{"id":333665,"date":"2017-11-05T14:08:28","date_gmt":"2017-11-05T13:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/facebook-google-could-help-us-retaliate-against-russia-senator-mcconnell-video-rt-us-news\/"},"modified":"2017-11-05T14:08:28","modified_gmt":"2017-11-05T13:08:28","slug":"facebook-google-could-help-us-retaliate-against-russia-senator-mcconnell-video-rt-us-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/facebook-google-could-help-us-retaliate-against-russia-senator-mcconnell-video-rt-us-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook, Google could help US \u2018retaliate\u2019 against Russia \u2013 Senator McConnell (VIDEO) \u2014 RT US News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdni.rt.com\/files\/2017.11\/thumbnail\/59ff095efc7e93aa178b4567.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><time class=\"date date_article-header\">Published time: 5 Nov, 2017 11:51 <\/time><time class=\"date date_article-header\">Edited time: 5 Nov, 2017 12:51 <\/time><\/p>\n<p>        Days after tech giants Facebook, Twitter, and Google were grilled on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has suggested using the companies to attack other nations.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article__text text  js-mediator-article\">\n<p>On Tuesday, senior executives from the trio of major tech firms went before the US Congress to discuss an alleged \u2018disinformation\u2019 campaign supposedly designed to influence the election.<\/p>\n<p>Republican Senator Mitch McConnell has since suggested that social media and other internet services could provide the US with an opportunity to \u201cretaliate\u201d against adversaries such as Russia.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/408516-senate-twitter-facebook-google-russia\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">READ MORE: Twitter, Google &amp; Facebook grilled by Senate, try hard to find &#8216;Russian influence&#8217;<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Speaking to MSNBC, McConnell expressed his disappointment that key figures like Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had not provided answers at Tuesday\u2019s hearing.<\/p>\n<p>He then mooted the idea of weaponizing their services. Big tech could be used, he said, to <em>\u201cretaliate\u201d<\/em> against Russia, whose government has repeatedly denied any allegations of attempts to influence US voters.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ar7PPZrYpXk\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cWhat we ought to do with regard to the Russians is retaliate. Seriously retaliate against the Russians and these tech firms could be helpful in giving us a way to do that,\u201d<\/em> McConnell told MSNBC host Hugh Hewitt. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/408594-rt-blamed-clinton-health-conspiracy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">READ MORE: MSM covers it, but RT blamed: Who started Clinton health media frenzy?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>McConnell added that he wasn\u2019t sure if it\u2019s a good idea for a special committee to assess the relationship between US security agencies and tech companies. He said the challenge facing US authorities is balancing security with First Amendment rights, which he believes should not extend to <em>\u201cforeigners.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cIt certainly would help if the CEOs were willing to testify [at Congress]. But I think the big, big subject with a lot of national security implications\u2026 [is] trying to figure out how to balance national security versus the First Amendment.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/usa\/408837-mitch-mcconnell-weaponize-tech\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=RSS\">RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Published time: 5 Nov, 2017 11:51 Edited time: 5 Nov, 2017 12:51 Days after tech giants Facebook, Twitter, and Google were grilled on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US election, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has suggested using the companies to attack other nations. On Tuesday, senior executives from the trio of major tech [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":333666,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-333665","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}