Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr says he’s planning to hold a public hearing next month on Russian election interference through Facebook and other social media platforms.
Earlier this month, Facebook disclosed it had sold about $100,000 in ads to Russian troll farms connected to about 470 inauthentic accounts.
Facebook briefed the Senate and House intelligence committees, but committee leaders were unhappy with what was provided — Sen. Mark Warner said the disclosure was just the “tip of the iceberg.”
“What I am is interested in what all the social media platforms know about activities on their platforms specifically funded by Russians and I believe that that’s something that is worthy of an open hearing and I plan to move to that sometime in October,” Burr told CNN.
Asked if he was planning to bring Facebook executives to the committee, the North Carolina Republican said it would be “an invitation to a lot of folks on social media platforms.”
Warner told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Wednesday that the committee would hear from Twitter officials next week about Russian election interference using their social media platform.
Facebook gave copies of Russian-linked ads to special counsel Robert Mueller after he obtained a search warrant, but the social media giant did not provide copies to the congressional committees on the grounds that doing so would violate their privacy policy.
Warner has said that Facebook still doesn’t have a grasp of the full reach of Russian-linked election activity, noting that Facebook hasn’t examined potential fake accounts based in countries that were Russian-influenced.
In addition to Facebook, Warner has expressed an interest in bringing Twitter officials into the committee to discuss Russian efforts to influence the election on that social media platform.
This story has been updated to include new developments.