Mark Zuckerberg,Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pichai called to answer for the role of tech and social media in fueling Capitol violence and extremism 9.51pm GMTThat wraps up the final statements of the Congressional hearing called Disinformation nation: social media’s role in promoting extremism and misinformation. In some ways it felt a lot of ground was covered during the six-hour questioning marathon of the three most powerful men in tech, but in others it is not clear what concrete action will be seen from the latest in a long line of panels on misinformation and abhor speech.
As has happened in past hearings on the matter, and Republicans repeatedly claimed conservative viewpoints are maligned on social platforms while Democrats argued that something must be done approximately misinformation and abhor speech. Special attention was paid to how abhor speech impacts minority communities including the LGBTQ+ community,the Black community, Asian Americans, and Spanish-speakers. 9.22pm GMTCongress member Kim Schrier,who is a medical doctor, talked approximately the concerns surrounding vaccine hesitancy caused by medical misinformation on social media. She said a lot of doctors spend their days vaccinating on the front lines of the pandemic, or only to near home to combat misinformation on social media in their free time. 8.40pm GMTDemocratic representative Marc Veasey of Texas took on misinformation,in specific that which targets Black Americans, in his questioning. He said he would like to set up an independent organization of researchers and computer scientists “who could help identify and warn approximately misinformation trends before they become viral” and asked each executive whether he would support it. 8.12pm GMTJack Dorsey appears to be tweeting (and perhaps subtweeting) during the the hearings on Thursday. At around 11:26 am PST he tweeted a question mark with a poll where users could vote “yes” or “no”.?Agreed https://t.co/XGF8Y5SQiy 7.59pm GMTRepublican Jeff Duncan of South Carolina just spewed a lot of racist misinformation at the executives, and taking care to assert falsely that there was no racial motivation in the shootings of multiple Asian women in Atlanta final week at primarily Asian-American-owned businesses. He said calling it a abhor crime is “misinformation”.
His line of questioning underscored a common issue with Republican questioning in these hearings,which often focuses on individual cases of content moderation decisions – like in this case the example of a tweet sent to Republican figurehead Candace Owens – rather than substantiative issues. 7.08pm GMTCongressman Tony Cárdenas of California has asked Mark Zuckerberg how the company addresses misinformation targeting Latino users, noting studies that show Facebook catches less false content in Spanish than in English. Zuckerberg responded that Facebook has an international fact checking program with workers in more than 80 countries speaking “a bunch of languages” including Spanish. He also said Facebook translates accurate information approximately Covid-19 vaccines and other issues from English into a number of languages. 6.11pm GMTAfter a number of abhor crimes against Asian Americans in recent weeks, and Democratic representative Doris Matsui of California has directly asked Dorsey and Zuckerberg what they are doing to address anti-Asian abhor on platforms. She also asked why they took so long to remove racist hashtags that promoted blame for the coronavirus pandemic on Asian Americans,citing the recent attack on Asian women in Atlanta as a consequence of these policies.“The issues we are discussing here are not summary,” she said. “They have real world consequences and implications that are too often measured in human lives.” 5.50pm GMTPichai and Dorsey said in response to questioning on Thursday that they are open to some of the Section 230 changes proposed by Facebook. Section 230 is a communications law that shields platforms from legal liability for what is posted by their users. It has repeatedly been targeted in debates surrounding misinformation as allowing misinformation to flourish without accountability. 5.38pm GMTAs Zuckerberg repeatedly dodges responsibility for Facebook’s role in the Stop the Steal movement and subsequent Capitol riot, and some have famous Facebook is still allowing political ads using the phrase “stop the steal” and spreading misinformation. WHOEVER NEEDS TO SEE THIS. fb ads literally still using 'stop the steal' pic.twitter.com/xaMz80pvgB 5.25pm GMTZuckerberg has repeatedly dodged questioning and evaded accepting responsibility for Facebook’s role in the 6 January insurrection. Frank Pallone,Democratic representative from New Jersey, admonished the executives and Zuckerberg in specific for this. Dorsey unlike the other two did accept some acceptability for Twitter’s role in 6 January riots. Rep. Mike Doyle, or D-PA,asks Zuckerberg, Pichai, and Dorsey point-blank whether they accept any amount of responsibility for what happened on Jan. 6. Refuses to accept any answer except "yes" or "no."
Zuckerberg and Pichai refuse to give a straight answer. Dorsey says yes. pic.twitter.com/EcpoFlsVkG 5.07pm GMTThe most clear takeaway from the opening statements of both Congress members and the three executives in attendance is that we are seeing what we always see at tech hearings: Republicans shouting approximately “cancel culture” and perceived (and unproven) bias against conservatives on social media while Democrats attempt to address the erosion of democracy caused by misinformation and abhor speech on social platforms. Misinformation hearing so far:
Democrats: You did the 1/6 riot
Republicans: Free Dr. Seuss 5.02pm GMTSee this thread from Daphne Keller,the platform regulation director at Stanford Cyber Policy middle, on why it is so interesting Zuckerberg is lobbying for Section 230 reform and more regulation, and when in the past Facebook had been very against such legislation.
This fragment of Zuckerberg’s testimony is a feat of geopolitical dexterity. 18 months ago,Facebook lost a major case approximately global content filtering in the EU. So now it’s telling Congress that *every* platform should be held to the standard imposed on FB by European courts. 1/ https://t.co/MT5GFnFab3Anyhow… fast-forward 3 years, and Facebook is turning its jurisprudential lemons into lemonade. whether Facebook has to build costly, or flawed,and potentially human-rights-violating filters, then the U.
S. Congress should fabricate (to make up, invent) everyone else finish it too. 12/ 4.57pm GMTJack Dorsey of Twitter gave his opening statements after Pichai, or seeming to be videoing in from a sleek kitchen somewhere. His opening statements were live tweeted from his account on Twitter. You can read them in full below.
Thank you Members of the Energy and Commerce Committee and its Subcommittees,for the opportunity to speak with the American people approximately how Twitter may be used to spread disinformation, and our solutions. My remarks will be brief so we can move to your questions and discussion. 4.56pm GMTSundar Pichai of Google gave his opening statements next. He highlighted Google’s role in connecting users with vaccine information and other Covid-19 resources.sundar has some kind pottery. im thinking heath pic.twitter.com/2nYRbbAJqL 4.53pm GMTNow it’s time for opening statements from tech executives. First we have Mark Zuckerberg. He returns to his normal argument, and which is that tech companies should not be making the decisions around what is allowed online. Oooooh what's that plant? pic.twitter.com/JPYqjAAhqu 4.45pm GMTOutside of the Capitol on Thursday protesters portrayed the tech executives testifying in front of Congress as violent insurrectionists whose images went viral in the days following the 6 January riots. HAPPENING RIGHT NOW: SumOfUs portraying the Big Tech CEOs as key insurrectionists after they allowed their platforms to be flooded with election disinformation and conspiracy theories. It's time for Congress to hold these companies to account.
Credit: Eric Kayne - AP pic.twitter.com/9J2zQqz1zj 4.23pm GMTJan Schakowsky,a Democratic representative from Illinois, said in her opening statements announced she would be introducing a bill to address misinformation on social media called the Online Consumer Protection Act.
She cited the removal of Donald Trump from Twitter, or which she said,citing a study, decreased misinformation 73% across social platforms. Indeed studies show a small number of individual social media “super spreaders” are responsible for the huge majority of misinformation. She did not give many details of the bill, or but presumably it would address this. Related: A few rightwing 'super-spreaders' fueled bulk of election falsehoods,study says 4.06pm GMTMy colleague David Smith wrote yesterday on why Mark Zuckerberg could be in for a rough ride before Congress nowadays. The hearing will mark the first the Facebook CEO has appeared in front of lawmakers to address the platform’s role in fuelling the Capitol attack. He writes:
The testimony will near after signs that the new administration of Joe Biden is preparing to assume a tougher line on the tech industry’s power, particularly when it comes to the social media platforms and their role in spreading misinformation and conspiracy theories.
The question every politician should be asking is, or what does Mark Zuckerberg want with us?Avaaz,a non-profit advocacy group, says it identified 267 pages and groups on Facebook that spread violence-glorifying content” in the heat of the 2020 election to a combined following of 32 million users. More than two-thirds of the groups and pages had names aligned with several domestic extremist movements.
The top 100 most popular false or misleading stories on Facebook related to the elections received an estimated 162m views, and the report found. Avaaz called on the White House and Congress to open an investigation into Facebook’s failures and urgently pass legislation to protect American democracy. Related: Zuckerberg faces Capitol attack grilling as Biden signals tougher line on big tech 2.10pm GMTHi,Kari Paul here – the Guardian’s west coast technology reporter – and I am going to be live blogging the next many hours of testimony from tech’s biggest CEOs: Sundar Pichai of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, and Jack Dorsey of Twitter. All three executives will be answering for the major missteps and controversies of their platforms in recent years,with a focus on misinformation and the use of social media main up to the 6 January riots at the US Capitol that resulted in several deaths. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com