*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.
This morning on Cheddar Big News: President Trump says a pardon is "not off the table" for his former campaign chairman Paul Mananfort; families of victims of the Santa Fe, Tex. school shooting sue the parents of the gunman; and highlights from the National Tree Lighting in Washington, D.C.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Thursday, Nov. 29, 2018.
Committees in the New Jersey state Senate and Assembly may have both approved a bill that would legalize recreational marijuana in the state, but the bill's success isn't certain, said Politico New Jersey Reporter Sam Sutton.
Facebook has failed to properly address its “black people problem,” a former employee told Cheddar Wednesday. Earlier this month, former partnerships manager Mark Luckie sent a searing memo criticizing the company’s lack of racial diversity to Facebook employees shortly before he left his post. He recently published the memo, which quickly went viral.
TOMS Founder Blake Mycoskie told Cheddar in an interview he decided after the recent shooting in Thousand Oaks, Calif., near his home, that it was incumbent on businesses to act where lawmakers could not.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell addressed a luncheon Tuesday with a tone that suggested interest rate hikes may slow. Investors loved what they heard, and markets soared in the wake of Powell's remarks.
Venezuela, once a vibrant economy with some of the richest oil reserves in the world, is now in economic crisis. Brian Price, executive producer of a new documentary "Venezuela: State of Disaster," explores how a country with so much promise devolved into utter economic disaster, where hospital patients are now told to "bring their own lightbulbs" to surgery so the doctor can see.
After General Motors announced it will be closing several plants and reducing its workforce significantly, there was bipartisan criticism from Americans and Congress. Democrat Debbie Dingell, a representative from a small suburb of Detroit, told Cheddar that she was backing out of her support for President Trump's trade policies if they meant GM jobs would be going to Mexico.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, Nov. 28. 2018.
Columbus, Ohio, may not have won the bid for Amazon's HQ2, but the city isn't ready to retire its proposal quite yet. Mayor Andrew Ginther said the city's leaders plan to use their application as a road map to transform Columbus from a Midwestern destination into a national one.
