*By Carlo Versano*
Google is "missing an opportunity" by not sending a top official to Capitol Hill next week to testify on election interference and censorship, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) told Cheddar's J.D. Durkin on Wednesday.
Facebook and Twitter are both sending C-Suite executives ー COO Sheryl Sandberg and CEO Jack Dorsey, respectively ー to testify in front of both chambers on Sept. 5.
So far, Google has said it will only dispatch its general counsel, Kent Walker.
"We need policy makers, not simply their lawyers," Warner said.
The heads of the top social and web platforms will head to the Hill to answer questions about how they are combating misinformation campaigns from state actors like Russia and Iran ahead of the midterm elections. Additionally, they are expected to face pointed questions about censorship ー a topic that President Trump has been pushing, most recently on Wednesday afternoon when he told reporters, "I think they treat Republicans and conservatives very unfairly" and such handling "may not be legal."
That echoes the sentiment of several Trump tweets Tuesday which suggested that Google News technology suppressed conservative views. Economic adviser Larry Kudlow said the White House would look into the matter, but many questioned Trump's statements on their face.
"The president doesn't really understand how search algorithms work," Warner said, noting that content is ranked in searches as a result of computer calculations, not human action.
The last time officials from Facebook, Twitter, and Google testified together ー last November on the topic of Russian hacking ー the reaction from lawmakers was largely negative. Since then, each company has shown a more proactive approach to the policing of their platforms.
Warner said he hopes next week's hearings will be forward-looking. "We want to look at solution sets" for these complex problems, he said.
the White House released a memorandum that detailed a rough transcript of a July phone call between Trump and the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which revealed that Trump pushed the leader to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
Sabrina Singh, national press secretary for Cory Booker 2020, told Cheddar on Tuesday she is "cautiously optimistic" the campaign will meet its goal by the date.
President Trump reiterated his "America first" worldview and policy agenda on Tuesday in a speech at the United Nations that bemoaned globalism and instead urged mutual support among sovereign nations.
The decision largely stemmed from revelations that President Trump pressured Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden’s son and allegedly tied Congressionally-allocated U.S. military aid to the issue.
The idea: force companies to publicly disclose how their valuation would fare should climate change continue versus how they would do should temperature rise be capped at 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels.
The acclaimed Swedish teen climate activist slammed world leaders on Monday at the United Nations' Climate Action Summit in New York, condemning governments across the board for political apathy on the crisis.
‘We can either wait on Mother Nature — or we can give it a shot ourselves.’
New York City’s march was led by renowned Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16, who arrived in the U.S. late last month after a two-week journey across the Atlantic in a solar-powered yacht in an effort to draw attention to her cause.
Keith McCarty, CEO and founder of Wayv, wants to use tech to ease the many “friction points” in the complicated world of business-to-business cannabis logistics.
In a resolute response, California said it is set to launch a major legal challenge — one that will surely be lengthy and have broad implications on the way the U.S. confronts the climate crisis and on state's rights.
