James Clayton
North America technology reporter

Image source, Reuters

For Republicans, the Senate committee hearing has been all about Twitter so far.

And their general theme has been: Who gave you the power to censor Republicans?

Senator Ted Cruz summed it up when he shouted “Who the hell elected you?” at Jack Dorsey.

Mr Dorsey has generally been softy spoken and contrite, and has accepted that “we need to do more”.

We're only part way through the event, so there's still time for Google's Sundar Pichai - whose surname has been repeatedly mangled - and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg to face tougher questions.

But it's interesting, too, how a number of Democratic senators believe Republicans are keen to be seen to be “bullying” Big Tech less than a week before the election.

Millions of Americans are voting by mail for the first time. Different deadlines and legal challenges will add to the uncertainty in the race for the White House this year.

How will mail-in voting affect the outcome - and where is it easiest and hardest to do?

Have a watch of our video explainer...

David Molloy
Technology reporter

Some Democrats have criticised the timing of the Senate committee's grilling of Facebook, Google and Twitter's chiefs.

They claimed that scheduling the event so close to the US vote was an electoral ploy, and accused their Republican colleagues of “bullying” the tech chief executives.

“I’ve been an advocate of reform of Section 230 for literally 15 years,” Senator Richard Blumenthal told the committee, referring to his time as a state attorney general.

“But frankly I am appalled that my Republican colleagues are holding this hearing literally days before an election, when they seem to want to bully and browbeat the platforms here to try and tilt them towards President Trump’s behaviour.

"The timing seems inexplicable,” he added.

His colleague Brian Schatz said: “What’s happening here is a scar on this committee and the United States Senate.

“We have to call this hearing what it is. It’s a sham.

"So for the first time in my eight years in the US Senate, I’m not going to use my time to ask any questions because this is nonsense.”

Image source, Getty Images

As part of our twice-daily election digest that give you the latest news in four sentences, we've mentioned that Tik Tok famous comedian Sarah Cooper has launched a new show on Netflix.

And Lifestyle YouTuber Cammie Scott has interviewed Noami Biden, Joe Biden's grand-daughter in an Instagram Live. Noami Biden referred to the Democratic candidate as "America's grandfather".

Also, what type of election paraphanalia do Trump supporters collect? See the pictures here.

Leo Kelion
Technology desk editor

Image source, Getty Images

Facebook and Twitter's decision to limit the spread of links to a controversial investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter has been raised several times during the Senate hearing.

"Your platforms knowingly suppressed or limited the visibility of this New York Post article about the content on Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop - many in the country are justifiably concerned," said Republican Senator John Thune.

He asked Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg to provide a list of every newspaper article suppressed by the social network over the past five years.

"I can certainly follow up with you and your team to discuss that," Mr Zuckerberg responded.

Republican Ted Cruz later returned to the subject to challenge Twitter's Jack Dorsey over its actions.

"The New York Post isn't just some random guy tweeting," he said.

"Who the hell elected you and who put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear?"

Mr Dorsey acknowledged that Twitter's decision had been based on an erroneous policy, which had banned users from sharing content that had been acquired as a result of a hack. And he said that this policy had been dropped within 24 hours of its intervention.

But he denied that the action had been taken for partisan reasons.

"I hear the concerns and acknowledge them," Mr Dorsey said, adding that he hoped to address them with "more transparency".

Jim Hurson is a Vietnam veteran and semi-retired small business owner who is unhappy the two major parties cannot work together for the good of the country. His home was destroyed in 2017 in the Great Tubbs Fire.

He is concerned about the impact of climate change, but says neither party has viable ideas to address the problem. He plans to vote for President Trump.

How does the issue of climate change impact your vote?

I find it hard to grasp how anyone can fail to comprehend the dangers of climate change, which I consider to be one facet of our national security issue. That said, none of the viable political parties will properly acknowledge the fundamental environmental problem which is population. The Republicans are in deep denial but the Democrats want to throw the borders open and make the problem much worse. Mr Biden said in the last debate that he wants to amnesty 11 million people now in the country illegally. Ms Harris wants to go well beyond that. It's an insane basis for any environmental policy!

Tell us about your plan to vote.

I will deliver my ballot in person on election day.

These are members of our US election voter panel. You'll hear more from them throughout the week.

Join the conversation:

• We want to hear from you - what questions do you have about the US election?
• In five words, tell us what's at stake in this election.

Facebook has removed two relatively small networks of fake accounts which - among other things - posted about the US election.

Taken together, they only controlled a few dozen accounts. The largest one had 14,000 followers, but most were much smaller.

The size of the latest takedown is broadly in line with previous influence operations uncovered – from Russia, Iran and elsewhere.

But there are still questions hanging over the issue of outside meddling. For instance, what don’t we know? The true scale of Russian interference in the 2016 election campaign only really became clear after the election.

And then there’s the impact of homegrown campaigns – which in fact have spawned the most viral pieces of disinformation this time around.

Maybe that – rather than foreign interference – is the real “fake news” story of this election.

Watch this for more on how to spot disinformation.

A scientist by training, Annie Passarello is a teacher and tour guide who sees the ravages of climate change first-hand in her state. Concerned by the divisiveness in the country, she is voting for Joe Biden this November.

How does the issue of climate change impact your vote?

As an Alaskan, climate change is on my front doorstep. But it's not just the loss of wildlife and fish habitat and the growing number of forest fires that concern us. It's the loss of a way of life, it's the loss of culture.

Many Alaskans engage in subsistence hunting and fishing to some extent and have for thousands of years, which is being lost as a result of the impacts of climate change. Those losses impact our economy as the land and waters of Alaska have always provided so much life for us, and when they are diminished the quality of our life is diminished.

Tell us about your plan to vote.

I plan to walk the two blocks down my dirt road and vote at the fire station.

These are members of our US election voter panel. You'll hear more from them throughout the week.

Join the conversation:

• We want to hear from you - what questions do you have about the US election?
• In five words, tell us what's at stake in this election.

In one of the first exchanges of the Senate hearing, Twitter's Jack Dorsey was challenged by the committee's chair about the discrepancy between the ways it had treated some of President Trump's tweets compared to those of other world leaders.

Republican Senator Roger Wicker questioned why Twitter had added a fact-check label to a post by the President about the security of mail-in ballots, but left posts by Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that threatened violence against Israel unlabelled.

Mr Dorsey responded that Twitter labelled the President's tweet to provide users with more information about voting so they could "connect the dots" and "make decisions for themselves".

But he said Twitter considered the Iranian leader's tweets to be "sabre rattling", which did not violate its terms of service.

"Very telling information," responded Senator Wicker.

Joe Tidy
Cyber-security reporter

After hackers managed to access Donald Trump's official website last night, our cyber reporter gives his verdict.

Website defacements are a low-level form of cyber-vandalism akin to someone trespassing on private land and writing a nasty message on a wall in spray paint.

The attack only lasted 30 minutes before the hackers were kicked out, so it's unlikely they would have gained much other than a target on their backs if they were silly enough to leave a trail.

What's more serious is the potential cyber-security failing on the part of the Trump campaign.

This embarrassing incident comes just a week after a Dutch ethical hacker claimed to have logged into the US president's Twitter account by guessing his password. This has yet to be verified.

There is no such thing as 100% secure when it comes to cyber-security, but in both these incidents it seems like basic steps might not have been taken.

President Trump has also been very critical of other people for failing cyber-security measures in the past.

During the 2016 election campaign, he criticised opponent Hillary Clinton when her emails were exposed in a hack.

Earlier this month, he ruffled feathers when he told supporters: "Nobody gets hacked. To get hacked you need somebody with 197 IQ and he needs about 15% of your password."

Image source, Reuters

If you missed our report earlier on President Trump's official website being hacked, here's an update for you.

The hack, which happened on Tuesday evening US time, involved an apparent cryptocurrency scam.

"The world has had enough of the fake news spreaded [sic] daily" by the US president, a message on www.donaldjtrump.com briefly read.

The hackers also claimed to have proof that the US administration "is involved in the origin of the coronavirus" and interfering in the presidential election, which takes place on 3 November.

The message then asked for cryptocurrency donations in exchange for access to this information.

There is no evidence to back these statements, and the Trump campaign said there was "no exposure to sensitive data because none of it is actually stored on the site". The website has now been restored.

Mr Trump's re-election campaign team is investigating the security breach.

Read more here

Leo Kelion
Technology desk editor

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg began his testimony late because he had problems getting connected to the Senate committee.

But after a brief pause to proceedings, he's now defended the legal protections given to tech firms by Section 230.

However, he also says the law needs to be updated - which may put him at odds with the other two tech CEOs he'll appear alongside.

"Without Section 230... platforms would likely censor more content to avoid legal risk and would be less likely to invest in technologies that enable people to express themselves in new ways," he wrote.

"Second... platforms could face liability for doing even basic moderation, such as removing hate speech and harassment that impacts the safety and security of their communities.

"However, I believe Congress should update the law to make sure it’s working as intended... and I look forward to a meaningful dialogue about how we might update the law to deal with the problems we face today."

He goes on to suggest new regulations will be needed to cover issues including the treatment of harmful content, privacy and election-related posts.

And while he says that any changes should not "stifle expression or impede innovation", critics have already raised concerns that Facebook's huge profits might put it in a better place to cope with new demands than its smaller rivals.

The concern is that by seeking to constrain Facebook's influence, politicians and regulators could end up putting it in an even more dominant position.

Google's chief Sundar Pichai has also given his opening remarks to the Senate committee.

He faces questions about both Google's search results and its YouTube platform.

Mr Pichai said his firm was committed to supporting democracy in a non-partisan way, but also had a responsibility to protect users from harmful content.

"I would urge the committee to be very thoughtful about any changes to Section 230, and to be very aware of the consequences those changes might have on businesses and customers," he said.

Leo Kelion
Technology desk editor

Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey has given his prepared testimony to the Senate Commerce committee centres on the need to keep the legal safeguards given to tech companies by Section 230 in place.

He suggested a better way to proceed would be to give users more control over the way social media posts appear in their feeds.

"Sweeping regulations can further entrench companies that have large market shares and can easily afford to scale up additional resources to comply.

"We are sensitive to these types of competition concerns because Twitter does not have the same breadth of interwoven products or market size as compared to our industry peers."

He went on to explain that he thinks the British-American computer scientist Stephen Wolfram has suggested a better way to proceed. The proposal would open up Twitter and other social networks to external tools, which would order the way posts are presented in a different manner.

But opening the door to different ways to censor content would not necessarily address concerns that some posts shouldn't be hidden or otherwise suppressed in the first place.

And social media firms could still be accused of being partisan on the grounds that they may still need to decide which third-party tools to allow.

James Clayton
North America technology reporter

We know Republicans will let Jack Dorsey know their feelings about how Twitter treats Donald Trump - it has labelled and taken down tweets from the President.

I’m especially interested to hear more about what went on inside Twitter when it decided to suppress a New York Post story about Joe Biden two weeks ago.

Twitter acted due to its “hacked materials” policy, only to apologise and change its policy. What on earth happened?

Dorsey has appeared in Congress before, but he will be under so much pressure it will be interesting to see how he holds up.

I’m also fascinated to hear how these companies are preparing for the period after the election.

Privately, they are worried their platforms could be used to inflame civil unrest.

It will also be interesting to hear what Democratic Senators think about Section 230.

Biden has said he’d consider getting rid of it, but the Democrats don’t have a fixed position on this yet.

Image source, Getty Images

Politics can often lead to family feuds - but in one case in Omaha, even the police have gotten involved.

A Donald Trump supporter called the police on Sunday to report his sister, after he saw her pull up outside his house, remove a pro-Trump magnet from his car and drive away.

His sister, who supports Joe Biden, said she removed the Trump/Pence magnet because she feared it would draw negative attention and endanger their mother's safety.

She told police that her brother “is completely brainwashed with Trump stuff”, according to a police report reported in the Norfolk Daily News., external

The brother has told police he does not wish to press charges.

David Molloy
Technology reporter

Image source, Getty Images

Section 230 is the main legal protection for social networks so they don't get sued.

It means that generally, websites themselves aren't responsible for illegal or offensive things that users post on them.

They're treated as neutral middlemen - like newspaper sellers, rather than the editors that decide what goes in the paper. Originally seen as a way to protect internet providers (like Comcast or AT&T), it's become the main shield for huge sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, which can't possibly review every post from their users before it goes up.

But politicians say Section 230 is outdated. Democrats take issue with the spread of lies online with no consequences for the sites.

Republicans argue that big tech is using its moderation powers to censor people it doesn't agree with - making editorial calls rather than staying neutral.

And both sides agree they want to see the social networks held accountable.

Leo Kelion
Technology desk editor

Image source, Getty Images

You can expect some fireworks when senators question the chiefs of Google, Facebook and Twitter shortly.

The Senate Commerce Committee is hosting a session titled: “Does Section 230’s sweeping immunity enable Big Tech bad behaviour?"

"Section 230" refers to a law that lets tech firms avoid being sued in the US over comments posted by their users, as well as giving them legal protection over their decisions about what posts to promote, suppress and even take down.

Both the Republicans and Democrats want the law changed, though not for the same reasons.

The Republicans claim it has enabled Google-owned YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to favour liberal views.

The Democrats have focused on the idea that the social networks are failing to police themselves properly and leaving dangerous hate speech and misinformation online, which their peers in the traditional media could not get away with.

All this is happening less than a week before US Election Day, so there is likely to be some grandstanding on the part of the politicians.

In particular, they are likely to try and pick apart recent decisions to hide and flag some posts by President Trump, but not others.

And Twitter faces questions over its handling of a controversial New York Post investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter, which it initially blocked users from sharing.

Image source, Reuters

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that ballots received after election day on 3 November cannot be counted in Wisconsin, regardless of when they were posted. Now officials are asking voters to put their postal ballots in the post or drive them to a polling station - nearly 327,000 absentee ballots in the state have yet to be received by election officials, reports the Washington Post.

Democrats and civil rights groups in Wisconsin had sought to extend the deadline after which postal votes could be counted, after more than 79,000 arrived late for the state's primary elections in spring. The deadline was extended then, but this time the Supreme Court has ruled that it cannot be.

In Wisconsin, late ballots could be critical if the election is close.

In 2016, Donald Trump defeated Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton by fewer than 23,000 votes.

Kerry Allen
BBC Monitoring, Chinese Media Analyst

Image source, Reuters

Today in China, jokes are appearing online about Donald Trump’s fascination with red ties, after CNN publicised an old interview with him from 1990, external showing that it was a popular fashion statement back then.

Many in China are joking that the video shows he has a long-term obsession with wearing a “红领巾”, which more literally translates as a “red neckerchief”.

Red neckwear has socialist connotations in China. Children in communist countries like China, North Korea and Cuba, are often seen wearing red scarves. In China, the colour represents the blood of revolutionary martyrs.

Many are making jokes today about how communism is never far from Trump's heart. “I too used to wear a red scarf 30 years ago,” one user on the popular Weibo social network says. Many are calling the president a “young pioneer” and some are speculating over whether his “neckerchiefs” are “getting brighter”.

Nicknames suggesting that Donald Trump has a secret love of China, because of how often it features in his rhetoric, have increasingly been

Users love calling him “Comrade Trump” and “Chuan Jianguo”, the latter meaning “Nation-builder Trump”, as they believe the country Trump is making great again under his leadership is China, not the US.