Concerning the FBI's investigation into Russian influence on the 2016 U.S. election, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said social media companies should be fined if they can't get rid of bots on their platforms.
“They have brilliant people working there,” Klobuchar said on NBC's Meet the Press. “They've got to put more resources — maybe it means making less profits off of ads and other things — but they've got to put the resources into Facebook and Twitter to stop these bots from dominating the accounts.”
The Democratic senator said the social media giants are some of the most sophisticated companies in the world and that bots on Facebook are like “toxic waste” being dumped into the environment. Although not explicitly stated in the bill, the remarks were made concerning proposed legislation seeking to make digital ads part of the campaign finance laws.
Klobuchar said there are tens of millions” of bots flooding the social web with vitriol and that Congress should step in to stop the bot pollution.
