Facebook, Twitter face U.S. Congress over foreign bids to tilt politics

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top executives from Facebook Inc (FB.O) and Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) will defend their companies in the U.S. Congress on Wednesday over what lawmakers see as a failure to combat continuing foreign efforts to influence U.S. politics.

Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, who will testify alongside Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey, will acknowledge to the Senate Intelligence Committee that the company was too slow to respond to Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election and American society, but insist it is doing better.

“We’ve removed hundreds of pages and accounts involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior - meaning they misled others about who they were and what they were doing,” Sandberg said in written testimony released on Tuesday.

Trump faulted Twitter on July 26, without citing any evidence, for limiting the visibility of prominent Republicans through a practice known as shadow banning.Last week Trump accused Google’s search engine of promoting negative news articles and hiding “fair media” coverage of him, vowing to address the situation without providing evidence or giving details of action he might take.

They also asked Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) Google to send a top executive to testify, but declined its offer to dispatch Chief Legal Officer Kent Walker rather than Alphabet Chief Executive Larry Page, saying it wanted a top corporate decision-maker.