Facebook General Counsel to testify before Congress on Nov. 1

Facebook Inc’s General Counsel Colin Stretch would testify on Nov. 1 before a U.S. House of Representatives panel investigating possible Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, the Company said on Thursday.Facebook logo is seen at a start-up companies gathering at Paris’ Station F in Paris, France on January 17, 2017.                                                                                                                        Executives from Twitter Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google also were expected to appear at a public hearing before the House intelligence committee, but have not chosen a representative.             Stretch, would be the Facebook representative to testify, against the company’s spokesperson Andy Stone said.                                                                                                                                            The company’s high-profile Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg would not appear.

Some U.S. lawmakers, increasingly alarmed over evidence that hackers used the internet to spread fake news and otherwise influence 2016’s election, have been pushing for more information about social networks.

In the U.S. Senate, Republican John McCain and Democrats Amy Klobuchar and Mark Warner planned to introduce legislation on Thursday that would impose new disclosure requirements on political adverts that run on Facebook and other websites.

The Senate and House intelligence committees are two of the main congressional panels probing allegations that Russia sought to interfere in the U.S. election to boost Republican President Donald Trump’s chances of winning, and possible collusion between Trump associates and Russia.

Moscow has denied the allegations, and Trump has repeatedly dismissed any accusations of collusion.