Dorsey, Zuckerberg will face Senators at another tech hearing amid election rift

The recent crackdown on Silicon Valley misinformation is expected to highlight partisan divisions. Accusing Republican companies of leading the hearings to go too far in labeling or otherwise limiting the spread of lies on their platforms, this amounts to censorship of their views. Democrats have said that companies have not done enough, especially as Trump and his colleagues continue to use Twitter and Facebook to spread claims of election fraud without proof.

Lindsay O., Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Graham (RS.C.) halted the hearing by calling for changes to Section 230, a law that protects Internet companies from a lot of liability for their users to post online. The legislation was the focus of a hearing with technical officials three weeks ago. Graham referred to the companies’ actions during and after the election.

“When you have companies that hold the power of governments, they have more power than traditional media outlets,” Graham said. Graham and Sen. Richard Blumental (D-Con) have introduced bipartisan legislation to reform section 230, called the EARN IT Act.

The chief executives are expected to be defensive, again. Dorsey is expected to back down the long-running allegations based on strong evidence that the company is biased against conservatives, according to the preview of his testimony.

Dorsey reiterated the company’s commitment to re-examine the company’s commitment in its prepared testimony on Tuesday, stating that Twitter had lead in the election and about 300,000 tweets in the week and followed potentially misleading content.

“We want to be very clear that we don’t see our work in this place,” Dorsey would say. “Our work here continues, and our teams are learning and improving how we meet these challenges and earn the trust of people who use Twitter.”

Facebook’s Zuckerberg plans to focus the company’s efforts to combat misinformation and voter suppression. Zuckerberg would say that the company, in coordination with local law enforcement, removed false claims about voting status and displayed warnings on more than 150 million pieces of content reviewed by third-party fact-checkers. He would also interpret the company’s election label, which provided information about the election results and turnout of both Trump and Joe Biden.

“We are committed to doing everything we can to protect our community while supporting free expression and democracy, but as I’ve said before, we don’t think tech companies alone have so many decisions about these important issues “Zuckerberg says

Tech CEOs have become a common problem on Capitol Hill as political deadlock against social media companies has increased in recent years. Zuckerberg avoided testifying before Congress for the first 14 years of Facebook’s existence, but that would be his Third virtual presence Since July.

Dorsey has consistently had fewer witnesses, but it is likely that he may see even more ire from Republicans at this hearing. The company has taken some more extreme steps in recent weeks to shield Trump’s posts that make false or unfounded claims about the election.

Twitter said it has about 0.2 percent of the election-related content in its labeling. But researchers have said that there is still not enough data available to determine how effective the interventions were.

Tuesday hearing After the Republican was determined last month The committee voted to vote for chief executives of Twitter and Facebook in response to unusual steps taken to limit the spread of New York Post articles on its platform. The article reportedly focused on emails sent by Biden’s son Hunter Biden. The Washington Post has not confirmed the email.

The Chief Executive Officer eventually voluntarily agreed to appear before the panel. Graham said in a statement that the hearing would focus on “censorship and suppression” of the articles and would provide lawmakers with “a valuable opportunity to review the operations of the companies of the 2020 election”.

Dorsey and Zuckerberg defended handling New York Post articles at last month’s hearing. Yet they are not out of the woods on this issue. Twitter has changed its policies in response to the backlash, and Dorsey apologized for taking the extreme step of blocking URLs for articles.

Sen. Marsh Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Who heads the committee’s technical task force, plans to interrogate officials about a recent conversation he has had with an Ed-Ed editor of the New York Post The decision of the tech companies to limit their decisions. Articles circulated.

Democrats, meanwhile, plan to focus on Trump’s use of social media to spread unfounded claims about mail-in ballots and voting machines. Blumenthal accused the companies of giving the president a megaphone to make “a blatant attempt to reverse the will of the electorate” to lie. He said the companies’ efforts are only “baby steps” and have asked them to take more responsibility for their services.

Blumenthal said that any Google executive, who owns YouTube, was called to testify at today’s hearing. He criticized Google for being less aggressive of misinformation than Facebook and Twitter. He also said that he hoped the committee could hold a series of hearings on technical issues in the future, addressing issues including antitrust and section 230.

Blumenthal also called the Republican focus a “political rebellion”.

“This hearing is a betrayal of the real victims of the real harm caused by Big Tech,” he told Dorsey and Zuckerberg. “You have repeatedly failed the American public.”

The hearing could provide a major preview of Democrats’ major concerns with social media companies as they prepare to regain control of the White House. The Biden campaign has had a publicly controversial relationship with Facebook and repeatedly accused the company of not going enough to stop the dissemination of election-related misinformation. Democrats are also pushing for more aggressive antitrust enforcement against the tech industry, and the Federal Trade Commission is expected to file an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook earlier this month.

Repeated hearings have given lawmakers a platform to air their grievances with Silicon Valley, but so far there has been little meaningful regulation from them.

The final appearance of Zuckerberg and Dorsey was focused on intentionally overhauling a law that protects Internet companies from a lot of legal liability for their users’ posts, but be upfront about labeling and censorship claims Gone.

“We’ve taken action on tweets from leaders around the world, including the president,” Republicans said in response to inquiries about the fact-checking label.