Democrats warn tech CEOs over election disinformation

Natalia Drozdiak, Bloomberg News on Oct 20, 2026

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WASHINGTON — Senior Democratic lawmakers warned the chief executives of the largest U.S. technology firms that their platforms were failing to crack down on disinformation spread by Russia and other actors on their platforms ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections.

In a letter to the CEOs of Anthropic PBC, OpenAI, Google parent Alphabet Inc, Meta Platforms Inc, SpaceX and others, the lawmakers said the companies weren’t doing enough to meet past commitments pledging their platforms wouldn’t be misused to target elections both by foreign adversaries and domestic actors.

“Unfortunately, there are concerning signs of backsliding on some of your commitments to protecting elections from misuse of your products,” says the letter sent by Democratic senators Mark Warner of Virginia and Alex Padilla of California, as well as representatives Jim Himes and Joe Morelle.

The Democrats noted some of the firms have not quickly or consistently removed misleading information spread by Russia and that some of the platforms and artificial intelligence tools are still allowing for the creation of fake or misleading election content in violation of company policies.

Alphabet, SpaceX, Meta and OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Anthropic declined to comment.

Malign actors backed by Russia, Iran and China have been using AI tools to turbocharge influence campaigns aimed at promoting chaos and confusion among U.S. voters ahead of the midterms.

Foreign adversaries have launched similar campaigns in past U.S. election cycles but are now benefiting from generative AI to easily plan and launch their operations.

“Some of your content removal and fact-checking policies are woefully insufficient or even nonexistent, allowing false, manipulated, and misleading content to continue to circulate on your platforms unchecked,” the lawmakers said in the letter. They added some AI chatbots had “an unacceptably high error rate” when responding to searches about election and voting processes.

In the letter, the lawmakers outlined steps for the platforms to take, including immediately removing fake content and working with independent researchers.

But should the companies decide not to heed the Democrats’ warnings, it’s unclear what ramifications they could face, particularly with a Republican administration still in the White House for another two years. Democrats are, however, expected to win at least the House of Representatives in the midterms election.

President Donald Trump has downplayed the need for strict regulation of tech companies, especially around AI, saying companies could police themselves.

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With assistance from Alexandra S. Levine, Maggie Eastland, Carmen Arroyo and Davey Alba.

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