Executives at Twitter, Google and Facebook faced heavy criticism from US senators on Wednesday over how content is moderated on their platforms, a hot topic less than a week away from the presidential election in the United States. United.
Sundar Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey delivered their opening remarks via videoconference to members of the Upper House of Congress Commerce Committee, broadly defending Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which prevents related legal proceedings. content published by third parties.
At the start of the hearing, Republican Senator Roger Wicker, who chairs the committee, called for in-depth reform of the law aimed at strengthening the accountability of tech giants.
“My concern is that these platforms have become powerful arbiter of truth and content that users can access,” said the senator from Mississippi, state in the southern United States.
“The general American public is poorly informed about the decision-making process when content is moderate and users have little recourse when it is censored or restricted,” he added.
Mr Wicker concentrated his attacks on Twitter, which he accused of bias in his moderation of the messages published, believing that conservative officials, starting with Donald Trump, were excessively targeted there.
“Your platform allows foreign dictators to publish their propaganda without restriction, while you systematically limit the President of the United States,” he blasted.
Mr. Dorsey, who appeared on video with a particularly thick beard, defended himself, ensuring that the network reacted as quickly as possible to moderate content deemed inappropriate whatever it is.
For his part, Mr. Pichai, the CEO of Google, described section 230 as “a founding act of American leadership in the field of tech” and warned the senators of the consequences of a transformation of the text as well for companies than for individuals.
Mr. Zuckerberg, who had some problems logging in, opened the door for him to make changes to Section 230.
“I think Congress should update the law to make sure it works as it’s intended,” the Facebook boss said.