When Silicon Valley companies once again appear in front of the US Senate on Wednesday, there will be one major absentee: Google.
\nThe Senate Intelligence Committee wanted to hear from Sundar Pichai, Google\u2019s chief executive, or his boss Larry Page, the chief executive of Google\u2019s parent firm, Alphabet.
\nBarring a dramatic, last-minute change of plan, the BBC understands neither will attend.
\nIt would mark the first time a technology firm has refused to comply with the wishes of Congress since the far-reaching inquiries into misinformation and meddling began in the wake of the 2016 election.
\nGoogle had instead hoped to send Kent Walker, one of its top lawyers. The offer was abruptly shut down by the committee. Its vice chairman, the Democratic Senator Mark Warner, said an empty chair would be left out to represent Google\u2019s non-appearance.
\nEventually, senators may issue a subpoena, forcing an appearance under the threat of prosecution.
\n\u201cIf Google thinks we\u2019re just going to go away, they\u2019re sadly mistaken,\u201d said Senator Warner, speaking to Wired magazine.
\nThe hearing, scheduled to begin at 09:30 (13:30 GMT), is entitled \u201cForeign Influence Operations\u2019 Use of Social Media Platforms\u201d.
\nAs well as Google, Twitter and Facebook have been called to appear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Silicon Valley companies once again appear in front of the US Senate on Wednesday, there will be one major absentee: Google. The Senate Intelligence Committee wanted to hear from Sundar Pichai, Google\u2019s chief executive, or his boss Larry Page, the chief executive of Google\u2019s parent firm, Alphabet. Barring a dramatic, last-minute change of plan, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":8276,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8275"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8275\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gbcghanaonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}