Facebook and Twitter will dispatch top executives to Capitol Hill this week to try to assuage lawmakers who fear that Russian propaganda and political censorship continue to plague the world’s most popular social media sites.
The back-to-back House and Senate hearings scheduled for Wednesday illustrate the new political reality for Silicon Valley, as Democrats and Republicans alike increasingly seem willing to regulate how the industry moderates content online — and eager to subject its once-untouchable executives to intense public scrutiny.
The political gantlet [sic] begins in the Senate, where the Intelligence Committee will host Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, and Jack Dorsey, the chief executive of Twitter. They’ll testify — their first time on Capitol Hill — at a hearing on foreign governments that spread misinformation on social media.