Twitter Misses Deadline to Provide Information to US Senate

Twitter missed a deadline on Monday to provide the US Senate Intelligence committee with information about alleged Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 US election, a spokeswoman for the committee's top Democrat, Senator Mark Warner, said on Tuesday.

The social media company had been asked to provide written answers to questions from the intelligence panel as it conducts one of the major congressional investigations into the alleged Russian activity and alleged collusion between Republican President Donald Trump's campaign and Moscow.

Russia denies any election meddling and Trump has denied any collusion.

Facebook and Google met the intelligence committee deadline.

Twitter said it "looked forward to finalising" its responses to the intelligence committee soon.

"We are continuing to work closely with committee investigators to provide detailed, thorough answers to their questions," it said in a statement. "As our review is ongoing, we want to ensure we are providing Congress with the most complete, accurate answers possible."

Warner blasted Twitter after it testified behind closed doors to the committee in September, saying company officials had not answered many questions about Russian use of the platform and that it was still subject to foreign manipulation.

Congressional investigators have called technology companies to testify repeatedly as they look into the issue.

A separate Senate panel, the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, said it would convene a hearing on January 17 looking into whether technology companies are doing enough to combat terrorism on social media.

Officials from Facebook, the YouTube unit of Alphabet's Google and Twitter will be testifying at a hearing titled "Terrorism and Social Media: #IsBigTechDoingEnough?" the committee said.

© Thomson Reuters 2018