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'You're the ultimate editor,' Twitter's Jack Dorsey and Facebook's Mark
Zuckerberg accused of censoring conservatives
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'YOU'RE THE ULTIMATE EDITOR,' TWITTER'S JACK DORSEY AND FACEBOOK'S MARK
ZUCKERBERG ACCUSED OF CENSORING CONSERVATIVES

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




Jessica Guynn   | USA TODAY

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How about Ted Cruz slams Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey over censorship at Senate
hearing
How about Ted Cruz slams Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey over censorship at Senate
hearing
USA TODAY


Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg appeared via video stream in the one place on
the planet where they can't seem to please any of the people any of the time:
Capitol Hill.



Republicans accused Facebook and Twitter of meddling in the election to harm
President Donald Trump by censoring conservatives with warnings on GOP tweets
about mail-in balloting. 

Democrats criticized the companies for failing to rein in Trump's efforts to
delegitimize the election and took aim at their GOP colleagues for putting on a
“political sideshow” to browbeat two of the nation’s leading technology CEOs.

The bipartisan grilling from lawmakers before the Senate Judiciary Committee on
Tuesday – the second appearance from Zuckerberg and Dorsey in less than three
weeks – reflected growing ire about "Big Tech" and all but guaranteed that
legislation regulating the industry will be taken up by the next Congress.



The panel’s chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, opened the hearing
with a call to change Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.



The committee is moving forward with a bill from Graham and Sen. Richard
Blumenthal, D-Conn., called the EARN IT Act, which would strip away some of the
decades-old legal protections that shield tech companies from liability for what
users post on their platforms. 

“I don’t want the government to take over the job of telling America what tweets
are legitimate and what are not,” Graham said in his opening remarks. “But when
you have companies that have the power of government, have far more power than
traditional media outlets, something has to give.”



'Techlashing' on Capitol Hill: Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter's Jack
Dorsey brace for Senate Judiciary hearing



Why Facebook throttled NY Post article: Facebook throttled Hunter Biden article
after being warned by FBI of 'hack and leak' operations, Mark Zuckerberg says

Graham took particular exception to Facebook and Twitter's decision to
throttle the spread of a New York Post article about Hunter Biden’s business
dealings in the run-up to the election.

"You're the ultimate editor," he said.

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, also challenged how Facebook and Twitter police content.

“There are instances in which your platforms are taking a very distinctively
partisan approach, and not a neutral one, to election content moderation,” he
said.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called on Facebook and Twitter to produce hard data on
how they enforce their policies to show if they disproportionately flag or
censor Republicans.



Republicans routinely cite anecdotal evidence that their posts are flagged more
often. Researchers have found no evidence of systematic suppression of
conservative voices or viewpoints. The companies deny any politically motivated
censorship. 

The unprecedented nature of the 2020 election thrust Facebook and Twitter into
the role of aggressively combating misinformation from labeling social media
posts to limiting their spread, including the president's. 

Zuckerberg and Dorsey defended using labels to fact-check posts about the
election, arguing that although their platforms have made some enforcement
mistakes, their policies are fair.

“We are facing something that feels impossible,” Dorsey said. “We are required
to help increase the health of the public conversation while at the same time
ensuring that as many people as possible can participate.”



Both CEOs expressed willingness to work with lawmakers on Section 230.



"We are well overdue," Zuckerberg said in his opening remarks. "We would benefit
from clearer guidance from elected officials."

The broadsides from the left over the rise of hate speech, white nationalism and
incitement to violence on the Facebook and Twitter platforms also intensified
during Tuesday’s hearing. Blumenthal kicked off his remarks by threatening to
break up Facebook and spin off Instagram and WhatsApp.

“You have built terrifying tools of persuasion and manipulation, with power far
exceeding the robber barons of the last Gilded Age,” Blumenthal said. 

The "baby steps" taken by social media platforms aren't enough to address “the
destructive incendiary misinformation," he said, adding: “In fact, Google has
been given a pass from today’s hearing. It’s been rewarded by this committee for
its timidity, doing even less than you have done to live up to its
responsibilities.”



Also troubling Democrats was their perception that Facebook was caving to
pressure from conservatives and backing off increased enforcement of dangerous
misinformation and voter suppression tactics before two January runoffs in
Georgia that will determine who controls the Senate. Zuckerberg and Dorsey told
lawmakers they would take rigorous action during the two special elections.

Nearly all of the Democrats on the panel complained about Trump's
unsubstantiated and largely unrestrained claims of voting fraud on social media.
Graham and other Republican lawmakers are supporting the president even
as federal and state officials declare the election was the most secure in U.S.
history.

The GOP majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee had threatened Dorsey and
Zuckerberg with subpoenas if they didn’t appear voluntarily for Tuesday’s
hearing. It was originally billed as an indictment of how the companies handled
the New York Post article but focused instead more broadly on their handling of
the election and often veered off in other directions.

“After considerable build-up and anticipation, the hearing turned into something
of a mess. Senators pursued a wide range of topics, from the allegedly addictive
qualities of social media to the platforms' supposed ‘censorship’ of
conservatives," Paul Barrett, deputy director of the NYU Stern Center for
Business and Human Rights and author of a recent report on Section 230, said in
an email. "But none of these were examined with enough care to make the
questioning of the tech CEOs very revealing. All in all, it was a
disappointment.”


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