 "Twitter to meet US Senate committe on intelligence for the 2016 US Presidential elections probe")
**Twitter Inc** representatives will meet with the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence staff next week in relation to inquiries into the 2016 US presidential election, a company representative said.
[caption id=“attachment_3966099” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Twitter.Reuters.[/caption]
The committee, along with other congressional committees and special counsel Robert Mueller, is **investigating** possible links between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia.
Twitter’s meeting with the committee comes amid mounting pressure on regulators and Silicon Valley companies to open up the opaque world of online political ads and to prevent governments from using them to sway elections or attempt other meddling.
Facebook said earlier this month that a Russia-based operation spent $100,000 on thousands of ads on its social media platform promoting ‘divisive’ messages before and after last year’s presidential election.
After Facebook’s revelations, Democrats have urged the Federal Election Commission to require transparency for social media advertising.
Russia continues to deny meddling in the election, in which Republican Donald Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton.
**Meanwhile** , some of the ads bought by Russians on Facebook last year promoted events during the US presidential campaign, Facebook Inc said on 13 September, indicating that alleged meddling ahead of the 2016 election went beyond social media.
Facebook said in a statement that its takedown of what the company last week called Russian-affiliated pages included shutting down “several promoted events.” Facebook declined to provide details of the promoted events. Facebook, the world’s largest social network, said last week that an operation likely based in Russia had placed thousands of US ads with polarising views on topics such as immigration, race and gay rights on the site during a two-year period through May 2017.
With inputs from Reuters
