A Senate investigation of Russia’s social-media influence criticized U.S. tech giants, with new attention on Google and YouTube, for helping spread misinformation during the 2016 presidential election and pushed them to better coordinate to prevent a repeat next year.
The Senate Intelligence Committee report released Tuesday, which bolsters previous investigations of Russian interference, recommends the Trump administration publicly underscore the danger of further outside meddling in 2020, and warns political campaigns to scrutinize social media posts before sharing them with supporters.

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Privacy concerns have hampered efforts by big technology companies to share data with outside researchers, said Nathaniel Persily, a Stanford University professor who studies the effect of social media on democracy. Mr. Persily’s project has been unable to do the kind of in-depth analysis of Facebook data it initially planned, he said, because Facebook has been unwilling to share data on individuals, citing privacy concerns.