Republicans have accused Facebook and Twitter of interfering in the election in a way that could harm President Donald Trump by censoring conservatives with warnings on GOP tweets about mail-in ballots.
Democrats have criticized Trump’s attempts to hand over the election and the failure of companies to grow hate speech and white nationalism, and have targeted their GOP colleagues for putting on a “political side show” to browse the country’s two leading technology CEOs.
Bilateral grilling from lawmakers before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday – the second virtual show in three weeks from Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey – reflects growing and collective anger about “Big Tech”.
The chairman of the panel, Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, began the investigation by calling for a reform of Section 230 of the Communications Disability Act.
The committee is moving ahead with a bill from Graham and Sen Richard Blumenthal, de-Con, known as the EARN IT Act, which removes decades of legal protections that protect tech companies from liability for what users post. Their platforms.
“I do not want the government to take on the task of telling America what tweets are legal and which are not,” Graham said in his opening remarks. “But when you have government-owned companies that have a lot more power than traditional media companies, something has to be given.”
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Graham made a special exception to the decision taken by Facebook and Twitter to spread the New York Post article about Hunter Biden’s business dealings before the election.
“You’re the ultimate editor,” he said.
Senator Mike Lee also took issue with the R-Uta, Facebook and Twitter police case.
“There have been instances where your platforms have taken a very distinctive partisan approach rather than neutralizing electoral content control,” he said.
Zuckerberg and Dorsey defended the labeling of social media posts related to the election, arguing that their policies were fair, even though their platforms made some implementation mistakes.
“We face what we think is impossible,” Dorsey said. “We need to help increase the health of public speaking, while at the same time ensuring that as many people as possible can participate.”
Both expressed a willingness to work with members of the legislature to reform Section 230.
“We’re very late,” Zuckerberg said in his opening remarks. “We benefit from clear guidance from elected officials.”
Broadside also intensified from the left during Tuesday’s hearing. Blumenthal threatened to break up Facebook by riding on Instagram and WhatsApp.
“You built horror tools that persuade and manipulate, the power surpassing the thieving barons of the past guilded era,” Blumenthal said. “You made a huge amount of money through strip-mining data about our private lives and by promoting hate speech and voter repression.”
He alleges that Facebook is pressuring conservatives to implement dangerous misinformation and voter repression tactics that will determine who will control the Senate before the January two run in Georgia. Zuckerberg and Dorsey pledged to work hard for two separate elections in Georgia.
Trump continues to promote unsubstantiated claims of voting fraud and is competing for Joe Biden’s success on social media. Graham and other Republican lawmakers support the president despite federal and state officials announcing the election. The safest in U.S. history.
Senate Ted Cruz called on R-Texas, Facebook and Twitter to produce data showing whether they are censoring the flag or Republicans unequally. Researchers have not found evidence of systematic repression Conservative voices or perspectives. The companies denied anything Politically motivated censorship.
GOP majority on Senate Judiciary Committee Dorsey and Zuckerberg were threatened with subponas If they do not volunteer for Tuesday’s hearing. It was originally billed as an indictment of how companies handled the New York Post article, but focused more broadly on conducting elections.
This is a developing story.
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Bernard Drainville, New Education commentator