Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testified remotely.
Washington:
Facebook and Twitter defended their handling of US election disinformation in a heated congressional hearing on Tuesday where a key senator assaulted platforms to be the “ultimate editor” of political news.
The hearing, the second in less than a month, took place with social media under fire from critics from both left and right for their handling of political content during a bitter presidential campaign in the United States.
Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testified remotely at the session, which was called to discuss “censorship and removal of news articles” and “handling of the 2020 election. “by the platforms.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, chairing the Judicial Committee hearing, warned CEOs that new regulations are needed to ensure that social media giants are held accountable for decisions to remove, filter or maintain content.
“It looks like you are the ultimate editor,” Graham said at the opening as he aimed at decisions by both platforms to limit the dissemination of a New York Post article purporting to expose wrongdoing involving the son. of President-elect Joe Biden during the campaign.
“When you have companies that have the power of governments (and) that have a lot more power than the traditional media, something has to give.”
Graham said the law known as Section 230 which grants immunity to online services for content posted by others “needs to be changed.”
Megaphone for lies
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal also called for reform of Section 230 while blaming companies for what he called inadequate measures against President Donald Trump’s political disinformation.
“The president used this megaphone to spread vicious lies in an apparent attempt to overthrow the will of the voters,” Blumenthal said.
Blumenthal said social media companies had “a power far surpassing the thief barons of the last golden age” and have “profited tremendously from stripping data of our privacy and promoting the discourse of hatred and suppression of voters “.
Republican Senator Mike Lee, meanwhile, denounced what he called “instances in which your platforms take a very clearly partisan and non-neutral approach to moderation of election-related content … days before the election. . “
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testifies from a distance.
On the other hand, Blumenthal said that “Facebook, seems to have a history of making accommodations and giving in to conservative pressure” on content policies.
Democrat Dianne Feinstein questioned the appropriateness of Twitter’s tagging of unverified tweets such as those from Trump claiming an election victory.
“Does this tag do enough to prevent tweets from causing harm when the tweet is still visible and not accurate?” asked the California senator.
230 rules
Dorsey and Zuckerberg said they were open to reform on Section 230, but cautioned that the platforms should not be treated like “publishers” or traditional media.
“We have to be very careful and attentive to changes… because going in one direction could exclude new competitors and new startups,” Dorsey said.
“Going to another might create a demand for the possible amount of resources to manage it. Going to yet another might encourage even more voice blocking… I believe we can build on (section) 230.”
Defend filters
The two CEOs defended their efforts to tackle harmful disinformation during the election campaign.
“We have stepped up our crackdown on militias, conspiratorial networks and other groups to prevent them from using our platform to organize violence or civil unrest in the post-election period,” Zuckerberg said.
He said Facebook removed false statements on survey conditions and posted warnings on more than 150 million pieces of content reported by independent fact checkers.
The two CEOs said they would study the spread of election disinformation while allowing independent academics to conduct similar research.
Dorsey meanwhile said the Twitter filtering was not the result of bias, despite Conservatives’ claims to the contrary.
By filtering the content, “all decisions are made without using any political point of view, party affiliation or political ideology,” Dorsey said in her testimony.
“Our Twitter rules are not based on any ideology or any particular set of beliefs. We strongly believe in fairness, and we strive to apply our Twitter rules fairly.”
Both platforms have begun to limit the reach of many Trump tweets, including ones in which the president rejected his electoral defeat or questioned the integrity of the voting process.
Twitter and Facebook have faced pressure to remove what many see as damaging disinformation around the elections, while combating claims of suppression of some political views.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
