Representatives from Google LLL, Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and Microsoft Corp. met with U.S. security officials Wednesday in Silicon Valley to discuss the upcoming 2020 presidential election.

The talk, held at Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, was not announced beforehand to the media. People close to the matter said the representatives from the aforementioned tech firms met for one day with officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Chief executives from the tech companies were not in attendance.

The discussion revolved around the topic of election interference by other countries trying to undermine the U.S. election, as well as what efforts are being made to ensure that prior to the election, disinformation campaigns from countries such as Russia, China and Iran do not happen.

Following the 2016 election and the subsequent revelations that Russian-government campaigns had used social media to try to influence American voters, it’s not surprising that the spread of disinformation on Facebook was reportedly one of the topics of the day.

According to the New York Times, Facebook’s head of cybersecurity policy, Nathaniel Gleicher, headed the meeting. Since the 2016 elections Facebook has made a number of changes, including hiring thousands of people to review content, as well as recent efforts to clap down on “bad actors” paying for ads on Facebook to spread disinformation.

Presumably as the election nears Facebook will also bring back its “War Room,” a self-contained unit hired to tackle election interference and seek out “adversaries seeking to misuse our services” around the clock.

“Improving election security and countering information operations are complex challenges that no organization can solve alone,” Gleicher said about the meeting in a statement. “Today’s meeting builds on our continuing commitment to work with industry and government partners, as well as with civil society and security experts, to better understand emerging threats and prepare for future elections.”

Talking to Bloomberg, a Twitter representative said much the same. “This is a joint effort in response to a shared threat, and we are committed to doing our part,” said the spokesperson.

Photo: LPS.1 via Wikimedia Commons/Flickr