Senator Michael Bennet on Tuesday sought information on how tech giants Meta (META.O), X, TikTok and Google (GOOGL.O) were trying to stop the spread of false and misleading content about the Israel-Hamas conflict on their platforms.
“Deceptive content has ricocheted across social media sites since the conflict began, sometimes receiving millions of views,” Bennet, a Democrat, said in the letter addressed to the company chiefs.
Visuals from older conflicts, video game footage, and altered documents are among misleading content that has flooded social media platforms since Hamas militants attacked Israeli civilians on Oct. 7.
The Senator’s comments come after European Union industry chief Thierry Breton blasted the companies, demanding they take stricter steps to battle disinformation amid the escalating conflict.
Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said it had removed or marked as disturbing more than 795,000 pieces of content in Hebrew or Arabic in the first three days since the Hamas attack.
Bennet also slammed the four companies for having laid off staff from their trust and safety teams in the past year that were in charge of monitoring for false and misleading content.
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