By Ryan Tracy
WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers in both parties said social media
platforms hold too much sway over the information Americans see,
blaming them for an array of social problems at a hearing with the
chief executive officers of Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and
Alphabet Inc., which owns Google and YouTube.
The CEOs are appearing via video before a House panel Thursday
for the first time since the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, facing questions
about social media's role in fomenting the discord and their
subsequent decisions to suspend or ban former President Donald
Trump.
"We fled as a mob desecrated the Capitol," Rep. Mike Doyle (D.,
Pa.) recalled as he opened the hearing. "That attack and the
movement that motivated it started and was nourished on your
platforms. Your platforms suggested groups for people to join,
videos they should view and posts they should like, driving this
movement forward with terrifying speed and efficiency."
The government needs regulations and "audit authority of your
technologies," Mr. Doyle added. "We will legislate to stop this.
The stakes are just too high."
Rep. Frank Pallone, the chairman of the House Energy and
Commerce Committee, agreed, telling the CEOs, "Your business model
itself has become the problem."
"I am deeply concerned about your decisions to operate your
companies in a vague and biased manner with little to no
accountability," said Rep. Robert Latta (R., Ohio). Americans, he
said, have "little to no recourse to appeal the decision" when
social-media platforms moderate content.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R., Wash.), the House panel's top
Republican, read an emotional statement describing how social-media
platforms are "my biggest fear as a parent."
In raising three children, Ms. McMorris said, she is often at
odds with social media in "a battle for their development, a battle
for their mental health, and ultimately a battle for their
safety."
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg pushed back against lawmakers'
blaming of his company for societal ills, laying out Facebook seeks
to deal with harmful or false content.
"It's not possible to catch every piece of harmful content
without infringing on people's freedoms in a way that I don't think
we'd be comfortable with as a society," he said. "The system isn't
perfect, but it's the best approach we've found."
Pressed on Facebook's responsibility for the Jan. 6 event, he
said, "I believe that the former president should be responsible
for his words and that the people who broke the law should be
responsible for their actions."
Google CEO Sundar Pichai said false information spreading online
presents "a big challenge without easy answers," and noted that the
free flow of information on the web "has been a powerful force for
good for so many."
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said his company makes "mistakes in
prioritization and executions. We commit to being open about these
and doing our best to remedy what we control." But he warned
lawmakers about a world without content takedowns: "If we woke up
tomorrow and decided to stop moderating content, we would end up
with a service very few people or advertisers would want to
use."
Previous appearances by the CEOs before Congressional panels
exposed bipartisan unease about the companies' power over American
discourse, but also disagreement among lawmakers about how to
address it.
Mr. Zuckerberg said Congress should consider forcing digital
platforms to earn the legal immunity they enjoy hosting third-party
content, a legal change that could affect a range of online
businesses.
Mr. Zuckerberg suggested changes to Section 230, the law that
says platforms such as Facebook generally aren't liable for what
their users post.
"Instead of being granted immunity, platforms should be required
to demonstrate that they have systems in place for identifying
unlawful content and removing it," he said in his prepared
testimony.
Mr. Zuckerberg said Section 230 protection could be applied only
to large platforms to address competition concerns.
The comments were the most detailed yet from Mr. Zuckerberg on
the issue. He had previously signaled openness to changing Section
230 in more general terms.
Both Democrats and Republicans are concerned that Section 230
gives large tech companies too much leeway to decide what
information Americans see, though the parties have different
concerns.
The law, an element of the 1996 Communications Decency Act,
helped fuel the growth of social media by giving internet platforms
immunity for comments that users, reviewers, consumers and others
post on their sites.
Evan Greer, deputy director of the advocacy group Fight for the
Future, said her group opposes scaling back 230 protections on
grounds that doing so could devastate smaller platforms and
internet startups that don't have the resources of tech giants.
"Of course Facebook wants to see changes to Section 230," Ms.
Greer said. "Because they know it will simply serve to solidify
their monopoly power and crush competition from smaller and more
decentralized platforms."
Many Republicans think social-media platforms are removing too
much content under Section 230, while Democrats see them not
removing enough and allowing harmful content to spread.
To date, those divisions have stood in the way of any consensus
on how to change Section 230, and no bill to do so has gained
significant traction on Capitol Hill. Facebook has been publicly
supporting internet regulations for months, as it faces scrutiny
over alleged antitrust violations and its content-moderation
practices.
Twitter and Google have indicated that they are open to
discussing legal changes with Congress, but they have been less
specific than Facebook about what Section 230 changes they would
support.
"We rely on the liability protections to actually take strong
action on particularly new types of content," such as a video of a
mass shooting, Mr. Pichai told lawmakers.
Mr. Dorsey cautioned against allowing governments to decide
content-moderation practices. "Forcing every business to behave the
same reduces innovation and individual choice," he said.
He also questioned the idea of differentiating between large and
small platforms. "I think it's going to be very hard to determine
what is a large platform and a small platform, and it may
incentivize the wrong things," he said.
Write to Ryan Tracy at ryan.tracy@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 25, 2021 14:16 ET (18:16 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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