US lawmakers demand firms do more to fight fake social media

The application icons of Facebook, Twitter and Google are displayed on an iPhone next to an earphone set in this illustration photo taken in Berlin, June 17, 2013. REUTERS/Pawel Kopczynski

WASHINGTON: US lawmakers demanded that technology firms do more to fight “shocking" foreign efforts to influence US politics on Aug 1, a day after Facebook Inc identified a new influence campaign tied to November's elections and despite President Donald Trump's denunciation of the issue as a “hoax."

The Senate Intelligence Committee has called executives of Facebook, Twitter Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google to testify on Sept 5 “to hear the plans they have in place, to press them to do more, and to work together to address this challenge,” Senator Mark Warner, the panel's Democratic vice chairman, said at a hearing.