WATCH & COMMENT: Facebook & Twitter CEOs Testify on Tech Platform Censorship

What’s the story?

• The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing titled, “Breaking the News: Censorship, Suppression, and the 2020 Election” featuring testimony from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
• The social media giants face accusations from Republicans of anti-conservative bias in their censorship of content and news, like the recent reports about Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings; while Democrats have called for the tech platforms to be even more aggressive in censoring controversial content on their platforms. 
• Dorsey and Zuckerberg recently testified alongside Google CEO Sundar Pichai before the Senate Commerce Committee on censorship and whether certain immunities granted to them as platforms should be reformed or eliminated.

What immunity do tech platforms have?

• Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act states that, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” 
• In essence, it means that platforms can’t be punished for content published by an end user of the platform. Critics have accused social media platforms of abusing that status by censoring or suppressing viewpoints their employees disagree with, thereby acting as a publisher rather than a neutral platform deserving of protections under Section 230. 
• While there is some bipartisan support in Congress for reforming Section 230, the Trump administration has pushed hard for it to be revamped. President Donald Trump issued an executive order that seeks to prohibit social media censorship, and the Dept. of Justice (DOJ) called for Congress to revise the legal protections for social media companies.
• Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai on Thursday announced that the FCC will move forward with a rulemaking to clarify the meaning of Section 230, noting that, “Many advance an overly broad interpretation that in some cases shields social media companies from consumer protection laws in a way that has no basis in the text of Section 230.” He added:

“Throughout my tenure at the Federal Communications Commission, I have a favored regulatory parity, transparency, and free expression. Social media companies have a First Amendment right to free speech. But they do not have a First Amendment right to a special immunity denied to other media outlets, such as newspapers and broadcasters.”

— Eric Revell