Facebook,Twitter and Google once seemed to encapsulate freedom and connectivity. At a hearing on 1 November a new question will be posed: have they become a tool for foreign autocracies and domestic extremists?A showdown is looming in Washington between Congress and the powerful social media companies that have helped define the current unsettled age in western democracies.
The immediate issue before the Senate and the House intelligence committees, which have summoned representatives from Facebook, or Twitter and Google to seem on 1 November,is to determine the extent the companies were used in a multi-pronged Russian operation to influence the 2016 presidential election.[br] Related: 'Our pain for their gain': the American activists manipulated by Russian trolls What should alarm the American people is the brazen exploitation and distortion of celebrated opinion by a foreign power Related: How Russia used social media to divide Americans I don’t want anyone to consume our tools to undermine democracy. That’s not what we stand for Related: 'Our minds can be hijacked': the tech insiders who awe a smartphone dystopia The fact that we are in a democracy and we don’t know the answers to these questions is unacceptable Related: Franklin Foer: 'Big tech has been rattled. The conversation has changed' Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com