GOP senators berate Facebook, Twitter CEOs, who say they did the best they could during election

The CEOs of Twitter and Facebook defended their efforts to reduce the spread of online disinformation about the presidential election and the integrity of the US voting system as they faced an onslaught of criticism from Senate Republicans who accused the tech giants of censoring conservative views and favoring Democrats. Testifying before Congress for the second time in three weeks, Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey and his Facebook counterpart, Mark Zuckerberg, told lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee that their companies did the best they could in unprecedented circumstances, though they acknowledged making mistakes while moderating content. Senate Republicans were particularly incensed about how Twitter and Facebook handled a story published by the New York Post concerning emails purportedly sent between Biden’s son Hunter and leadership at the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, on the board of which Hunter Biden sat. During the final weeks before the election, the Post’s story became ammunition for Republicans claiming that the Biden family was corrupt, even as Democrats and many media outlets questioned the veracity of the emails and framed the story as a coordinated disinformation campaign.