*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.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Monday, Dec. 10, 2018.
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
Times Square is known as the "crossroads of the world," but tell that to Stacey Cunningham. The CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, the first woman to hold the job in the exchange's 226-year history, said it's at the NYSE where capitalism, economics, politics and "the world at large" converge.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Friday, Dec. 6, 2018.
Los Angeles is taking a strong stance against single-use plastic straws: the local City Council is moving forward with its "Plastic Straws on Request" initiative with an ultimate goal to phase them out completely by 2021. "This has been a long time coming," Mitch O'Farrell, Los Angeles city council member, told Cheddar Thursday. "I wish that the city had acted 10, 15 years ago."
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Thursday, Dec. 6, 2018.
Medical marijuana is now legal in Utah, but not exactly in the form voters intended. Shortly after the medical marijuana initiative, Proposition 2, was scheduled to go into effect, the Utah state House and Senate swooped in and replaced it with a new law. Wayne Niederhauser, a Republican senator for Utah's 9th district, defended the move in an interview on Cheddar Wednesday.
Financial markets closed, mail delivery stopped, and federal offices shut down as the nation paused to remember the life of President George H.W. Bush, who will be memorialized during a state funeral at Washington's National Cathedral on Wednesday.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, Dec. 5, 2018.
The famously stoic president of France may have conceded on fuel taxes to protestors, but his decision was most likely a product of circumstance, not an act of altruism. In this case, said Erin Zaleski of the Daily Beast, Emmanuel Macron had no one with whom he could negotiate. But small concessions, like a fuel tax moratorium, won't be enough to satisfy protesters who are wreaking havoc in the streets of Paris.
