A trio of great tech CEOs – Sundar Pichai from Alphabet, Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook and Jack Dorsey from Twitter – once again attended Congress this week to explain their roles in the social media ecosystem. The hearing nominally focused on disinformation and extremism, particularly in the wake of the January 6 events at the United States Capitol. But, as always, the members who asked the questions often ventured too far.
The audience focused less on specific positions than at previous Congressional steakhouses, but it was mainly an exercise in people talking to plant their stakes. Considered in its entirety, very little substance was accomplished during the long six hours of the hearing.
However, some important political nuggets have managed to emerge.
In Section 230
Section 230 is an extremely misunderstood piece of law that has become a rallying cry for reformers in both parties. At a higher level, Section 230 basically means that Internet companies have legal immunity for the content of their Commercial generate or for the moderation choices they make or don’t make around that content.
On the left, the proposed reforms in Section 230 are primarily aimed at limiting abuse and misinformation. From the right, the proposed reforms in Section 230, including revocation proposals, tend to focus more on allegations of “bias” among social media companies. All sorts of bills to amend or repeal the law have been presented in the previous and current Congress by Republican and Democratic sponsors.
Zuckerberg prepared the ground in advance, including an appeal to reform Section 230 in his written testimony (PDF).
“I believe Section 230 would benefit from careful changes to make it work better for people,” he wrote, adding:
We believe that Congress should consider making the protection of the platform intermediary’s liability for certain types of illegal content conditional on companies’ ability to comply with best practices to combat the spread of that content. Instead of receiving immunity, platforms should be required to demonstrate that they have systems in place to identify and remove illegal content. Platforms should not be held responsible if certain content avoids detection – which would be impractical for platforms with billions of posts per day – but they should be required to have adequate systems to deal with illegal content.
Pichai’s prepared testimony (PDF), on the other hand, basically asked Congress to leave everything alone. “Regulation has an important role to play in ensuring that we protect what’s great on the open web, while addressing damage and improving accountability,” he wrote, adding:
We are concerned that many recent proposals to amend Section 230 – including requests to revoke it entirely – would not serve this purpose well. In fact, they would have unintended consequences – undermining both freedom of expression and the ability of platforms to take responsible measures to protect users in the face of constantly evolving challenges.
During the hearing, neither Pichai nor Dorsey seemed particularly inclined to support Zuckerberg’s view of what is best for the future of the Internet. Pichai said that he thinks the responsibility and transparency mentioned by the Facebook CEO are “important principles” and that there are some legislative proposals circulating in Congress that Google “would welcome”.
Dorsey, however, pointed out that most platforms are not the size of Facebook, which reaches about 2.8 billion monthly users. “I think it will be very difficult to determine what is a large platform and a small platform, and that can encourage the wrong things,” he warned.
On violence, Trump and deplatform
All three CEOs were also asked to say, yes or no, whether they felt their platforms played a role in the violence of the Capitol riot.
“I think the responsibility lies with the people who acted to break the law and carry out the insurrection,” said Zuckerberg. “And secondarily with the people who disseminate this content, including the ex-president.
It’s kind of a tightrope, Zuckerberg seemed to say, indicating that Facebook tried to act proactively in the fall “to ensure the integrity of the election” against a likely tide of disinformation. “And then, on January 6, President Trump gave a speech … calling on people to fight.”
Dorsey was the only witness to openly agree that his company played a role. “Yes,” he confirmed. “But you have to take into account the broader ecosystem [of misinformation]. It is not just about the technological systems we use. “
Republican members of the committee remained frustrated by the prohibitions and suspensions that former President Donald Trump won from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube after the January 6 uprising on Capitol Hill.
Facebook summoned its Supervisory Board to make the final decision on Trump’s suspension, and Zuckerberg confirmed at the hearing that if the board says Trump’s account should be reinstated, “then we will honor that.”