SAN FRANCISCO | Bias editors or impartial platforms? Several visions of social media clashed Tuesday in the US Senate, where the founders of Twitter and Facebook were once again questioned about the unparalleled power of their platforms on political debate.
“It looks like you have become the ultimate editor,” said Lindsey Graham, the Republican chairman of the judicial committee who organized this hearing on “the management of the 2020 election”, and the “censorship” including Donald Trump and its allies consider themselves victims, despite their considerable audience on these networks.
Elected officials from both sides agree on the need to regulate the giants of technology, particularly in terms of transparency on the moderation of content. But Democrats are asking for more severity, not less.
During the months of tension leading up to the election, and the current period of wrangling, the two Californian companies have deployed an unprecedented arsenal of measures to curb disinformation and attempts to discredit the democratic process, including on the part of the leader of the ‘State.
Efforts described as “very small steps” by Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal.
“You have the immense civic and moral responsibility to ensure that these instruments of influence do not cause irreparable damage to our country”, after having “greatly benefited from the data collected on our private life and the promotion of hate speech », He asserted.
“Vote for me”
“Mr. Zuckerberg, how many times does (Steve Bannon) have the right to call for the murder of senior government officials before Facebook suspends his account? », He continued.
Networks recently cracked down on this former Donald Trump adviser who supports his baseless theories of massive fraud and called for the murder of Anthony Fauci, director of the Institute of Infectious Diseases, among others.
Facebook and Twitter have also pinned down and curbed the spread of scores of messages from the president – followed by nearly 89 million users on Twitter – who refuses to concede victory to Democrat Joe Biden.
But “our regulations are not based on any ideology,” said Jack Dorsey, boss of Twitter. “We strongly believe in fairness and we apply our rules fairly.”
Republicans say the rules apply mostly to them.
In particular, they did not digest the decision of the two networks to limit the circulation of articles from the conservative daily New York Post, who claimed to provide evidence on a corruption case involving Democrat Joe Biden.
“We would never let the government regulate what the press writes, but we allow private companies, which have become de facto public forums, to regulate speech,” said Senator John Cornyn. “I don’t want to delegate these decisions to you any more than I would like to let you vote in my place.”
“Stupid”
At the heart of the debate is “Section 230”, the law that protects web hosts from lawsuits related to content posted by third parties.
However, for Republican Senator John Kennedy, moderation clearly makes platforms “publishers”.
Above all, he believes that we should “trust people to decide with their critical mind what to believe in, instead of assuming that we are smart and that they are stupid.”
The two bosses agree to reform this law, but without seeking to include them in the existing categories.
“We are not like telecoms, since we have to moderate certain content, such as terrorism (…). But we are not a newspaper editor either, because we do not create and do not choose in advance what is published “, argued Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Facebook, calling for the creation of a” framework of tailor-made regulation, with more responsibilities.
The two men had already been heard at the end of October on these subjects, and elected officials have indicated their intention to continue to question them on anti-competitive practices, public dependence on networks or personal data.
But beware of unintended consequences, warned Republican Senator Ben Sasse, who fears that new laws “worsen” the situation. “It is very strange that so many people in my party care so much about it that soon we will have a responsible government on the other side.”