SAN FRANCISCO Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday called on governments to further regulate private data, political advertising and step up efforts to prevent state actors from interfering in US elections.
The CEO -- who has been widely criticized for a lackluster response to fake news -- said lack of action by US authorities on fake political content on the platform after the 2016 US election helped pave the way for a subsequent avalanche of online disinformation.
"As a private company we don't have the tools to make the Russian government stop... our government is the one that has the tools to apply pressure to Russia," he said during an on-stage interview at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado.
"After 2016 when the government didn't take any kind of counter action, the signal that was sent to the world was that 'ok we're open for business', countries can try to do this stuff... fundamentally there isn't going to be a major recourse from the American government."
He said Facebook's new policy states that "anyone who wants to run political ads or issue ads or a page that gets a lot of distribution needs to verify their identity with us with a valid government ID." He said Facebook is working with election commissions for various electoral exercises all over the world.
Zuckerberg also said the leading social network is struggling to find ways to deal with "deepfake" videos which have the potential to deceive and manipulate users on a massive scale.
The comments come amid growing concern over deepfakes -- which are altered by using artificial intelligence to appear genuine -- being used to manipulate elections or potentially spark unrest.
Earlier this month, Facebook's Instagram network decided not to take down a fake video of Zuckerberg himself, saying the CEO would not get special treatment.
Online platforms have been walking a fine line, working to root out misinformation and manipulation efforts while keeping open to free speech.
Zuckerberg said this is a constant challenge, repeating his position that Facebook should not be an arbiter of truth on the internet.
"I do not think we want to go so far towards saying that a private company prevents you from saying something that it thinks is factually incorrect to another person," he said.
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WASHINGTON - Defying the U.S. Congress, Attorney General William Barr will not attend a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday on his handling of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation report, said panel Chairman Jerrold Nadler, accusing Barr of being afraid to testify.
"Barr has just informed us that he will not attend tomorrow's hearing," Nadler, a Democrat, told reporters on Capitol Hill on Wednesday after a contentious Senate hearing earlier in the day where Barr defended his treatment of the report.
Nadler also said the Justice Department had not complied with his subpoena for Mueller's full report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election and underlying evidence from the probe.
Committee Democrats vowed to issue a subpoena to force Barr to testify, while Nadler held out hope that the attorney general would reconsider and show up when the hearing convenes at 9 a.m. (1300 GMT) on Thursday.
"We plan on subpoenaing him if he decides not to show up. He can run but he can't hide," Democratic Representative Hakeem Jeffries told reporters.
A Justice Department spokeswoman said in a statement that the panel had placed "unprecedented and unnecessary" conditions on Barr's testimony and called the questions posed by committee staff inappropriate. "The attorney general remains happy to engage directly with members," the statement said.
Barr's decision not to testify surfaced hours after the committee adopted a more aggressive format that would subject the attorney general to an extra hour of questions from committee lawyers, in addition to questions from Democratic and Republican lawmakers on the panel.
Nadler insisted that it was not the administration's place to determine the format for the hearing.
"He is terrified of having to face a skilled attorney," the chairman said of Barr. "Given how dishonest he has been ... I can understand why he's afraid of facing more effective examination."
The House Judiciary chairman also said he would consider a contempt citation against the attorney general in the next day or two, if the Justice Department continued to defy the subpoena for the unredacted report.
Nadler issued the subpoena on April 19, a day after Barr released a redacted version of the report, which also looked at whether President Donald Trump attempted to obstruct investigations after the 2016 election.
The Mueller report details a series of acts by Trump to impede the Russia probe but does not conclude whether those actions constitute the crime of obstruction. It found, however, that Trump and his campaign did not engage in a criminal conspiracy with Moscow.
Democrats contend that Barr misrepresented the contents of the Mueller report in a March 24 summary and during a subsequent news conference. They also allege that he may have provided misleading testimony to Congress about criticism he received from Mueller.
Some Democrats including Senator Mazie Hirono said on Wednesday that Barr should resign. Asked if he agreed, Nadler told reporters: "He's going to have to answer for apparently testifying untruthfully in both the Senate and the House, and that's certainly one option."
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WASHINGTON - Former top Justice Department official Sally Yates said on Sunday that if Donald Trump were not president, he would have been indicted on obstruction charges in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation.
Yates, a career federal prosecutor who rose to acting attorney general before Trump fired her in 2017 less than two weeks into his presidency, told NBC's "Meet the Press" the Republican president was shielded by department guidelines that a sitting president should not be indicted.
"I've personally prosecuted obstruction cases on far, far less evidence than this," Yates said. "And yes, I believe, if he were not the president of the United States, he would likely be indicted on obstruction."
Mueller's report, redacted for classified and other sensitive information, detailed a series of actions by Trump to impede the investigation. It did not make a conclusion on whether those actions constituted the crime of obstruction said the findings did not exonerate him.
The report cited attempts by Trump to thwart the Mueller investigation, as well as the president telling Russian officials he had faced "great pressure" from the probe but that it had been eased after he fired FBI Director James Comey.
Mueller also said Congress has the power to address whether Trump violated the law and Congress is conducting its own investigations into whether he obstructed justice.
Yates told NBC there was a larger question raised by the report, which she said painted a "devastating portrait" of a campaign that welcomed Russian intervention, lied about it and then tried to cover it up.
"Is this the kind of conduct that we should expect from the president of the United States?" she said. "I mean, when the Russians came knocking at their door, you would expect that a man who likes to make a show of hugging the flag would've done the patriotic thing and would've notified law enforcement."
Yates was fired by Trump after she took the extraordinarily rare step of defying the White House and refused to defend new travel restrictions targeting seven Muslim-majority nations.
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WASHINGTON - Special Counsel Robert Mueller, examining potential conspiracy between President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia, is leading the latest in a series of high-profile U.S. investigations conducted by prosecutors outside usual Justice Department channels in recent decades.
The release of the findings by previous investigators analogous to Mueller has been handled differently, sometimes with voluminous reports and other times with no reports or with key elements kept under wraps for months and even years.
Mueller is preparing to submit a report to U.S. Attorney General William Barr on his findings, including Russia's role in the election and whether Trump unlawfully sought to obstruct the probe. The Republican president has denied collusion and obstruction. Russia has denied election interference.
Barr already is coming under pressure from lawmakers to make the entire document public quickly, though he has wide latitude in what to release.
Here is an explanation of some past investigations and how their findings were made public.
WATERGATE SCANDAL
The Justice Department named a special prosecutor to investigate the Watergate scandal that eventually forced Republican Richard Nixon in 1974 to become the only U.S. president to resign from office. At the time, no specific regulations or laws governed special prosecutors.
Attorney General Elliot Richardson, as a condition of his Senate confirmation, appointed Archibald Cox as a special prosecutor to examine the 1972 break-in by Republican operatives at Democratic headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington.
Cox found himself at odds with Nixon over subpoenas to obtain taped White House conversations. Nixon ultimately ordered the firing of Cox, and several top Justice Department officials resigned in protest including Richardson, in an event dubbed the Saturday Night Massacre.
Leon Jaworski, subsequently named as the new Watergate special prosecutor, prepared a report with his findings, known as the "road map," to assist Congress with possible impeachment proceedings to remove Nixon from office.
The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee used it as a basis for hearings and passed articles of impeachment, though Nixon quit before the full House could act. The 1974 "road map" remained under seal by a federal court until it was released by federal archivists in 2018.
IRAN-CONTRA AFFAIR
The job of independent counsel, with broader powers, was created by Congress after the Watergate scandal. In 1986, Lawrence Walsh was named as independent counsel to investigate the Iran-Contra affair involving illegal arms sales to Iran under Republican President Ronald Reagan, with the proceeds diverted to fund rebels in Nicaragua called Contras.
The probe lasted nearly seven years and led to criminal charges against 14 people. The convictions of some prominent officials - Oliver North and John Poindexter - were overturned on appeal. In 1992, Republican President George H.W. Bush pardoned others.
Walsh submitted his final report in 1993 to a federal court, which had the power to release it publicly but was not required to do so. Its release was delayed after people identified in the report sued to keep it suppressed. A federal appeals court ruled in 1994 that it should be released in the public interest. Walsh then unveiled it at a news conference.
WHITEWATER AND LEWINSKY SCANDALS
Attorney General Janet Reno in 1994 appointed Robert Fiske as a independent counsel to investigate allegations of impropriety by Democratic President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton regarding real estate investments in the Whitewater Development Corporation. Fiske's probe was expanded to include reviewing the death of Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster, which police had ruled a suicide.
Fiske, who was not subject to the independent counsel law because it had temporarily lapsed, publicly released an interim report in 1994 clearing White House officials of wrongdoing in the Whitewater affair and confirming that Foster's death was a suicide unrelated to Whitewater.
On that same day, Clinton signed a law reauthorizing the independent counsel statute, which paved the way for a federal court to replace Fiske as independent counsel with Kenneth Starr. Starr turned in a report on Foster's death to federal courts in 1997, also finding no foul play. It remained under seal for three months before being released.
Starr's probe expanded into other areas, including a sexual affair between Clinton and White House intern Monica Lewinsky and alleged improprieties in the White House travel office. His expansive 445-page report, containing explicit details on Clinton's sexual affair, was sent to Congress in 1998. Two days later, lawmakers voted to release it publicly. Its findings triggered an unsuccessful Republican effort to remove Clinton from office through the impeachment process. In 2018, Starr wrote that he regretted taking on the Lewinsky part of the investigation, but felt he had no other option.
Congress let the independent counsel law expire, with some lawmakers believing Starr went too far. The Justice Department in 1999 wrote regulations creating the new job of special counsel, with more limited powers.
FEDERAL RAID AT WACO
Reno in 1999 appointed John Danforth as special counsel to investigate the 1993 federal raid on the Branch Davidian cult compound in Waco, Texas. The FBI used tear gas and a fire broke out, killing more than 70 people including cult leader David Koresh.
Danforth was the first person appointed under the 1999 regulations, the rules that now apply to Mueller. Under those rules, a special counsel must submit a confidential report to the attorney general, who then has discretion to publicly release some or all of it. The attorney general must weigh the public interest. But he also must consider thorny issues such as secrecy of grand jury testimony, protecting classified information, communications with the White House possibly subject to the principle of executive privilege shielding certain information from disclosure, and safeguarding confidential reasons for why some individuals were not charged.
Reno specifically instructed Danforth to prepare two versions of his report, a confidential one and another for public release. Rod Rosenstein, the Justice Department's No. 2 official, gave no such instruction to Mueller when he appointed him in May 2017.
In 2000, Danforth held a news conference to publicly release his report, exonerating federal agents and Justice Department officials of any wrongdoing.
OUTING OF CIA AGENT PLAME
In 2003, James Comey, then the Justice Department's No. 2 official, appointed Patrick Fitzgerald as special counsel to investigate how CIA operative Valerie Plame's cover was blown through media leaks. Fitzgerald was not appointed under the 1999 regulations and was not bound by them.
Fitzgerald held a 2005 news conference to announce that a grand jury had returned a five-count indictment against Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements. Fitzgerald never published a final report on his findings.
A jury convicted Libby. Republican President George W. Bush commuted his sentence in 2007. Trump gave Libby a full pardon in 2018.
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WASHINGTON - Executives from Facebook , Alphabet Inc's Google and Twitter have been asked to testify to the U.S. Congress in coming weeks as lawmakers probe Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. election, committee sources said on Wednesday.
A Senate aide said executives from the three firms had been asked by the Senate Intelligence Committee to appear at a public hearing on Nov. 1.
The leaders of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee said the panel would hold an open hearing next month with representatives from unnamed technology companies in an effort to "better understand how Russia used online tools and platforms to sow discord in and influence our election."
Representatives for Facebook and Google confirmed they had received invitations from the Senate committee but did not say whether the companies would attend. Twitter did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The House panel did not immediately identify any companies, but a committee source said lawmakers expected to hear from the same three firms the Senate had asked to testify.
The requests are the latest move by congressional investigators to gain information from internet companies as they probe the extent of Moscow's alleged efforts to disrupt last year's U.S. election. Lawmakers in both parties have grown increasingly concerned that social networks may have played a key role in Russia's influence operation.
Facebook revealed this month that suspected Russian trolls purchased more than $100,000 worth of divisive ads on its platform during the 2016 election cycle, a revelation that has prompted calls from some Democrats for new disclosure rules for online political ads.
On Wednesday, Trump attacked Facebook in a tweet and suggested the world's largest social network had colluded with other media outlets that opposed him. The president has been skeptical of the conclusions of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the election and has denied his campaign colluded with Moscow.
The salvo prompted a lengthy rebuke from Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, who said both Trump and liberals were upset about ideas and content on Facebook during the campaign.
"That’s what running a platform for all ideas looks like," Zuckerberg wrote on his personal Facebook page.
Other internet firms besides Facebook are also facing rising scrutiny over how Russia may have leveraged their platforms. Twitter is expected to privately brief the Senate panel on Thursday.
Republican Senator James Lankford, who has received classified information about Russia's interference as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on Wednesday that the country's attempts to sow discord in U.S. domestic affairs had not abated.
Russian internet trolls over the weekend fueled the debate ignited by Trump over whether NFL players should have the right to kneel during the national anthem, Lankford said.
Also on Wednesday, the Daily Beast, citing unnamed sources, reported that a Facebook group named "United Muslims of America" was a fake account linked to the Russian government and that it was used to push false claims about U.S. politicians, including Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
The group bought Facebook ads to reach targeted audiences, promoting political rallies aimed at Muslims, the website reported.
The Senate and House intelligence committees are two of the main congressional panels probing allegations that Russia sought to interfere in the U.S. election to boost Trump's chances at winning the White House, and possible collusion between Trump associates and Russia.
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