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A28 u.s. news
Diahuebs 29 OctOber 2020

Social media CEOs to face grilling from Republican senators

(AP) — Less than a week the protections from law-
before Election Day, the suits under a 1996 telecom-
CEOs of Twitter, Face- munications law. A provision
book and Google are set to known as Section 230 has
face a grilling by Republi- served as the foundation for
can senators who accuse unfettered speech on the in-
the tech giants of anti- ternet.
conservative bias. Demo-
crats are trying to expand “For too long, social media
the discussion to include platforms have hidden be-
other issues such as the hind Section 230 protections
companies' heavy impact to censor content that devi-
on local news. ates from their beliefs,” Sen.
Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the
The Senate Commerce committee chairman, said re-
Committee has summoned cently.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey,
Facebook’s Mark Zucker- The head of the Federal
berg and Google’s Sundar Communications Commis-
Pichai to testify for a hearing sion, an independent agency,
Wednesday. The executives recently announced plans
have agreed to appear re- to reexamine the legal pro-
motely after being threatened tections, potentially putting
with subpoenas. meat on the bones of Trump’s
Starting Tuesday, Facebook The Democrats' report ac- and baseless conspiracy theo- order by opening the way
With the election looming, is not accepting any new po- cuses the big platforms of ries. to new rules. The move by
Republicans led by President litical advertising. Previously unfairly using news content, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai, a
Donald Trump have thrown booked political ads will be taking news consumers’ data The companies reject accusa- Trump appointee, marked an
a barrage of grievances at able to run until the polls and diverting customers from tions of bias but have wres- about-face from the agency’s
Big Tech’s social media plat- close next Tuesday, when all local news websites, with lit- tled with how strongly they previous position.
forms, which they accuse political advertising will tem- tle compensation. It proposes should intervene. They have
without evidence of deliber- porarily be banned. Google, that Congress enact rules often gone out of their way The unwelcome attention
ately suppressing conserva- which owns YouTube, also is preventing tech platforms not to appear biased against to the three companies piles
tive, religious and anti-abor- halting political ads after the from taking local news con- conservative views — a pos- onto the anxieties in the tech
tion views. polls close. Twitter banned all tent without fair payment. ture that critics say effectively industry, which also faces
political ads last year. tilts them toward those view- scrutiny from the Justice De-
The chorus of protest rose “These unfair and abusive points. The effort has been partment, federal regulators,
this month after Facebook Beyond questioning the practices should be called especially strained for Face- Congress and state attorneys
and Twitter acted to limit CEOs, senators will exam- out,” Cantwell said. book, which was caught off- general around the country.
dissemination of an unveri- ine proposals to revise long- Democrats have focused guard in 2016, when it was
fied political story from the held legal protections for their criticism of social me- used as a conduit by Russian Last week, the Justice De-
conservative-leaning New online speech, an immunity dia mainly on hate speech, agents to spread misinforma- partment sued Google for
York Post about Democratic that critics in both parties misinformation and other tion benefiting Trump’s pres- abusing its dominance in on-
presidential nominee Joe say enables the companies to content that can incite vio- idential campaign. line search and advertising
Biden, an unprecedented abdicate their responsibility lence or keep people from — the government’s most
action against a major me- to impartially moderate con- voting. They have criticized The Trump administration’s significant attempt to protect
dia outlet. The story, which tent. Big Tech CEOs for failing Justice Department has asked competition since its ground-
was not confirmed by other to police content, homing in Congress to strip some of the breaking case against Micro-
publications, cited unveri- The tech platforms are gate- on the platforms’ role in hate bedrock protections that have soft more than 20 years ago.
fied emails from Biden’s son ways to news online. Critics crimes and the rise of white generally shielded the tech
Hunter that were reportedly say their dominant position nationalism in the U.S. companies from legal re- With antitrust in the spot-
disclosed by Trump allies. in the advertising market has sponsibility for what people light, Facebook, Apple and
crushed the struggling U.S. Facebook, Twitter and You- post on their platforms. Amazon also are under inves-
Social media giants are also news industry, especially lo- Tube have scrambled to stem tigation at the Justice Depart-
under heavy scrutiny for cal news publishers. the tide of material that in- Trump signed an executive ment and the Federal Trade
their efforts to police misin- cites violence and spreads lies orde r this year challenging Commission.
formation about the election. A report issued Tuesday by
Twitter and Facebook have the committee’s Democratic
slapped a misinformation staff cited the additional dev-
label on content from the astating impact of the reces-
president, who has around 80 sion triggered by the corona-
million followers. Trump has virus pandemic. About 7,000
raised the prospect, without newspaper employees are ex-
evidence, of mass fraud in the pected to be laid off this year,
vote-by-mail process. and newspaper revenues will
be down 70% from two de-
cades ago, according to the
report.

“Local news is an incredible
engine for the creation of ac-
curate information. We don’t
want to lose that infrastruc-
ture,” Sen. Maria Cantwell of
Washington state, the panel’s
top Democrat, said in an in-
terview.