The Tech Giants’ Secret War Against Fake News Is Too Secret

Facebook, Google, and Twitter have a problem with harmful content. And the consequences of the twin online scourges of political disinformation and terrorist incitement have been on full display lately. During three congressional hearings in Washington, lawmakers and the rest of us learned that as many as 126 million Facebook users may have seen divisive content posted by Russians seeking to interfere with the 2016 election. Meanwhile, in New York, authorities said that an Uzbeki immigrant who killed eight people in a truck attack on Oct. 31 was radicalized online by Islamic State videos. Five days later, tweets amplified by Google News spread phony stories that the shooter in the Texas church massacre had been a supporter of Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders.

These developments ought to provide a spur for the world’s dominant search engine (Google) and its two leading social networks (Facebook and Twitter) to accept greater responsibility for addressing internet pollution. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) laid out the options during a Nov. 1 hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee. Lecturing the three companies’ general counsels, the California Democrat said: “You’ve created these platforms, and now they’re being misused. And you have to be the ones to do something about it. Or we will.”