Recording of Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Section 230 where Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sundar Pichai testified
bringing in Zuckerberg, Pichai, & Dorsey to defend their content moderation under threat of gutting Section 230, days before the election—feels like a last-ditch effort to spook them out of enforcing their rules on misinfo & foreign interference. Donald J. Trump / @realdonaldtrump : It's amazing. Twitter refuses to allow the any mention of the Biden corruption story which was carried so well on @TuckerCarlson last night. It's the biggest story and Big Tech, together with the Lamestream Media, isn't allowing a word to be said about it. Cory Gardner / @sencorygardner : I don't like the idea of unelected elites in San Francisco or Silicon Valley deciding whether my speech is permissible on their platforms, but I Iike even less the idea of unelected Washington bureaucrats trying to enforce some kind of ‘politically neutral’ content moderation. https://twitter.com/... Robby Soave / @robbysoave : A Big Tech hearing as pointless and performative as every other one https://reason.com/... via @reason @destiny3650 : Zuckerberg & Jack were unable to name a leftist individual or entity that they have censored on their platforms currently! Leftists do everything right in the eyes of the Demon!!! Conservatives are for God & Country, so that makes us conspiracy theorists!https://www.breitbart.com/ ... Senator John Thune / @senjohnthune : The Facebook employee who is in charge of election integrity on the platform is a former Biden staffer. And, according to Mr. Zuckerberg, he isn't even aware of it. Is there someone to balance this ideology in a similar election integrity role at his company? **crickets** Brian Fung / @b_fung : Yet Zuck continues to cling to the notion that Facebook is simply an innocent bystander in a laissez-faire marketplace of Good Ideas and the platform is simply where Good Ideas go to rise to the top. It's a simplistic model that's years behind the curve in media and academia. Sen. Marsha Blackburn / @marshablackburn : .@Facebook violated its own fact checking policy when it censored the @nypost. Richard Blumenthal / @senblumenthal : My Republican colleagues have been silent. When confronted w/Trump's lies, they've seemingly lost their phones & their voices. Their one reaction: this hearing, which is strategically timed before the election & designed to browbeat the platforms that have labeled disinformation. Senator John Thune / @senjohnthune : My question: Are Silicon Valley CEOs the legitimate referees of what kind of political speech gets amplified or suppressed? Zuckerberg: I certainly think not, I do not want us to have that role @Jack: No To underscore: tech companies are not the referees over our democracy. @anildash : These tech CEOs should treat the bad-faith argument from Republicans trying to game the refs about misinformation as the bullshit it is, and fight back as hard as they would against any competitor they wanted to destroy. https://www.vox.com/... Sen. Marsha Blackburn / @marshablackburn : Big tech has made themselves the arbiters of free speech for the American people. The time has come for these platforms to stop removing content they simply don't agree with while hiding behind Section 230's liability shield. https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/ ... @thetomzone : senator blumenthal says his colleagues want to browbeat tech companies into supporting trump and the timing of the section 230 hearing is “inexplicable.” commerce voted unanimously to hold this hearing. Mark Warner / @markwarner : That's why It saddens me that some of my colleagues have joined in on this Administration's concerted bid to bully platforms into allowing dark money groups, right-wing militias, & even Trump himself to abuse social platforms to sow disinformation & suppress voter participation. Julian Sanchez / @normative : The argument for repealing 230 is, essentially: Bully platforms into engaging in much more censorship out of fear of the ruinious expense of having to knock down thousands of ultimately frivolous lawsuits. Senator Roger Wicker / @senatorwicker : Today I will chair a @senatecommerce hearing featuring the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, & Google. They will have to answer for their content moderation practices, which have disproportionately affected conservatives. Tune in at 9AM CT/10AM ET here. https://www.commerce.senate.gov/ ... https://twitter.com/... Mike Lee / @senmikelee : “Zuckerberg was unable to answer the question and told Lee he needed time to think about it.” https://www.foxnews.com/... @naral : 🧵 During today's hearing with major tech CEOs, Republicans parroted bogus claims that conservatives are being “censored” online. That's because they rely on spreading disinformation to keep them in power, and good content moderation threatens that power. https://www.nytimes.com/... Senator Roger Wicker / @senatorwicker : At today's @SenateCommerce #BigTech hearing, Facebook and Twitter confirmed they had no evidence the @nypost story on Hunter Biden was Russian disinformation - yet they suppressed it anyway. Watch the clip. https://twitter.com/... Josh Constine -SignalFire / @joshconstine : Dear @Jack & Mark, Today's congressional hearing on “biased censorship” was designed to bully you into allowing election interference & voter suppression. Don't let them work the refs Keep labeling, downranking, & blocking misinformation You owe democracy at least that much. https://twitter.com/... Jennifer Franco / @jennfranconews : Sen. Ted Cruz to Twitter's CEO during today's hearing on social media regulations before Senate panel: “Mr. Dorsey, who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear?"https://twitter.com/... Ben / @exis10tial : Millions of unemployed are struggling, businesses of all sizes are dying, a global pandemic is spiraling out of control, and the US Senate is having hearings about social media posts that hurt their feelings.. https://twitter.com/... @carodjah : The president hasn't been restricted in any sense of the term. Nor have conservatives. Nor have bigots and racists and those who spread hate speech. The people I've seen most restricted are transgender people daring to stand up for themselves. https://twitter.com/... Adi Robertson / @thedextriarchy : A few of the entities/people I would love the Senate to ask about Section 230: - Wikipedia - The Organization for Transformative Works - Basically any consumer complaints site - Harassment campaign victims - Newspapers with comment sections - Yelp Jeff Jarvis / @jeffjarvis : Perfect. Just perfect. This is the epistemology of the Republicans and the root of their case against the platforms: “If you erase lies and hate, you erase our speech.” https://twitter.com/... Sohrab Ahmari / @sohrabahmari : A thread. .@andymstone, the ex-Democratic operative who said Facebook is “reducing circulation” on our Hunter Files reporting, said that step is being taken pending fact-checking. It was a bizarre standard, seemingly not applied to countless anti-Trump stories that collapsed. Dare Obasanjo / @carnage4life : The fact that she is referencing an internal mailing list discussion by Google employees that was leaked to alt-right sites is why I fully support anyone who questions the value of debating politics at work. https://twitter.com/... Donald Trump Jr / @donaldjtrumpjr : That's a ridiculous statement. Millions of people get their news from Twitter and if Twitter is suppressing some of the biggest news of the day not allowing it to trend and locking out conservative accounts of course they are able to influence elections. https://twitter.com/... Matthew Yglesias / @mattyglesias : Amazingly this was at the hearing about the need for technology companies to adopt a broad view of the social value of free speech https://twitter.com/... Kevin Roose / @kevinroose : how it started: how it's going: https://twitter.com/... David Pierce / @pierce : OMG “We are unable to make contact with Mr. Mark Zuckerberg. We are told by Facebook's staff he is alone.” Molly Wood / @mollywood : These hearings are not about Section 230 anymore. They're about the right to spread misinformation. One party says it's being silenced, and one party (plus researchers, academics and FB EMPLOYEES) say the platforms are spreading dangerous misinformation. Only one side has proof. https://twitter.com/... @nxthompson : Why does section 230 allow tech companies to moderate content? Bc the previous law was like one saying swimming pools were liable for drowning deaths if they had lifeguards, but not if they didn't. The point of 230 is to fix those nuts incentives. https://www.wired.com/... @rmac18 : Beyond the lack of coherent direction and political pandering from the Senators, these hearings with group lineups of CEOs are just not effective. It should be one CEO facing a line of questioning about specific topics with time for follow ups. Or else we get these charades. Will Sommer / @willsommer : Sen. Ron Johnson is so angry about this obviously satirical tweet about him, he just read it at the Senate tech hearing. Johnson says he wants the tweet taken down— “That could definitely affect my ability to get re-elected.” https://twitter.com/... Casey Newton / @caseynewton : “More than 50 former intelligence officials signed a letter casting doubt on the provenance of a New York Post story on the former vice president's son.” https://www.politico.com/... https://twitter.com/... @rmac18 : Dorsey and Zuckerberg say that they have no evidence of the Hunter Biden NYPost story originating from Russian intelligence. @rmac18 : Dorsey getting pressed heavily for his earlier answer to Cruz in which he said “no” when asked if Twitter could influence an election. Ofc Twitter, like any other medium that disseminates info, can influence. Dorsey is cornered by the fact that he gave such a definitive answer. Matthew Yglesias / @mattyglesias : From tech to sports to hollywood the consistent conservative view is that free enterprise is sacrosanct unless an industry features an empowered workforce that has left-of-center views, in which case some kind of mandatory political neutrality principles apply. Casey Newton / @caseynewton : Every Republican question about 230 comes down to asking “Why do people who break your rules face more consequences than people who do not break your rules?” David Mack / @davidmackau : cancel culture is out of control!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!! https://twitter.com/... Max Fisher / @max_fisher : The future of American governance is bad-faith politicians having show arguments with disingenuous tech CEOs, forever https://twitter.com/... Alex Kantrowitz / @kantrowitz : “Stop censoring people” “Fire your employees who criticize me” Mike Masnick / @mmasnick : I think it's disgusting that sitting US Senators would be asking companies about the political ideology of their employees. https://twitter.com/... Simon Lester / @snlester : How about Twitter makes its own choices, and then people decide whether they want to use Twitter, some alternative form of social media, or no social media at all? https://twitter.com/... Matt Stoller / @matthewstoller : Both sides in the Section 230 debate argue that the law is critical to the modern internet. It's just that the proponents of Section 230 don't realize that it's not 2005 anymore and the modern internet is a disaster. Cecilia Kang / @ceciliakang : In questioning about Facebook groups as breeding ground for hate groups, Zuckerberg responds that vast vast majority of groups aren't problematic. Mark Zuckerberg often uses this math defense, that we're mostly good. But with blns of users across apps, the even 5 percent is huge Taylor Hatmaker / @tayhatmaker : *has 7 minutes with one of the most powerful men in the world and can ask them anything* WHY don't my friends have MORE followers Kevin Collier / @kevincollier : I don't know enough about the history of congressional hearings, but it's painfully obvious to anyone who watches the tech ones that most who participate are only interested in generating an isolated clip of themselves getting an own in. Just do a tiktok, man. Save us the time. Adi Robertson / @thedextriarchy : The one thing I *really* wanted from this hearing was to get a better sense of where Facebook stands now on 230 legislation, because it so famously flipped on SESTA/FOSTA. This looks less and less likely to happen. Adi Robertson / @thedextriarchy : I'm legitimately curious about whether there are meaningful ways to legislate against harassment and other literally illegal and clearly harmful things. Schatz is right that... this is not that. There is just no way to have a good faith discussion amid the weird bias complaints. Adi Robertson / @thedextriarchy : To loosely paraphrase Ted Cruz's last statement, how dare the CEO of a company select what can be posted on its website. Kevin Roose / @kevinroose : This hearing is mostly a bad-faith parade of grievances, but there is also some absurd denialism by the CEOs, saying they're not referees (they are!) and that feed-ranking algorithms are neutral and detached from human decisions (they aren't!) O...K / @kateconger : The 230 reform that Twitter and Facebook seem to find most palatable is publishing more transparency reports. I don't know how a startup competes under those requirements: https://twitter.com/... Taylor Hatmaker / @tayhatmaker : Zuckerberg says he agrees with Dorsey, that social networks should have more transparency around moderation and algorithms. He points to FB's transparency reports (aggregated info on enforcement of its rules) but Facebook's algorithm is a huge black box Howard Mortman / @howardmortman : .@jack Dorsey of @twitter in DC over the years ... https://twitter.com/... @antoniogm : Yup. Which is why this entire discourse is so absurd on all side: from the opportunistic politicians crafting sound bites, to the chattering-class journos and academics making careers out of what's a rounding error on a dashboard. https://twitter.com/... @antoniogm : I've said it before: if you've never worked at a company like these, and stared at dashboards full of nine-figure numbers as part of your day job, you likely have no idea what you're talking about. And you definitely have no idea about potential product solutions. @nxthompson : Wow. @brianschatz speaking truth. Points out that this hearing is a sham and it's a waste of time and money to try to bully tech CEOs a week before an election for partisan aims. “I'm not going to use my time to ask any questions because this is nonsense.” Donie O'Sullivan / @donie : Cruz, whose dad was falsely implicated by Trump in 2016 in the JFK assassination, tells @jack Twitter shouldn't be shutting down any stories. Aaron Rupar / @atrupar : I guarantee you this 20-second clip will run on Fox News's primetime programming tonight https://twitter.com/... Tony Romm / @tonyromm : Cruz left out the people who own and run the NY Post as he ran down all of its other qualities Issie Lapowsky / @issielapowsky : Dorsey live troubleshoots for the NY Post re: how it can tweet its Biden story. Cruz is yelling so loud it's echoing on his own computer. Tony Romm / @tonyromm : Cruz just claimed Google manipulates search results to manipulate the election. This is false. Sarah Frier / @sarahfrier : Blumenthal says Republicans “seem to want to bully and browbeat the platforms here to try and tilt them in president Trump's favor,” though the election and human health is on the line if they ignore Trump's misinformation. Issie Lapowsky / @issielapowsky : Kind of a joke to cherry pick a single FB staffer who worked for Biden. Joel Kaplan, a Republican, is the top of the heap when it comes to Facebook's political work. Alex Stamos / @alexstamos : When you make tens of billions of decisions, even 99.5% accuracy gives plenty of examples for any group of any persuasion to nutpick and paint as a symbol of bias. Anyway, we need mandated transparency/safe harbor to allow for real empirical research. Casey Newton / @caseynewton : An hour into this Section 230 hearing, it must be said: we are not getting anywhere Sam Shead / @sam_l_shead : Zuck getting told to follow up ON THE RECORD to future questions was brilliant. Don't think I've ever heard someone say “alright” so sheepishly before Mike Masnick / @mmasnick : So @SenBlumenthal talks about how he was a critic of #Section230 going back to when he was AG of Connecticut. He leaves out this is because he got mad about Craigslist ads. Then he complains about GOP “bullying and browbeating” platforms. The same thing he's done for 15 years. Alex Stamos / @alexstamos : Any discussion about content moderation needs to be grounded in the reality that the controversial calls are a tiny portion of what is necessary to make any social feature at all usable. FB Q2 numbers: Organized Hate - 266k Spam - 1.4B 5000x difference Issie Lapowsky / @issielapowsky : Zuck said he's going to follow up with Thune on providing a list of news articles FB has suppressed “There's probably already a record of this that could be reviewed.”- Zuck Dorsey said he'd also be open to sharing a list. Wouldn't be surprised if these requests go unanswered. Issie Lapowsky / @issielapowsky : Klobuchar starts with a conciliatory note to the witnesses, thanking them for encouraging voting, chastising the Republicans for not passing the Honest Ads Act and accusing them of politicizing what “should actually not be a partisan topic.” Nancy Scola / @nancyscola : One nugget way down at the bottom here: Twitter source says that if Trump isn't re-elected, he'll no longer be covered by its “world leaders” policy — meaning that if he violates Twitter's rules, he faces enforcement actions like everyone else. https://www.politico.com/... Mike Masnick / @mmasnick : So @jack is explaining how narrow Twitter's content moderation policies are regarding misinformation and @CoryGardner's response is “But why aren't you moderating THIS PARTICULAR TWEET” that clearly does not violate Twitter's policies, as Jack just explained. Lance Ulanoff / @lanceulanoff : I miss Hoodie Mark Zuckerberg. https://www.c-span.org/... https://twitter.com/... Nilay Patel / @reckless : Cory Gardner muffs Sundar Pichai's name, the second senator to do so. He is the CEO of one of the richest and most powerful companies on earth, and his name is easy to pronounce. It's not an accident that they won't learn. @politico : Vijaya Gadde flies under the radar in a world that worships tech CEOs. But she's quickly moving Twitter toward a tougher line on speech—and infuriating conservatives along the way. https://www.politico.com/... Charlie Warzel / @cwarzel : these issues (230, content moderation) are extremely important but the only takeaway from this circus right now is that these lawmakers don't want to work on a covid relief package for struggling americans but feel it's a great use of time to vent about shadowbans and bias. https://twitter.com/... Aaron Rupar / @atrupar : The entire premise of this hearing is that everyone is Very Unfair to dear leader Trump https://twitter.com/... Issie Lapowsky / @issielapowsky : Dorsey remarkably doesn't take the bait and do the whole mea culpa thing: “There are certainly things that we can do much faster. But generally, we believe that the policy was enforced in a timely manner, and in the right regard.” @thetomzone : SEN WICKER: I needed a new heel for my shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. DORSEY: Uh huh. WICKER: Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, Nilay Patel / @reckless : Twitter is a long con to make powerful people say “tweet” in somber and serious tones Cecilia Kang / @ceciliakang : Zuckerberg is most agreeable among CEOs for reforms of 230. “Congress should update the law to make sure it is working as intended.” -Making content moderation systems more transparent -separating good actors form bad actors. @rmac18 : Facebook: “We connect people.” Facebook CEO: “Hello is my video on, can you hear me, I am alone here. Hello?” @ceciliakang : Mark Zuckerberg having trouble getting connected. 5 minute break for now James Titcomb / @jamestitcomb : Dorsey's last appearance in front of Congress he got criticised for not wearing a tie. Very smart to make it impossible to tell this time https://twitter.com/... Issie Lapowsky / @issielapowsky : Jack kicks off with a 3-point plan for updating Section 230: requiring transparency into moderation practices, requiring appeal process, and enabling people to choose the algos that rank their content. Mike Masnick / @mmasnick : So @jack suggests that letting people choose their own moderation algorithms is a worthwhile approach. Yup. https://knightcolumbia.org/... But, it's also not a solution the government can mandate. But it can *fix other laws* to stop the ability of companies to block that. Cecilia Kang / @ceciliakang : Sundar again has good room mood the ceramics are like a still life portrait @jack : Requiring 1) moderation process and practices to be published, 2) a straightforward process to appeal decisions, and 3) best efforts around algorithmic choice, are suggestions to address the concerns we all have going forward. And they're all achievable in short order. Kevin Roose / @kevinroose : Excited for today's Senate hearing on the censorship of conservative voices by tech platforms! https://twitter.com/... Issie Lapowsky / @issielapowsky : Following Wicker's accusations about political bias, Cantwell is more or less skipping right over all of that to talk about foreign election interference online. “I know that some people think that these issues are out of sight, out of mind I guarantee you, they're not.” Mark Scott / @markscott82 : I do not see Zuckerberg, Dorsey or Pichai making the same efforts to provide themselves for questioning fro other democratically-elected lawmakers in Berlin, Brasilia or Bnagkok — despite, arguably, these companies having a greater effect on those democracies than in the US. Mark Scott / @markscott82 : In Europe, the debate has focused almost exclusively on platforms not doing enough to stop misinformation, etc. That includes voluntary code of conduct, as well as domestic legislation requiring 24 hour takedowns of harmful content or hefty penalties. Mark Scott / @markscott82 : I find it amazing how this debate around platform liability has gone down very different paths in US and Europe. It's just night and day, and does a disservice to all social media users in both US & Europe. Mark Scott / @markscott82 : In US, the political battle has focused on how Silicon Valley is allegedly censoring right-leaning content and voices (there's no evidence of that, tbh). Left-leaning voices say platforms aren't doing enough to clamp down on misinformation/hate speech @rmac18 : me loggin into the tech hearing https://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer
Sen. Marsha Blackburn today asked if a Google engineer who has criticized her still has a job. “He has had very unkind things to say about me and I was just wondering if you all had still kept him working there,” she said https://www.politico.com/... https://twitter.com/...
The top-performing link posts by U.S. Facebook pages in the last 24 hours are from: 1. Dios Es Bueno 2. Dan Bongino 3. Dan Bongino 4. Dan Bongino 5. Dan Bongino 6. Dan Bongino 7. Donald Trump For President 8. Fox News 9. Dan Bongino 10. David J. Harris Jr.
Courts have misread Section 230 as providing social media companies with carte blanch to censor content while maintaining their statutory immunity protections. That's not what Section 230 says.
We can and should have a conversation about Section 230 - and how it has enabled platforms to turn a blind eye as their platforms are used to facilitate discrimination, civil rights violations, enable online frauds targeted at vulnerable users, and more. https://colorofchange.org…
Here are the interaction numbers for the top ten Facebook pages belonging to members of the Senate Commerce Committee. Data for the last 12 months. (Many Senators have both an official page named “Senator X” and a campaign page under their name) https://twitter.com/...
Today's GOP-led Senate hearing—bringing in Zuckerberg, Pichai, & Dorsey to defend their content moderation under threat of gutting Section 230, days before the election—feels like a last-ditch effort to spook them out of enforcing their rules on misinfo & foreign interference.
Appalling. To state the obvious, a legislator genuinely interested in protecting free speech would not be asking a question like this. https://twitter.com/...
The USA doesn't have Freedom of the Press, we have Suppression of the Story, or just plain Fake News. So much has been learned in the last two weeks about how corrupt our Media is, and now Big Tech, maybe even worse. Repeal Section 230!
It's amazing. Twitter refuses to allow the any mention of the Biden corruption story which was carried so well on @TuckerCarlson last night. It's the biggest story and Big Tech, together with the Lamestream Media, isn't allowing a word to be said about it.
A few of the entities/people I would love the Senate to ask about Section 230: - Wikipedia - The Organization for Transformative Works - Basically any consumer complaints site - Harassment campaign victims - Newspapers with comment sections - Yelp
Dear @Jack & Mark, Today's congressional hearing on “biased censorship” was designed to bully you into allowing election interference & voter suppression. Don't let them work the refs Keep labeling, downranking, & blocking misinformation You owe democracy at least that much. http…
I don't like the idea of unelected elites in San Francisco or Silicon Valley deciding whether my speech is permissible on their platforms, but I Iike even less the idea of unelected Washington bureaucrats trying to enforce some kind of ‘politically neutral’ content moderation. ht…
Zuckerberg & Jack were unable to name a leftist individual or entity that they have censored on their platforms currently! Leftists do everything right in the eyes of the Demon!!! Conservatives are for God & Country, so that makes us conspiracy theorists!https://www.breitbart.com…
Millions of unemployed are struggling, businesses of all sizes are dying, a global pandemic is spiraling out of control, and the US Senate is having hearings about social media posts that hurt their feelings.. https://twitter.com/...
A thread. .@andymstone, the ex-Democratic operative who said Facebook is “reducing circulation” on our Hunter Files reporting, said that step is being taken pending fact-checking. It was a bizarre standard, seemingly not applied to countless anti-Trump stories that collapsed.
The Facebook employee who is in charge of election integrity on the platform is a former Biden staffer. And, according to Mr. Zuckerberg, he isn't even aware of it. Is there someone to balance this ideology in a similar election integrity role at his company? **crickets**
Yet Zuck continues to cling to the notion that Facebook is simply an innocent bystander in a laissez-faire marketplace of Good Ideas and the platform is simply where Good Ideas go to rise to the top. It's a simplistic model that's years behind the curve in media and academia.
My Republican colleagues have been silent. When confronted w/Trump's lies, they've seemingly lost their phones & their voices. Their one reaction: this hearing, which is strategically timed before the election & designed to browbeat the platforms that have labeled disinformation.
My question: Are Silicon Valley CEOs the legitimate referees of what kind of political speech gets amplified or suppressed? Zuckerberg: I certainly think not, I do not want us to have that role @Jack: No To underscore: tech companies are not the referees over our democracy.
The fact that she is referencing an internal mailing list discussion by Google employees that was leaked to alt-right sites is why I fully support anyone who questions the value of debating politics at work. https://twitter.com/...
These tech CEOs should treat the bad-faith argument from Republicans trying to game the refs about misinformation as the bullshit it is, and fight back as hard as they would against any competitor they wanted to destroy. https://www.vox.com/...
Big tech has made themselves the arbiters of free speech for the American people. The time has come for these platforms to stop removing content they simply don't agree with while hiding behind Section 230's liability shield. https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/ ...
senator blumenthal says his colleagues want to browbeat tech companies into supporting trump and the timing of the section 230 hearing is “inexplicable.” commerce voted unanimously to hold this hearing.
That's why It saddens me that some of my colleagues have joined in on this Administration's concerted bid to bully platforms into allowing dark money groups, right-wing militias, & even Trump himself to abuse social platforms to sow disinformation & suppress voter participation.
The argument for repealing 230 is, essentially: Bully platforms into engaging in much more censorship out of fear of the ruinious expense of having to knock down thousands of ultimately frivolous lawsuits.
Perfect. Just perfect. This is the epistemology of the Republicans and the root of their case against the platforms: “If you erase lies and hate, you erase our speech.” https://twitter.com/...
Sen. Ted Cruz to Twitter's CEO during today's hearing on social media regulations before Senate panel: “Mr. Dorsey, who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear?"https://twitter.com/...
That's a ridiculous statement. Millions of people get their news from Twitter and if Twitter is suppressing some of the biggest news of the day not allowing it to trend and locking out conservative accounts of course they are able to influence elections. https://twitter.com/...
Today I will chair a @senatecommerce hearing featuring the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, & Google. They will have to answer for their content moderation practices, which have disproportionately affected conservatives. Tune in at 9AM CT/10AM ET here. https://www.commerce.senate.gov/ …
🧵 During today's hearing with major tech CEOs, Republicans parroted bogus claims that conservatives are being “censored” online. That's because they rely on spreading disinformation to keep them in power, and good content moderation threatens that power. https://www.nytimes.com/.…
At today's @SenateCommerce #BigTech hearing, Facebook and Twitter confirmed they had no evidence the @nypost story on Hunter Biden was Russian disinformation - yet they suppressed it anyway. Watch the clip. https://twitter.com/...
The president hasn't been restricted in any sense of the term. Nor have conservatives. Nor have bigots and racists and those who spread hate speech. The people I've seen most restricted are transgender people daring to stand up for themselves. https://twitter.com/...
Amazingly this was at the hearing about the need for technology companies to adopt a broad view of the social value of free speech https://twitter.com/...
These hearings are not about Section 230 anymore. They're about the right to spread misinformation. One party says it's being silenced, and one party (plus researchers, academics and FB EMPLOYEES) say the platforms are spreading dangerous misinformation. Only one side has proof. …
Why does section 230 allow tech companies to moderate content? Bc the previous law was like one saying swimming pools were liable for drowning deaths if they had lifeguards, but not if they didn't. The point of 230 is to fix those nuts incentives. https://www.wired.com/...
Beyond the lack of coherent direction and political pandering from the Senators, these hearings with group lineups of CEOs are just not effective. It should be one CEO facing a line of questioning about specific topics with time for follow ups. Or else we get these charades.
Sen. Ron Johnson is so angry about this obviously satirical tweet about him, he just read it at the Senate tech hearing. Johnson says he wants the tweet taken down— “That could definitely affect my ability to get re-elected.” https://twitter.com/...
“More than 50 former intelligence officials signed a letter casting doubt on the provenance of a New York Post story on the former vice president's son.” https://www.politico.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Dorsey getting pressed heavily for his earlier answer to Cruz in which he said “no” when asked if Twitter could influence an election. Ofc Twitter, like any other medium that disseminates info, can influence. Dorsey is cornered by the fact that he gave such a definitive answer.
From tech to sports to hollywood the consistent conservative view is that free enterprise is sacrosanct unless an industry features an empowered workforce that has left-of-center views, in which case some kind of mandatory political neutrality principles apply.
Every Republican question about 230 comes down to asking “Why do people who break your rules face more consequences than people who do not break your rules?”
How about Twitter makes its own choices, and then people decide whether they want to use Twitter, some alternative form of social media, or no social media at all? https://twitter.com/...
Both sides in the Section 230 debate argue that the law is critical to the modern internet. It's just that the proponents of Section 230 don't realize that it's not 2005 anymore and the modern internet is a disaster.
In questioning about Facebook groups as breeding ground for hate groups, Zuckerberg responds that vast vast majority of groups aren't problematic. Mark Zuckerberg often uses this math defense, that we're mostly good. But with blns of users across apps, the even 5 percent is huge
I don't know enough about the history of congressional hearings, but it's painfully obvious to anyone who watches the tech ones that most who participate are only interested in generating an isolated clip of themselves getting an own in. Just do a tiktok, man. Save us the time.
The one thing I *really* wanted from this hearing was to get a better sense of where Facebook stands now on 230 legislation, because it so famously flipped on SESTA/FOSTA. This looks less and less likely to happen.
I'm legitimately curious about whether there are meaningful ways to legislate against harassment and other literally illegal and clearly harmful things. Schatz is right that... this is not that. There is just no way to have a good faith discussion amid the weird bias complaints.
This hearing is mostly a bad-faith parade of grievances, but there is also some absurd denialism by the CEOs, saying they're not referees (they are!) and that feed-ranking algorithms are neutral and detached from human decisions (they aren't!)
The 230 reform that Twitter and Facebook seem to find most palatable is publishing more transparency reports. I don't know how a startup competes under those requirements: https://twitter.com/...
Zuckerberg says he agrees with Dorsey, that social networks should have more transparency around moderation and algorithms. He points to FB's transparency reports (aggregated info on enforcement of its rules) but Facebook's algorithm is a huge black box
Yup. Which is why this entire discourse is so absurd on all side: from the opportunistic politicians crafting sound bites, to the chattering-class journos and academics making careers out of what's a rounding error on a dashboard. https://twitter.com/...
I've said it before: if you've never worked at a company like these, and stared at dashboards full of nine-figure numbers as part of your day job, you likely have no idea what you're talking about. And you definitely have no idea about potential product solutions.
Wow. @brianschatz speaking truth. Points out that this hearing is a sham and it's a waste of time and money to try to bully tech CEOs a week before an election for partisan aims. “I'm not going to use my time to ask any questions because this is nonsense.”
Blumenthal says Republicans “seem to want to bully and browbeat the platforms here to try and tilt them in president Trump's favor,” though the election and human health is on the line if they ignore Trump's misinformation.
Kind of a joke to cherry pick a single FB staffer who worked for Biden. Joel Kaplan, a Republican, is the top of the heap when it comes to Facebook's political work.
When you make tens of billions of decisions, even 99.5% accuracy gives plenty of examples for any group of any persuasion to nutpick and paint as a symbol of bias. Anyway, we need mandated transparency/safe harbor to allow for real empirical research.
So @SenBlumenthal talks about how he was a critic of #Section230 going back to when he was AG of Connecticut. He leaves out this is because he got mad about Craigslist ads. Then he complains about GOP “bullying and browbeating” platforms. The same thing he's done for 15 years.
Any discussion about content moderation needs to be grounded in the reality that the controversial calls are a tiny portion of what is necessary to make any social feature at all usable. FB Q2 numbers: Organized Hate - 266k Spam - 1.4B 5000x difference
Zuck said he's going to follow up with Thune on providing a list of news articles FB has suppressed “There's probably already a record of this that could be reviewed.”- Zuck Dorsey said he'd also be open to sharing a list. Wouldn't be surprised if these requests go unanswered.
Klobuchar starts with a conciliatory note to the witnesses, thanking them for encouraging voting, chastising the Republicans for not passing the Honest Ads Act and accusing them of politicizing what “should actually not be a partisan topic.”
One nugget way down at the bottom here: Twitter source says that if Trump isn't re-elected, he'll no longer be covered by its “world leaders” policy — meaning that if he violates Twitter's rules, he faces enforcement actions like everyone else. https://www.politico.com/...
So @jack is explaining how narrow Twitter's content moderation policies are regarding misinformation and @CoryGardner's response is “But why aren't you moderating THIS PARTICULAR TWEET” that clearly does not violate Twitter's policies, as Jack just explained.
Cory Gardner muffs Sundar Pichai's name, the second senator to do so. He is the CEO of one of the richest and most powerful companies on earth, and his name is easy to pronounce. It's not an accident that they won't learn.
Vijaya Gadde flies under the radar in a world that worships tech CEOs. But she's quickly moving Twitter toward a tougher line on speech—and infuriating conservatives along the way. https://www.politico.com/...
these issues (230, content moderation) are extremely important but the only takeaway from this circus right now is that these lawmakers don't want to work on a covid relief package for struggling americans but feel it's a great use of time to vent about shadowbans and bias. https…
Dorsey remarkably doesn't take the bait and do the whole mea culpa thing: “There are certainly things that we can do much faster. But generally, we believe that the policy was enforced in a timely manner, and in the right regard.”
SEN WICKER: I needed a new heel for my shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. DORSEY: Uh huh. WICKER: Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days,
Zuckerberg is most agreeable among CEOs for reforms of 230. “Congress should update the law to make sure it is working as intended.” -Making content moderation systems more transparent -separating good actors form bad actors.
Dorsey's last appearance in front of Congress he got criticised for not wearing a tie. Very smart to make it impossible to tell this time https://twitter.com/...
Jack kicks off with a 3-point plan for updating Section 230: requiring transparency into moderation practices, requiring appeal process, and enabling people to choose the algos that rank their content.
So @jack suggests that letting people choose their own moderation algorithms is a worthwhile approach. Yup. https://knightcolumbia.org/... But, it's also not a solution the government can mandate. But it can *fix other laws* to stop the ability of companies to block that.
Requiring 1) moderation process and practices to be published, 2) a straightforward process to appeal decisions, and 3) best efforts around algorithmic choice, are suggestions to address the concerns we all have going forward. And they're all achievable in short order.
Following Wicker's accusations about political bias, Cantwell is more or less skipping right over all of that to talk about foreign election interference online. “I know that some people think that these issues are out of sight, out of mind I guarantee you, they're not.”
I do not see Zuckerberg, Dorsey or Pichai making the same efforts to provide themselves for questioning fro other democratically-elected lawmakers in Berlin, Brasilia or Bnagkok — despite, arguably, these companies having a greater effect on those democracies than in the US.
In Europe, the debate has focused almost exclusively on platforms not doing enough to stop misinformation, etc. That includes voluntary code of conduct, as well as domestic legislation requiring 24 hour takedowns of harmful content or hefty penalties.
I find it amazing how this debate around platform liability has gone down very different paths in US and Europe. It's just night and day, and does a disservice to all social media users in both US & Europe.
In US, the political battle has focused on how Silicon Valley is allegedly censoring right-leaning content and voices (there's no evidence of that, tbh). Left-leaning voices say platforms aren't doing enough to clamp down on misinformation/hate speech