US Senate Hearing – Facebook and Twitter remain trapped between party fronts – News

Republicans and Democrats are threatening Facebook and Twitter with new, tougher laws, for several reasons.

They played a decisive role in the election campaign in the United States: the social media platforms Facebook and Twitter. On Tuesday, their CEOs, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, had to answer questions in front of the US Senate. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg did not spare with self-praise.

Sugarberg said at the virtual hearing that a private company has never been more committed to the integrity of the election. Facebook hired hundreds of global networks who wanted to influence the US election and had the facts checked in 60 languages. Facebook eliminated misinformation about the electoral process and blocked political advertising in the week before the November 3 election.

Twitter’s Jack Dorsey said the short message platform had warned over 300,000 tweets about the US elections. The aim is to combat false information that would undermine confidence in the election, create confusion about the electoral process or misrepresent election results, Dorsey said.

Social media in the role of referee

It was the first time that big tech companies took on some sort of arbitration role during elections, under pressure from public opinion. But this role is problematic, as the Senate hearing demonstrated. Many of the Republican members were themselves censored and gave free rein to their indignation.

For example, Senator Mike Lee, who tweeted about the alleged risks of postal voting and received a warning of lack of factuality. This is more the behavior of state media than of a neutral private company pretending to run an open online forum. Twitter makes anyone worried about election fraud look insane.

Senator Marsha Blackburn, who was also noticed by Twitter, said Big Tech is abusing market power to intentionally silence conservatives. There has been talk of blacklists and collusion between social media.

Democrats emanated a completely different energy at the Senate hearing. They were also angry, but because they felt that Facebook and Twitter had not repressed political propaganda enough. The first example is provided by Democratic President Donald Trump himself with his 80 million Twitter followers.

Legal reform would be surprising

Trump utters new conspiracy theories and lies every day about the safety of postal voting and voting machines. Senator Richard Blumenthal said he was trying to prevent a peaceful relocation. Twitter and Facebook have taken the first steps to prevent political disinformation, but that’s not enough.

It sounded like a warning when Blumenthal said he was in favor of destroying the great technology monopoly. Political polarization has reached Facebook and Co. Several parties are seeing their previously unlimited market power in Washington. The question is whether Democrats and Republicans will unite to reform the law. It would be more surprising, because they beat the same guys, but only because they are crazy enemies.