Facebook, Google, Twitter tell lawmakers they’re doing more to safeguard elections

Facebook, Twitter and Google representatives signaled to legislators on Thursday that they are better prepared for the 2020 U.S. presidential election, even if bad actors change tactics to avoid the discovery.

Foreign interference was a major concern for lawmakers after Russian trolls used social media sites during the 2016 elections to sow dissension among Americans. Since then, officials from all three companies have stated that they have taken steps to delete fake accounts and make it clear who is behind political advertising.

Still, House Intelligence Committee lawmakers expressed skepticism that companies will do enough during this election season as more threats, such as deep-fake videos, appear to be doing something they don’t.

“I’m concerned about whether social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and others are humorously or otherwise optimized for extreme content. These technologies are meant to involve users and bring them back again and again, which drives us further apart and the Americans isolated in information silos, “said Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, during a virtual hearing on election security and foreign interference. Schiff, a California democrat, said he could not say he was “confident” that the 2020 election would be trouble-free, although it would be more difficult for Russians to keep the same game book.

In their opening speeches, Facebook, Google and Twitter set out what they are doing to ensure election security.

Nathanial Gleicher, head of cybersecurity at Facebook, said that the company has more than 35,000 people working in security and that nearly 40 teams focus on elections. The company tore down more than 52 separate networks in 2019 and features contributions from state-controlled media companies. This week the company launched a new online information hub for voter information.

“In the past three years, we have worked to protect more than 200 elections around the world. We have learned lessons from each and apply these lessons to protect the November 2020 elections,” he said.

Nick Pickles, who oversees Twitter’s global strategy and public policy development, said the company, like Facebook, has rules against voter repression, fake accounts, and counterfeiting. In 2019, the company banned political ads from the platform.

“Political online advertising presents bourgeois discourse with completely new challenges that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared for,” said Pickles.

The company also started reviewing and flagging tweets, including President Donald Trump, that contained misinformation about polls or the corona virus.

Google, which owns the YouTube video service, said the company found relatively little government activity in the 2016 election that violated its rules. Richard Salgado, director of law enforcement and information security at Google, said that advertisers who buy US election ads must now verify who they are, and Google announces who paid for the ad. Like Twitter and Facebook, Google has a searchable database for ads.

“Looking ahead to the November elections, we know that widespread protests against the COVID-19 pandemic and other major events can feed nation-states or disinformation campaigns,” said Salgado.

To start the survey, Schiff highlighted Google as the “least transparent” of the big technology companies when it comes to disinformation. “How do you respond to the criticism that Google’s main strategy is to keep its head down and avoid paying attention to its platform while the others heat up?” he asked.

Salgado contested the claim, adding that YouTube and Google’s advertising unit regularly publish transparency reports. However, he would not commit himself to Google building a database of disinformation contributions, as is the case with Twitter, so that researchers can examine the content.