Twitter and Facebook executives testify before Congress – as it happened
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Your support makes all the difference.Five months after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg appeared before Congress, the US government once again invited tech executives to a series of high profile hearings.
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey first faced the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, before Mr Dorsey was questioned on his own by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Notably absent from the proceedings was Google, after the firm failed to send a senior executive to Washington. In place of a Google representative, the Senate committee left an empty chair.
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The hearings went slightly better than Mr Zuckerberg's venture to the Capitol in April, when members of Congress needed explanations of some of the platform's basic functions. This time, they challenged the executives with hard-hitting questions about foreign actors and political bias.
The questioning was interrupted several times by conservative media figures like Alex Jones and Laura Loomer. Both were escorted out of the hearing, but continued broadcasting their views loudly to reporters waiting in the hallways.
Senator Joe Manchin moves the conversation onto the issue of illegal drugs being advertised and sold on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – the Facebook-owned photo-sharing platform – which is done through the sharing of hashtags by dealers for prospective buyers to find products in their local area.
"To what extent do you feel responsible" for drug overdose deaths that are facilitated through your platforms, he asks.
There is a silence as neither Sandberg nor Dorsey want to respond.
Eventually Sandberg takes the lead and says it is prohibited by Facebook, which Dorsey once again echoes.
Senator Manchin isn't content with this response, saying the question he asked was "do y'all feel responsible?"
He proposes new laws to put the legal burden on the companies, in the same way as it is with human trafficking.
Here's more on Twitter's share price, which has been plummeting since the start of the Senate hearing:
Google's absence has consistently been noted throughout this hearing.
It's safe to say the tech giant is not very popular on Capitol Hill right now.
Here's The Independent's Cait Morrison on the elephant not in the room:
"Other states are now using the Russian playbook," Chairman Burr says in his closing statements.
"How many copycats will we see before we take this seriously?" he asks.
As the hearing is wrapped up, Alex Jones is lurking outside waiting to pounce on Jack Dorsey. He's live streaming the whole thing on Twitter. Stay tuned...
The InfoWars team is covering every door outside the Senate hearing, waiting for Dorsey's emergence.
"Senators are slinking out," Jones says. "Now they have these hearings demonizing me, I'm gonna show up."
We're still waiting for Dorsey.
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