Facebook and Twitter Have a Message for Lawmakers: We’re Trying

WASHINGTON — For months, Facebook, Twitter and Google have grappled with criticism over the misuse of their services by foreign operatives and the disproportionate influence their platforms have over people’s thinking.

On Wednesday, when Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, and Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, appear in Washington to testify on those issues, they plan to answer lawmakers’ questions using two main tactics: a conciliatory and apologetic approach, as well as a rundown of the growing number of efforts the companies have taken to deal with manipulation and disinformation problems.

“We were too slow to spot this and too slow to act. That’s on us,” Sandberg said in prepared testimony that was reviewed by The New York Times. “We’re getting better at finding and combating our adversaries, from financially motivated troll farms to sophisticated military intelligence operations.”

In testimony that was posted online on Tuesday, Dorsey said, “Twitter is approaching these challenges with a simple question: How do we earn more trust from the people using our service? We know the way to earn more trust around how we make decisions on our platform is to be as transparent as possible.”

The two executives, who will be making their first appearances before Congress, are expected to face tough queries when on Wednesday morning at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about foreign manipulation of social media sites, with Dorsey will then appear alone in the afternoon at a House Energy and Commerce committee hearing about content moderation on the sites.

The tech executives’ strategy of appeasing lawmakers will most likely meet resistance, as animus toward the companies has been whipped up further by President Donald Trump, who has claimed that social media sites are deliberately suppressing some information. And with the midterm elections in November, Sandberg and Dorsey will be pushed to reveal whether the measures they have taken to prevent disinformation and manipulation are starting to work.

“This close to the election, the committee really wants the heaviest possible pressure on these companies to prevent a repeat of 2016,” said Paul Gallant, a tech policy analyst at Cowen and Co., referring to how Russia-backed operatives had used Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube to stir discord before the presidential election two years ago.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, had also invited Larry Page, chief executive of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, to testify Wednesday. But the company declined to send Page and instead submitted written testimony from Kent Walker, Google’s senior vice president for global affairs.

In a blog post on Tuesday, Walker tried to distinguish Google from Facebook and Twitter as less problematic and vulnerable to foreign meddling.

“While the nature of our services and the way we run our advertising operations appears to have limited the amount of state-sponsored interference on our platforms, no system is perfect — and we are committed to taking continuing action to address the issue,” Walker wrote in the post.

The appearances of Sandberg and Dorsey in Washington mark the third time in less than a year that top social media executives from Silicon Valley have come to Capitol Hill to defend their companies. In November, the top lawyers for Facebook, Google and Twitter testified on Russian influence campaigns on their platforms before the 2016 presidential election. In April, Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, testified in back-to-back privacy-related hearings after revelations the company’s user data had been shared with a political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, without user consent. Lawmakers have also held other hearings related to alleged content bias on social media.

Since then, Facebook, Google and Twitter have tried to demonstrate their efforts to fight misinformation and foreign influence by hiring thousands of content moderators, as well as developing tools with artificial intelligence and other technologies to more quickly identify and root out fake accounts and foreign-backed influence campaigns.

“When we find bad actors, we will block them,” Sandberg said in her prepared testimony. “When we find content that violates our policies, we will take it down. And when our attackers use new techniques, we’ll share them to improve our collective defense.”

The testimonies of Sandberg and Dorsey are expected to draw wide interest, just as Zuckerberg’s appearance before Congress was considered must-see TV by tech industry officials, regulators and others.

Sandberg is a veteran of Washington politics. She was the chief of staff to the former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers during the Clinton administration, and now oversees policy for Facebook, among other things.

Dorsey, known for his taciturn style, has been on a media blitz in recent weeks as Twitter has tried to shore up its reputation. He is not well-known in Washington and will have to defend Twitter from accusations of political bias in a manner that doesn’t further rile lawmakers.

Both executives have been preparing for the hearings for several weeks. They each have been coached by company lawyers and Facebook and Twitter’s Washington policy staffs on what questions specific lawmakers may ask and which ones may use the hearings to level new accusations or threats of regulations, according to people involved in the preparations, who were not authorized to talk publicly. Sandberg and Dorsey have been advised to appear contrite, to be direct with their responses and to be patient if interrupted, the people said.

Sandberg and Dorsey met with several lawmakers on Tuesday, before the hearings. Both met with members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, including Burr, as well as Mark Warner, D-Va., and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., according to committee aides.

The Senate hearing wasn’t expected to yield many new revelations on foreign interference, and some lawmakers were expected to veer into other topics. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Tom Cotton, R-Ark., would most likely raise concerns of content biases by social media sites that stifle conservative views, according to committee aides. And Wyden was expected to focus on online privacy and the potential need for regulations.

In particular, lawmakers may press the executives on how vulnerable their sites are before the midterms.

Senior Trump administration intelligence officials have warned of the threat of foreign interference. Facebook, Twitter, and Google have recently identified foreign influence campaigns linked to Iran and Russia, though they also said they could not conclusively determine that those were meant to interfere in the midterms.

The companies also plan to highlight a gap between themselves and law enforcement officials on battling foreign meddling.

“Our understanding of overall Russian activity in 2016 is limited because we do not have access to the information or investigative tools that the U.S. government and this committee have,” Sandberg said in her written remarks.

Though Google won’t have an executive present, lawmakers, including Warner, were expected to criticize the company for declining an invitation to testify.

And Dorsey, in his marathon day of hearings, will seek to quash the growing accusations that his company suppresses conservative views. In recent months, Dorsey has met privately with Republican and Democratic politicians and pundits. Last month, before agreeing to testify in the House hearing, he had a call with the House majority leader, Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and the Energy and Commerce Committee chairman, Greg Walden, R-Ore., to allay their fears of anti-conservative bias on the site.

The lawmakers still threatened to subpoena Dorsey if he didn’t agree to testify.