Wednesday 05 September 2018 11:00 pm

Facebook and Twitter grilled under the Senate spotlight over social media abuse

Silicon Valley heavyweights Facebook and Twitter faced a grilling from US senators in an Intelligence Committee hearing earlier today, pushing tech stocks down on Wall Street.

Twitter's share price tanked more than five per cent, while Facebook's dropped 2.3 per cent.

Meanwhile, Netflix and Snapchat shares both fell by more than four per cent.

In a discussion over future efforts to counteract abuse of social media platforms by outside negative actors, Facebook and Twitter admitted that they took too long to tackle the foreign interference which has clouded the 2016 US election.

Twitter's chief executive Jack Dorsey told lawmakers that his platform was “unprepared and ill-equipped” for the “weaponisation” of debate.

Senator Richard Burr, the Republican chairman of the committee, said in his opening remarks that social media platforms remain a threat as a "national security vulnerability" with "unacceptable" levels of risk.

Democratic senator Mark Warner said he was "deeply disappointed" that Google, which was invited to send its chief executive Sundar Pichai or parent firm's chief Larry Page, did not attend the hearing.

Facebook's chief of operations Sheryl Sandberg said in her opening address that Facebook has shut down 1.27bn fake accounts between October 2017 and March 2018, while Twitter's chief executive Jack Dorsey said the platform is now removing over 200 per cent more accounts for violating its policies.

That equates to challenges on between 8m and 10m Twitter accounts every week.

Senator Marco Rubio asked the pair how they deal with foreign influences, with Sandberg responding that Facebook would not share data with foreign states that don’t share its own values.

Dorsey replied that Twitter has pushed back against Turkey’s government on various issues, but that it must still follow local laws in countries in which it operates.

Twitter's share price during the hearing tanked more than five per cent, while Facebook's dropped over one per cent. Other tech stocks skidded as a result, with Netflix and Snapchat both falling more than three per cent.

Calling it an “understatement” to say US politicians were caught “flat-footed” by events in 2016, Democrat Martin Heinrich asked what the companies have learned from other elections in the last two years.

“We’ve learned a lot and we’ll have to continue to learn,” said Sandberg. “As we learn our opponents learn and we have to keep up.

“Each time we see the threats we get smarter and can connect the dots and improve moving forward.”

Dorsey said Twitter is investing in AI to spot patterns of unusual behaviour to help it identify what tweets to take action against.

Dorsey admitted his company had fallen short on efforts to inform users about social media abuse, saying that as a company, “we simply haven’t done enough”, and that “what worked 12 years ago won’t work today”.

“Transparency is a big part of where we need the most work and improvement,” he added.

He pointed to the need to inform Twitter users within platform if they had been targeted by fake or malicious accounts, with one senator referencing the fake Tennessee GOP account that garnered more than 100,000 followers in the run up to the 2016 US election.

“We need to meet people where they are and if we determine that people were subject to any falsehoods we do need to provide them with the full context of that,” Dorsey said.

The chief executive added that Twitter wants to improve its work with universities and law enforcement to shut down bad actors on the platform.

Sandberg also faced questions on the topic, telling senators that “people need to know” if they’ve been targeted with false news.

“Trust is the cornerstone of our business, they have to trust what they see on Facebook is authentic. This has been a huge issue for us,” she said.

Facebook’s measures include having independent fact checkers to determine the legitimacy of news, and Sandberg said she hopes to benefit from “tighter co-ordination” in future.

“We have been investing very heavily in people, in our systems, in decreasing dissemination of fake news and transparency,” she said.

Dorsey also admitted his company is “rethinking” elements of its platform, including the follower count for accounts.

“The question we’re now asking is ‘is that number the right incentive, is that number really a proxy for how much you contribute to Twitter and the digital public square?’” he said. “We don’t think it is.”

Dorsey will also appear later this evening in a separate hearing dedicated to a sole exploration of Twitter's role in allegedly censoring conservative views on its site.