Tech giants face angry US Senate over censorship

Facebook, Twitter accused of of political censorship and failing to stop spread of misinformation in US Senate hearing.

Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg. Picture: AFP

The chief executives of tech giants Facebook and Twitter have come under a sustained bipartisan attack­ during a US Senate hearing, as they were faced with renewed­ accusations of political censorship and failure to control the spread of misinformation.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey were involved in fiery exchanges with senators from both sides of the political divide, with both CEOs admitting that their respective digital platforms needed to improve­ aspects of their policies on content moderation.

Mr Dorsey conceded Twitter had made a “mistake” in its decis­ion to block links to a story in the New York Post in October about emails found on a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden — a decision the company ultimately reversed just days before the US election.

South Carolina senator Lyndsey Graham, chairman of the Senate judiciary committee, accused Mr Dorsey of interfering in the political process in relation to the blocking of the Post article, which was not favourable to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

“That to me seems like you’re the ultimate editor,” Senator ­Graham said. “If that’s not making an editorial decis­ion, I don’t know what would be.”

The senator also warned the tech giants that the federal legal protection that allows them to evade prosecution for defamatory material posted on their platforms — known as Section 230 — was likely to be rescinded.

“When you have companies that have the power of governments, something has to give,” Senator Graham said.

Mr Zuckerberg conceded that the laws governing content that is published on social media platforms might warrant a review, but stopped short of saying that the tech giants should be governed by the same rules as news publishers.

“I do think we have responsib­ilities, and it may make sense for there to be liability for some of the content that is on the platform,” Mr Zuckerberg said.

“I believe we are well overdue to update the rules for the internet around content, elections, privacy and data portability.’’

Mr Dorsey agreed: “It could be expansions to Section 230, new legislative frameworks, or commitment­ to industry-wide self-regulation.”

But Democrat senator Richard Blumenthal said the companies had only taken “baby steps” to address­ misinformation on their platforms.

“The destructive incendiary informatio­n is still a scourge on both your platforms,” he said. “You have built terrifying tools of persuasion and manipulation with power far exceeding the robber barons of the last Gilded Age. You have failed your responsibility.”

Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey. Picture: AFP

The spotlight on the regulatory practices of the social media companies comes as the Australian government looks to finalise its long-awaited media bargaining code that would force tech giants to pay news publishers for their content.

Legislation for the code has been delayed since Josh Frydenberg first announced in April that the government intended to “level the playing field” by requiring digit­al platforms such as Google and Facebook to pay news media businesses for the content they produce.

The US Senate hearing follows president-elect Joe Biden’s warning that he intends to hold America’s tech giants to account. “Many technology giants and their executives have not only abused their power, but misled the American people, damaged our democracy and evaded any form of responsib­ility,” Biden campaign spokesman Matt Hill said last week. “That ends with a President Biden.”

The comments were the most forthright made by the Biden campaign on the tech giants since his election victory and gave a clear indication that he ­intends to take a tougher stand against the likes of Facebook, Google and Twitter.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Republican senator Ted Cruz grilled Mr Dorsey further about moderation of political content on Twitter, accusing the CEO of applying his company’s policies “in a partisan and selective manner”.

“You put up a page that says, quote: ‘Voter fraud of any kind is exceedingly rare in the United States.’ That’s not linking to a broader conversation, that’s taking a disputed policy position and you’re a publisher when you’re doing that,” Cruz said. “You’re entitled to take a policy position, but you don’t get to pretend you’re not a publisher and get a special benefit under Section 230 as a result.”

Mr Dorsey replied: “That link is pointing to a broader conversation with tweets from publishers and people all around the country.”

But he also said Twitter continued to seek the right balance. “We want to be very clear that we do not see our job in this space as done,” Mr Dorsey said.

Twitter has repeatedly flagged Mr Trump’s posts in the fortnight since the US election, claiming the President breached the platform’s rules around misinformation and undermining election results. Mr Zuckerberg admitted social media sites could be more transparent about reasons for removing posts.