Facebook, Twitter get lashing on Capitol Hill — and brownie points for showing up

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill had no shortage of complaints for Facebook and Twitter at a hearing Wednesday. They decried the platforms' vulnerability to foreign influence, their arcane handling of user data and the perception that they buried conservative voices.

But members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence agreed the companies deserved credit for at least one thing: they showed up.

The same couldn't be said for Google, which was pilloried for refusing to send an executive on par with attendees Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook Inc.'s billionaire chief operating officer, and Jack Dorsey, Twitter Inc.'s chief executive.

Congress wanted to send a signal that Silicon Valley would no longer get a free pass - and that the