How to watch Twitter and Facebook appear before Congress
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The President and Republican congressman and conservative pundits all seem to believe that Silicon Valley has it out for them. To be more precise, they think social networks, Facebook and Twitter in particular, and that search engines, namely Google, are censoring them and suppressing their views.
Also: How Google aims to save journalism, thwart fake news
Without offering up any evidence aside from a (now-debunked) video purporting to show Google not highlighting President Donald Trump's State of the Union address on the homepage, they've suggested federal regulations may be the only tool available to them to correct this wrong. But before things come to that, executives from these companies were invited to testify before Congress on Sept. 5, much like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg did in April, when he appeared before lawmakers all by himself.
Here's what you need to know about Wednesday's hearings, including how to watch.
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When will Twitter and Facebook appear before Congress?
Senate Intelligence Committee
There will be two hearings on Sept. 5, 2018. The first is a morning session before the Senate Intelligence Committee, which kicked off at 9:30 am ET. It featured both Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. Google CEO Larry Page was invited, but he declined to attend and had global affairs executive Kent Walker provide a written testimony.
Also: Google reportedly put fake news ads on fact-checking sites CNET
House Energy and Commerce Committee
The next half starts at 1:30 pm ET, with Dorsey appearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. The House hearing will be all about "transparency and accountability". In his prepared remarks, Dorsey maintained that "Twitter does not use political ideology to make any decisions, whether related to ranking content on our service or how we enforce our rules."
How to watch Twitter and Facebook testify online
Senate Intelligence Committee
Although the live session for the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing has now concluded, you can watch it after the fact. The video feed is still available on the Senate's Intelligence Committee site, or you can watch it below (via PBS):
House Energy and Commerce Committee
You can watch the live stream of the House hearing starting at 1:30pm ET. It'll be hosted on the House's Energy and Commerce Committee site, but it's also available to watch below.
Also: How fact-checking could thwart phishing attacks TechRepublic
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