How Google, Apple, and Meta are attempting to Disrupt Foreign Influence Campaigns in the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee
Top officials from Google, Apple, and Meta testified Wednesday before the United States Senate Intelligence Committee about each of their company’s ongoing efforts to identify and disrupt foreign influence campaigns ahead of the country’s November elections.
The hearing, chaired by Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, served largely to impress upon the companies the need for more extensive safeguards against the disinformation campaigns being funded by foreign entities with an eye on influencing US politics.
Warner, a proponent of expanding cooperation between the government and Silicon Valley to root out campaigns by Russia, Iran, and China, among other legally designated rivals, described the recent efforts by Russia as both “effective and cheap.”
In addition to the Tenet Media indictment, the Department of Justice revealed this month in an FBI affidavit that it had seized 32 internet domains allegedly tied to the Kremlin and related entities. The websites, with names like fox-news.top, were created to imitate popular media and news brands, including CNN, spreading content favorable to Russia. One fake Fox News story, for instance, declared that Ukraine has “no particular value to the US” and that squaring off with Russia is “too great” a risk.
Reply to Warner During a Senate Appointment to Interact with Elon Musk and the Rubio & Google Committee on Foreign Election Threats
Warner noted—almost as an aside—that Elon Musk’s X had refused to send a representative to testify Wednesday. A spokesperson for Warner told WIRED that X’s former chief of global affairs, Nick Pickles, had previously agreed to appear before the committee; however, he resigned from the company roughly two weeks later. X then declined to provide a replacement. (Pickles could not be immediately reached for comment.)
Warner received the companies that appeared amicably, praising the “positive role” they had played in recent actions of the government: For example, for banning Sputnik from its platforms. Warner also highlighted recent decisions at Google and Microsoft to publicly reveal information about foreign election threats, keeping the public and government better informed.
The operation, dubbed Doppelganger, relied on paid social media advertisements, fake accounts with artificial intelligence and others to carry out its activities. The FBI obtained private documents which state that the principal director of the operation, a little-known Russian political strategist named Ilya Gambashidzer, is saying that they are expecting fake news from us every day.
Marco Rubio, the committee’s Republican vice chair, argued on the behalf of Americans whom, he said, should not be punished for holding views that align with the Kremlin’s. “The question becomes, is that disinformation or is that misinformation, is that an influence operation, because that preexisting view is being amplified?” Decisions by companies to remove the amplified information is “problematic and complicated,” he said, adding that he believes it risks “stigmatiz[ing]” Americans holding those views.
In their responses to lawmakers, the tech executives were mindful of the political minefield they faced. Brad Smith, Microsoft president, said that two important principles in election threats should be preserving the right to free expression and defending the public from the deceptive tactics of foreign nation-states. Meta president of global affairs Nick Clegg told Rubio that when it came to their handling of covid content, “I think we learned our lesson” that when governments exert pressure, they need to act “independently.” Google president of global affairs Kent Walker told Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) that the company kept the controversial New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop up after an independent investigation.
Platforms like Meta have historically tended to follow the lead of the scientific community and government in these sorts of cases. Some people are pushing back. Mark was talking to Jim Jordan, the House Judiciary Chair. He regretted that he did not say more about government pressure around covid content, as it was ultimately the company’s decision. Warner said the X did not send anyone because they didn’t have an adequate replacement for someone who left a couple of weeks before the hearing. (Warner said TikTok had been another potential participant, but there’d been concerns about timing due to recent oral arguments in its case against the government’s divest-or-ban efforts.)
The Supreme Court considered whether government pressure was unconstitutional in a recent case. The Republican attorneys general accused the Biden administration of trying to get tech platforms to remove or demote speech in order to restrict White House communications with them.
The Supreme Court decided that the AGs don’t have standing and they wondered if companies were responding to government pressure, but their decision cleared the way for the government to talk to tech companies about election threats. Warner told reporters after the hearing that communication between the government and tech companies is already “much better.” But he lamented during the hearing that “we are less safe today because many of those independent academic reviewers have been litigated, bullied or chased out of the marketplace,” referring to institutions like the Stanford Internet Observatory.
