High-tech giants, Twitter CEO Dorsey (left), Google CEO Pichai (center) and Facebook CEO Zuckerberg.
The chief executives of Google parent company Alphabet, Facebook and Twitter appeared at a House hearing on Thursday (March 25). During the hearing, lawmakers from both parties decried that social media platforms have too much influence in controlling the information Americans can see.
CEOs of major corporations, who appeared before the House panel via video for the first Time since the Jan. 6 congressional event, faced questions including those about social media’s role in fomenting disputes and in the sequester of former President Trump. The hearing exposed bipartisan unease about the power of big companies in the U.S. discourse and showed that lawmakers are divided on how to address the issue.
Rep. Robert-Latta, an Ohio Republican, said during the session, “I am deeply concerned about your decision to run your company in a vague, biased and barely accountable manner.” He said Americans have “virtually no right to appeal decisions” when social media platforms review content.
Rep. Mike Doyle, a Pennsylvania Democrat, condemned Big Tech, saying, “Scenes of congressional violence are proliferating on your platform. Your platform recommends groups for people to attend, videos they should watch with desired postings, and drives this movement with amazing speed and efficiency.” He claims that the government needs regulations and “the right to vet technology.”
The Wall Street Journal notes that both Democrats and Republicans are concerned that Section 230 gives big tech companies too much authority to dictate what Americans see, although both sides have different concerns about this.
Many Republicans believe that social media platforms are removing too much conservative content under the cover of Section 230, while Democrats argue that platforms are not removing enough content and allowing “harmful content” to spread.
Big tech executives have appeared before Congress several times before on similar issues. Facebook CEO Mark-Zuckerberg has appeared before Congress for the fourth time since last July, and Twitter CEO Jack-Dorsey and Google CEO Sundar-Pichai have appeared three times.
In written testimony submitted ahead of the committee hearing Thursday, Zuckerberg said Congress should consider the issue of enabling digital platforms to win the legal immunity they enjoy for hosting third-party content, an area of law where changes could affect a range of online businesses.
Zuckerberg suggested changes to Section 230, the law that says platforms like Facebook are generally not liable for content posted by their users.
He said, “Instead of being granted immunity, platforms should be allowed to prove that they have systems in place to identify illegal content and take it down.” Zuckerberg has previously publicly expressed a willingness to change Section 230 on a larger scale.
The Section 230 law, part of the Communications Regulatory Act of 1996, has advanced social media by insulating Internet platforms from comments posted on their sites by users, commenters, consumers and others.
Evan-Greer, deputy director of the advocacy group Fight for the Future, said her organization opposes scaling back the 230 protections on the grounds that doing so could undermine smaller platforms and Internet startups that do not have the resources of tech giants.
“Of course Facebook wants to see changes to Section 230,” Ms. Greer said. “Because they know that it would just cement its monopoly power and squash competition from smaller, more fragmented platforms.”
So far, there has been a bipartisan attempt to reach consensus on how to change Section 230, and no bill is currently on track to gain significant attention on Capitol Hill. For months, Facebook has been publicly voicing its support for the Internet regulation, while it faces investigations into alleged violations of antitrust laws and censorship practices on its content.
The Wall Street Journal said Twitter and Google have said they are willing to discuss changes to the law with Congress, but they do not support changes to Section 230 to the same extent as Facebook.
In a copy of his written testimony, Pichai noted in that “regulation has an important role to play in ensuring that we protect the virtues of the open web.” “However, we are concerned that many of the recent proposals to change Section 230 (including calls to repeal Section 230 altogether) do not serve that goal well.”
In his testimony, Dorsey said he agreed that “technology companies must work to earn the trust of the people who use our services.” His testimony did not mention Section 230, but he has previously warned lawmakers that some of the proposed changes could end up favoring large companies with budgets to deal with a more complex regulatory environment.
Zuckerberg said Section 230 protections could “give companies the ability to take best practices to combat the distribution of this content,” referring to what he called “illegal content.
He added: “Platforms should not be held responsible if a particular piece of content escapes detection – which is impractical for a platform with billions of posts a day – but should be required to have appropriate systems in place,” he said. “Appropriate systems “can be defined by a third party and can be proportional to the size of the platform.”
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