How should Silicon Valley handle election meddling?
Midterms are months away and there are unanswered questions about how to protect this year's elections and who is responsible for doing so. CNET News editor in chief Connie Guglielmo and Wired senior writer Issie Lapowsky joined CBSN's "Red & Blue" on Monday to discuss the effort to prevent election interference.
CBSN's Tanya Rivero asked Guglielmo if lawmakers are working with Silicon Valley ahead of the midterms to prevent potential interference.
Guglielmo said eight of the major tech companies held a meeting at Facebook in May and reached out to the Department of Homeland Security to find out if there could be some dialogue and communication -- and "that really didn't seem to be the case."
"What we understand from the reports, this is according to sources, nobody who was at the meeting spoke out, the Department of Homeland Security was reluctant to talk about what kind of tactics or issues they were seeing ahead of the midterms and that led to frustration on the part of the tech companies who know what to prepare for."
Rivero asked who feels more responsible between tech companies and Congress.
"I feel like tech companies think they're responsible on their platforms, but they can point the finger at somebody else if they screw up on their platform," Lapowsky said.
She added, "They are dissatisfied with what Washington is bringing to them, they're saying bring us more information and intelligence and they are throwing each other under the bus. They are not working together. It's not a collaboration between these tech companies -- it is every man for himself."
When asked if meddling by Russia has already begun, both Lapowsky and Guglielmo said yes.
"The intelligence community says 'yes,'" Lapowsky said. "They [Russia] are absolutely active. Facebook said they haven't necessarily found evidence. They are actively looking and developing technology that is looking. But I think the Internet Research Agency we saw spreading the propaganda is getting better at covering tracks and they use technology that doesn't just show where they are located."
Guglielmo agreed: "The intelligence agencies have said it is pervasive. 2016 was a test run to see how successful they could be and over the past two years they've perfected it. They've gotten better at hiding their tracks and it makes it more difficult to find it."
Watch more of the discussion from CBSN's "Red & Blue" in the player at the top of this page or by clicking here.