter for engaging in coordinated manipulation. Based on our existing analysis, it appears many of these accounts originated from Iran.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) August 22, 2018
Dorsey will also make an additional appearance at 1:30 pm before the House Energy and Commerce Committee to discuss how his company acts as a moderator for online content.
Both hearings can be watched in real time via the Senate Intelligence Committee website and the House Energy and Commerce committee website.
-- Updated with details of live testimony. Please check back as the story is ongoing. --