Twitter and Facebook bosses summoned to Congress to testify about handling of election

Hearing set after social media giants slowed down controversial Hunter Biden story

Twitter and Facebook bosses could face a hostile reception after being summoned to Congress to defend their handling of election disinformation.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey were threatened with subpoenas by the GOP majority on the Senate’s judiciary committee if they did not agree to appear on Tuesday.

The virtual hearing was organised last month after the social media giants reportedly slowed the sharing of a controversial New York Post article on Hunter Biden in the weeks before the election.

The move angered Republicans who accused the companies of siding with Joe Biden’s winning campaign for the White House.

Donald Trump has refused to concede his defeat and has continued to make false claims about voter fraud and ballot tampering.

Leading Republicans have largely refused to condemn the president’s lies despite his string of legal defeats and failure to provide any evidence to back up his allegations of widespread fraud.

During a hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee last month Mr Zuckerberg and Mr Dorsey vowed to protect their platforms from disinformation and foreign interference during the election.

But their moves angered Mr Trump as both social media giants placed misinformation labels on the outgoing president’s content.

A tweet by Mr Trump on Monday in which he said “I won the election!” was quickly flagged by Twitter and tagged with the disclaimer: “Official sources called this election differently.”

Facebook and Twitter have also continued their temporary ban on political adverts in the US.

In the days after the election Facebook also banned the “Stop the Steal” group of 350,000 of Mr Trump’s supporters falsely claiming the election was rigged.

Facebook has come under a barrage of criticism from Democratic strategists in the days following Mr Biden’s win for not shutting down election disinformation.

Bill Russo, Mr Biden’s head of press, accused the social media giant of spreading viral falsehoods in the wake of Mr Biden’s victory.

"We pleaded with Facebook for over a year to be serious about these problems. They have not. Our democracy is on the line. We need answers," tweeted Mr Russo.

He also accused the company of “shredding the fabric of our democracy.”

Additional reporting by the Associated Press