President Donald Trump's administration warned Wednesday of a possible legal crackdown on big technology companies over competition or political bias, in a bombshell announcement that came as social media executives were defending their policies before lawmakers.
The Justice Department statement appeared to escalate a war between the administration and Silicon Valley after a series of attacks by Trump claiming tech firms were biased against conservatives.
According to the statement, Attorney General Jeff Sessions will convene a meeting of state attorneys general later this month "to discuss a growing concern that these companies may be hurting competition and intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas on their platforms."
"The federal government should not use the threat of law enforcement to limit companies from exercising this right. In particular, law enforcement should not threaten social media companies with unfounded investigations."
"This could be broad action by the government to try to subvert the First Amendment." Matt Schruers of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a trade group that includes Google and Facebook, said tech firms "compete aggressively with one another as well as those outside of the technology sector" and that "consumers have many choices for information services and news sources online."
"We were too slow to spot this and too slow to act," Sandberg told the panel. "That's on us. This interference was completely unacceptable. It violated the values of our company and of the country we love."
Senator Mark Warner told the hearing that social media firms "were caught flat-footed by the brazen attacks on our election" and added: "I'm skeptical that, ultimately, you'll be able to truly address this challenge on your own."
"Twitter cannot rightly serve as a public square if it's constructed around the personal opinions of its makers," he told the panel. "We believe a key driver of a thriving public square is the fundamental human right of freedom of opinion and expression."
"They're all pretty much Trump-bashing," Long said of the recommended articles. But Democrat Paul Tonko of New York expressed dismay "that our Republican colleaues have called this hearing to rile up their base and give credence to unsupported conspiracies."