Meet the people who'll defend Google, Facebook and Twitter before lawmakers

Facebook, Google and Twitter have a lot at stake when they show up in Washington on November 1 to testify at congressional hearings about the role their technologies played in Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential elections. To face the lawmakers on the House and Senate intelligence committees that day, the internet companies are sending in their legal muscle: the general counsels. That way, the companies avoid putting their chief executives — Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Jack Dorsey of Twitter, and  Sundar Pichai of Google — in the spotlight to deal with questions and the full-blown public relations crisis over whether they are contributing to an undermining of democracy.

Here’s who will appear in the congressional hearings:

Facebook
 

Colin Stretchn, Vice president and general counsel

Stretch, 48, became Facebook’s general counsel in 2013 and has led the social network’s internal review on foreign interference on its platform. He joined Facebook in 2010 and led  negotiations of its settlement in 2011 with the Federal Trade Commission over charges that Facebook violated its privacy promises to users.

That same year, Stretch directed the company’s legal victory over charges by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss that Zuckerberg stole their idea for the social network during their days at Harvard. Stretch received his undergraduate degree from Dartmouth and law degree from Harvard, and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

Google
 

Kent Walkern, Senior VP and general counsel

Walker, 56, joined Google as general counsel in 2006 from the online auction site eBay, where he served as deputy general counsel. During his time at Google, the company has been involved in several high-profile legal and regulatory battles, including YouTube’s fight with Viacom in a landmark copyright case, and a lawsuit from Oracle over software copyrights.

Walker is leading Google’s efforts to challenge the European Commission’s $2.7-billion fine for violating antitrust law by favoring its own shopping service over competitors. After receiving a bachelor’s degree from Harvard and a law degree from Stanford, Walker worked as an assistant United States attorney at the Department of Justice.

Twitter
 

Sean Edgettn, Acting general counsel

Edgett, 39, is filling in as acting general counsel for Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s general counsel who is on maternity leave. He joined Twitter in 2012 and has been part of a legal team that has struggled to navigate a barrage of policy and legal battles over the security of its site, its treatment of hate speech, demands for information by foreign governments and use of the platform by terrorist groups.

Before joining Twitter, Edgett worked at the law firms Latham & Watkins and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. He is a graduate of Pepperdine law school and the University of California, San Diego.

 

©2017 The New York Times News Service