Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat and head of the Senate committee that sponsored the hearing, said that “there’s nothing inherently wrong” with how Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube use their algorithms for the purpose of user engagement, and made it clear that Congress was not weighing any legislation at this point.57 Contrast this with the apocalyptic stakes described by the experts who testified at the panel. In her testimony, Joan Donovan put it this way: “The biggest problem facing our nation is misinformation-at-scale. . . . The cost of doing nothing is democracy’s end.”58
