'More power than traditional media': Facebook, Twitter policies attacked

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'More power than traditional media': Facebook, Twitter policies attacked

By Nandita Bose and Diane Bartz

 

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is seen testifying remotely via videoconference as U.S. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) listens during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing titled, "Breaking the News: Censorship, Suppression, and the 2020 Election,? on Facebook and Twitter's content moderation practices, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 17, 2020. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/Pool

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican senators on Tuesday attacked the chief executives of Facebook and Twitter for what they called censorship of President Trump and his allies during the U.S. election while Democrats bemoaned the spread of misinformation on social media.

 

The CEOs, Jack Dorsey of Twitter and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, defended their content moderation practices at a congressional hearing scheduled after the platforms decided to block stories from the New York Post that made claims about the son of then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

 

The move incited uproar among Republican lawmakers who have consistently accused the companies of anti-conservative bias.

 

In his opening remarks, Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham asked: "What I want to try to find out is if you're not a newspaper at Twitter or Facebook, then why do you have editorial control over the New York Post?"

 

He said he did not think articles on Hunter Biden, refuted by the Biden campaign, needed to be flagged or excluded from distribution.

 

Democrats focused on the spread of misinformation by Trump, a Republican, and his supporters. They pushed the companies to limit the spread of false and misleading content ahead of elections in Georgia, where two Republican incumbent senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, are facing run-offs against well-funded Democratic opponents - contests that will likely determine which party controls the Senate.

 

Zuckerberg and Dorsey admitted the companies have made some mistakes, but mostly defended their policies.

 

However, broader problems with their content moderation decisions, especially around violent speech, became evident when Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, asked Facebook's Zuckerberg if he would commit to taking down the account of former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon after he suggested the beheading of two senior U.S. officials.

 

Senate Judiciary Committee senior Democrat Dianne Feinstein on Tuesday grilled Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for not doing enough to crack down on inaccurate tweets, specifically President Trump's tweet on November 7th when he falsely claimed he 'won the election by a lot'.

 

Zuckerberg refused. "Senator, no. That's not what our policies would suggest that we should do in this case," he said.

 

Reuters reported last week that Zuckerberg told an all-staff meeting that Bannon had not violated enough of Facebook's policies to justify his suspension.

 

Blumenthal also noted that Alphabet Inc's Google, which owns YouTube, had been given a "pass" from the hearing, saying that the company was being rewarded for its "timidity" in content moderation.

 

Zuckerberg and Dorsey also fielded several pointed questions on whether they act as publishers, which the CEOs said they were not.

 

Upset over the companies' decision on what to leave on the platform and what to take down, many Republican lawmakers and Trump have threatened to take away protections for internet companies under a federal law called Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The law protects companies from being sued over material users post on their platforms.

 

Graham also said he hopes Section 230 is changed.

 

"When you have companies that have the power of government, have far more power than traditional media outlets, something has to give," he said. President-elect Biden has also said he favors repealing Section 230. Congressional Democrats, however, prefer a more deliberate approach to reforming the law.

 

Zuckerberg and Dorsey said they would be open to some reforms to the law.

 

At an October hearing, Twitter's Dorsey said eroding Section 230 could significantly hurt how people communicate online. Zuckerberg said he supports changing the law but also said tech platforms were likely to censor more to avoid legal risks if the law is repealed.

 

(Reporting by Nandita Bose, Diane Bartz and David Shepardson in Washington and Elizabeth Culliford in Birmingham and Katie Paul in San Francisco; Editing by Grant McCool and Dan Grebler)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-11-18

 

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[Tug]

I wish I had the answer to this that beeing said there should be consequences for deliberately spreading lies and misinformation especially by people in power 

[scammed]

1 hour ago, Tug said:

I wish I had the answer to this that beeing said there should be consequences for deliberately spreading lies and misinformation especially by people in power 

as it is now, zuckerberg and a select few decides what the truth is, and silence the rest.

totally unacceptable, the only way is free speech,

and its up to the receiver to filter out trash.

and yes, there should be consequences

for deliberately hinder free speech

[placeholder]

1 hour ago, scammed said:

as it is now, zuckerberg and a select few decides what the truth is, and silence the rest.

totally unacceptable, the only way is free speech,

and its up to the receiver to filter out trash.

and yes, there should be consequences

for deliberately hinder free speech

You just don't get it. The first Amendment forbids government censorship of free speech. Nothing about private parties. You some kind of socialist?

[Chomper Higgot]

The GOP absolutely know the power of social media, it’s why they employed Cambridge Analytica’ and handed American citizen data to Russian Intelligence to help swing the 2016 election.

 

 

More on this after January.

[Chomper Higgot]

1 hour ago, placeholder said:

You just don't get it. The first Amendment forbids government censorship of free speech. Nothing about private parties. You some kind of socialist?

I’m not sure Republicans are all that keen to protect the First Amendment, but I am sure they’ll do all in their power to keep government out of dictating the management decisions of private businesses.

 

[JusticeGB]

The rich capitalists who own the big tech companies support the leftist movements and censor Republican posts. They are protected by Section 320 because they are not publishers but in their acts of censoring posts they actually become publishers so they shouldn't be protected by section 320.

[2530Ubon]

In my opinion, I think the problem isn't the companies themselves, but the people on the platforms. FB & TWR don't have ANY power at all, they are merely platforms. If you want to get rid of far right ideologies, conspiracy theories or racist behaviour, then the best thing to do is to educate your population. Better educated people tend to make better choices.

Don't blame these platforms for your mistakes in mismanaging how you educate your people.

Now, if you want to talk about how much data these platforms harvest across the internet, and what they do with that data, now thats a discussion worth having.