Rep. Schiff Response to the Dangerous Decision to No Longer Warn Social Media Companies About Foreign Influence Campaigns
Washington, D.C. — Today, Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, released the following statement in response to a decision by the federal government to reverse its years-long policy of warning social media companies, like Meta, about foreign influence campaigns due to lawsuits from extreme Republicans:
“It is critical for the U.S. government and social media companies to be in constant communication about malign foreign influence campaigns, and provide each other warnings and information about what they’re seeing. Unfortunately, lawsuits by right-wing interests have stopped that cooperation in its tracks, essentially inviting election interference and influence campaigns from China, Russia and Iran.
“During my time at the House Intelligence Committee, we met regularly on a bipartisan basis with social media companies and the government to ensure that communication was flowing both ways. Today, that cooperation is more important than ever. It is not like those foreign influence campaigns by our adversaries have stopped, and indeed, there are public reports that China has only increased their influence operations in recent years. That is why this two-way flow of information is absolutely critical.
“With the ease of dissemination of foreign misinformation and disinformation online, it is vital to safeguard our elections from external manipulation. It should be universally agreed that foreign adversaries must never wield influence over our elections, yet this is precisely what extremist partisans are courting with their legal challenges.
“I hope that the Biden Administration will resume its cooperation with social media companies and make every effort to stop foreign malign influence and election interference campaigns. The agencies responsible for tracking these foreign efforts must find appropriate ways to share this information with both the public and social media companies.”
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