Press. voanews.com
Tempers flared
as U.S. lawmakers grilled Facebook, Twitter and Google representatives about
Russia's use of their platforms to spread disinformation during the 2016
presidential campaign, as well as the companies' efforts to prevent a repeat.
"You must
do better to protect the American people and, frankly, all of your users from
this kind of manipulation," Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard
Burr, a Republican from North Carolina, told attorneys for the tech giants at a
hearing on Wednesday.
"I don't
think you get it," Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat from California,
said. "What we're talking about is a cataclysmic change. … What we're
talking about is a major foreign power with the sophistication and ability to
involve themselves in a [U.S.] presidential election and sow conflict and
discord all over this nation."
Feinstein
stressed that social media companies bear ultimate responsibility for the
material that gets posted on their sites. "You've created these platforms,
and now they are being misused. And you have to be the ones to do something
about it -- or we [Congress] will," she said.
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