Tech Giants On Capitol Hill For More Russia Interference Questions

Left to right: Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch, Twitter Acting General Counsel Sean Edgett, and Google Law Enforcement and Information Security Director Richard Salgado testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee on Tuesday, October 31, 2017.
Left to right: Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch, Twitter Acting General Counsel Sean Edgett, and Google Law Enforcement and Information Security Director Richard Salgado testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee on Tuesday, October 31, 2017.
Left to right: Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch, Twitter Acting General Counsel Sean Edgett, and Google Law Enforcement and Information Security Director Richard Salgado testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee on Tuesday, October 31, 2017.
Left to right: Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch, Twitter Acting General Counsel Sean Edgett, and Google Law Enforcement and Information Security Director Richard Salgado testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Crime and Terrorism Subcommittee on Tuesday, October 31, 2017.

Tech Giants On Capitol Hill For More Russia Interference Questions

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Lawyers from Facebook, Twitter and Google will again be grilled by members of Congress on Wednesday, after more details were revealed this week about the scope of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The three tech giants appeared before a Senate Judiciary subcommitee on Tuesday. And in his prepared opening remarks before that panel, Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch revealed that as many as 126 million users on the service may have seen content linked to Russian digital active measures.

Sean Edgett, Twitter’s deputy general counsel, said in his opening statement Tuesday that the company had uncovered 2,752 Russia-linked accounts and more than 36,000 automated “bots.” Those accounts tweeted 1.4 million times about the election last fall.

The three lawyers from Facebook, Twitter and Google return to Capitol Hill Wednesday to face questions from Congress’ two intelligence committee which have been conducting two of the main investigations — along with the Department of Justice special counsel and the Senate Judiciary Committee — into Russian interference in the 2016 election cycle and possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives.

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