There are plenty of lawmakers who know next to nothing about technology. Senator Mark Warner isn't one of them. Long before the Virginia Democrat was sworn into the Senate in 2009, Warner built a career in the venture capital and telecom industries. That background has served the senator well since news broke that Facebook, Google, and Twitter all enabled foreign influence campaigns during the 2016 election.

Warner, who acts as vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has driven much of the conversation around what to do with these giants' unimaginable and unchecked power. He's introduced legislation that would regulate digital political ads and published a 20-point proposal filled with possible fixes. At a hearing with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg earlier this year, he didn't seem to need any help at all figuring out how to send emails on that WhatsApp doohicky.

Warner wants badly to work with the tech industry titans, but they haven't made it easy. Zuckerberg had to be all but dragged to Congress, insisting that he wasn't the best-positioned executive to address the company's many failings. But eventually, reluctantly, the head honchos at these companies have begun to come around. That is, Warner says, with one giant exception.

When Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey take their seats at a hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, one chair, reserved for Google cofounder Larry Page, may remain empty. The committee extended the invitation to Google CEO Sundar Pichai as well as Page, who is CEO of Google's parent company, Alphabet, but the company wanted to send senior vice president Kent Walker instead. The committee refused, leaving a glaring hole where one of the biggest internet giants in the world should be.

A Google spokesperson said Friday that Walker will privately brief members of the committee and Congress this week, but Warner's press secretary confirmed Walker will not be testifying.

Google's refusal to send its most senior executives comes at a particularly fraught time for the company. Over the last week, President Trump and his Republican acolytes turned on the search giant, accusing it—without much evidence—of liberal bias in news results. Meanwhile, reports that Google is building a censored search engine in order to push its way into China have raised alarms both inside the company and on Capitol Hill.

WIRED spoke with Warner about the search giant's notable absence, the White House's #stopthebias campaign, what to expect from this week's hearings, and his plan to warn American companies of the looming threat posed by China. Below is a lightly edited version of the conversation.

I’ve lost count of how many hearings there have been in the House and Senate on social media interference since last year. Why will this one be any different?

I think a lot of folks have done their homework. I don’t think this one has to be about Internet 101. There were some of my colleagues who I don’t even think knew how social media works.

What I’ve told the companies is that I don’t want this to be a retrospective on what happened in 2016, but I want to know what they’re doing to prevent this happening in 2018 and beyond. Increasingly, this kind of manipulation can be used not just in politics, but also in business and other areas.

I also put out that paper a number of weeks back with a number of suggestions. I thought it was curious I got some saying this is very thoughtful. There were some people at The Wall Street Journal saying this is going to be the end of American innovation. I’d like to hear from [the companies] which of those ideas make sense, which don’t make sense. I know a number of members are interested to know whether Americans should have the right to know whether they’re being contacted by a human or a bot.