WASHINGTON, D.C. – During a hearing today in the Senate Intelligence Committee, U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) questioned Jack Dorsey, Chief Executive Officer of Twitter, and Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, about their companies’ response to foreign influence operations on social media platforms, and how Americans can best defend themselves against future interference attempts. In addition to Dorsey and Sandberg, leadership from Google was invited to testify at today’s hearing, but the company declined to send a top executive.

Click HERE to watch Senator King's remarks.

“I try to focus on what we’re after here, and we’re after the heart of democracy,” said Senator King during his questioning. “Ms. Sandberg, you said the heart of democracy is free and fair elections; I would argue that the heart of free and fair elections is information. And that’s really what we’re talking about, is getting information to people in a democratic setting…There are three ways to defend ourselves, it seems to me. One is better consumer discrimination about what they’re seeing. The second is deterrence, which hasn’t been mentioned here – that our adversaries need to understand that there’s a price to be paid for trying to manipulate our society and our democracy. And the third is technical, and that’s mostly what we’ve been talking about.

“I had an experience, ironically, a couple of months before the 2016 election, meeting here, in this building, with a group of people from Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia, who had been experiencing Russian interference with their elections and their propaganda, their information, for years. And I said, ‘how do you defend yourself?’ You can’t unplug the internet, you can’t unplug the TV station. The most interesting thing they said was, universally, the best defense is for the people to know it’s happening. And I would like from each of you some thoughts, and hopefully a commitment, to educating your users about the potential for abuse of the very medium that they’re putting their trust in.”

In response to Senator King’s question, Sandberg concurred with his point, and referenced Facebook initiatives to increase media literacy, particularly their use of third-party fact checkers to identify false information and warn those who see or plan to share the false content. Dorsey admitted that Twitter has not adequately responded to foreign interference attempts, saying in part: “To be frank, we haven’t done a good job at this in the past, and I think the reason why is because we haven’t met our customers where they are.” Dorsey also highlighted the important role journalists play as fact checkers on Twitter, and noted opportunities for new tools to help amplify and expand this role.

“Many of us believe that one of the great gaps in our defenses against election interference and interference in our democracy is the fact that our adversaries fear no pain if they do so,” continued Senator King. “We have to develop a doctrine of cyber deterrence, just as we have doctrines of military deterrence. That’s a gap, and that’s something that we’re working on…As you’re thinking about these cures, I hope you’ll continuously come back to the idea that what we need to do is give people more information. I must say, I’m a little uncomfortable with where the line is between taking down misleading or fake information, and taking down what someone else may consider legitimate information in the marketplace of ideas. Jefferson said ‘we can tolerate error as long as truth is left free to combat it.’ We have to be sure that we’re not censoring, but at the same time we’re providing…your users with information…they can have context for what it is they’re seeing. I’d hate to see your platforms become political in the sense that you’re censoring one side or the other of any given debate.”

Senator King has been a leading voice on the need for a national emphasis on cyber deterrence, and has repeatedly pressed officials in both the Obama and Trump Administrations on the importance of deterrence. In a hearing last month, he questioned social media experts on the ongoing foreign interference operations to impact our democracy, who agreed with Senator King’s assessments about the depth, severity, and ongoing nature of the threats to American democracy posed by false information spread via social media. In March, Senator King highlighted the topic in both the ENR and Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), and in February, he questioned Admiral Mike Rogers, the former Director of the National Security Agency and Commander of U.S. Cyber Command, on the status of a report from the Secretary of Defense that was mandated by a King-led provision in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act and is currently eight months past due. In addition, he questioned top national intelligence officials in February on the lack of a national doctrine on the subject.