*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.
President Trump has already spurned key allies at the annual summit, accusing Germany of being a "captive of Russia." Cheddar's J.D. Durkin, who is on the ground in Brussels, gets into the latest.
The U.S. tariffs would only end up hurting the consumer and the automakers employees across its plants and distribution centers in America, says Zack Hicks, CEO and president of the Toyota Connected unit in North America.
President Donald Trump nominated the DC appellate court judge to replace Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, who's retiring at the end of the month.
A study finds male political reporters in Washington, D.C., retweet other men more than women. “Men and women are operating in gender echo chambers in Washington on Twitter,” says Nikki Usher, the lead author of the study.
Members of the military alliance are prepared to be spurned by the president and worry he may start to unravel the organization. But the Trump administration has, in fact, increased its spending on NATO, suggesting that worries surrounding the event might not turn transpire, says Dan Michaels, the Wall Street Journal Brussels bureau chief.
American cheese producers that rely heavily on exports are already feeling the impact of tariffs on their products, forcing them to reconsider their strategy completely, says Heather Hadden, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal.
Although the recent job report showed the U.S. economy added 213,000 jobs in June, the trade war is predicted to have a significant impact on the economy. "Unless we get either isolated resolutions of these disputes or global resolutions ... we don't see any momentum in that space," Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com, tells Cheddar.
President Trump is expected to submit his Supreme Court nominee to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on Monday.
The three favorites are almost "identical" in policy stances, says Rick Hasen, professor of law and political science at UC-Irvine.
The U.S. tariffs on Chinese products that kicked in on Friday are specifically targeted at high-tech goods, an attempt to crack down on alleged intellectual property theft. But they could end up raising the cost of products like e-cigarettes, e-bikes, and smart home devices that are overwhelmingly used by millennials, says Axios reporter Erica Pandey.
U.S. tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese goods kicked in early Friday, prompting China to respond in kind and escalating tensions between the two countries into what Beijing describes as "the biggest trade war in economic history."
