By John D. McKinnon and Ryan Tracy
WASHINGTON -- The chief executives of Facebook Inc. and Twitter
Inc. told lawmakers they did better in fending off election
interference in 2020, while acknowledging mistakes and signaling an
openness to more regulation.
The tough tone of questions from both parties at a congressional
hearing Tuesday suggested that social-media giants face higher
risks of new regulation in the next Congress that begins in
January.
At the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing conducted over more
than four hours by videostream, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and
Twitter's Jack Dorsey touted improvements their companies made in
blocking or reducing misleading information in the 2020 election.
That led to less interference, the CEOs said. By contrast, the 2016
election was marred by meddling from Russia aimed at helping elect
Donald Trump.
"I am proud of the work we have done over the past four years to
prevent election interference and support our democracy," Mr.
Zuckerberg said in his opening statement. "Millions of Americans
used our service to talk about the campaigns, access credible
information about voting and register to vote."
The pitch didn't appear to persuade lawmakers, who renewed
concerns about the platforms' power and reach as well as their
handling of specific election-related content.
Judiciary Chairman Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) said the companies
should prepare for modifications to federal legal protections
shielding them from liability for user-posted material. Those
protections also give the platforms wide latitude in policing
content.
"When you have companies that have the power of
governments...something has to give" in the legal shield known as
Section 230, Mr. Graham said. "[Section] 230 as it exists today has
got to give."
Republicans also complained that the platforms continue to
censor conservative speech, a charge that the platforms and
Democrats generally reject.
"While we strive to do as well as possible and be as precise as
possible, we will make mistakes," Mr. Zuckerberg said after Sen.
Mike Lee (R., Utah) read a list of actions taken against content
adopting a conservative point of view.
"They may be mistakes, but they are mistakes that rhyme," Mr.
Lee said.
Democrats raised their own concerns, including that some of the
platforms' current content restrictions could hinder them in a
crucial Georgia runoff election in January that likely will decide
control of the Senate.
"I'm concerned that both of your companies are in fact
backsliding or retrenching" in efforts to combat misleading
information in the Georgia race, said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D.,
Conn.). He said the hearing points the way to action on tech issues
in the next Congress, characterizing the companies' efforts to
combat false information "baby steps" and adding, "You must do much
more...to meet this moment and put your power and money on the
right side of history."
Mr. Zuckerberg touted Facebook's efforts to combat
misinformation and voter suppression. He noted that the company
partnered with election officials to remove false claims about
polling information and put warnings on more than 150 million
pieces of content following reviews by third-party fact checkers.
The company also attached informational labels to content that
sought to undermine the legitimacy of the election, Mr. Zuckerberg
said.
Mr. Dorsey told senators that Twitter's new policies for
labeling or removing false and misleading information marked a big
step forward, even though those measures drew complaints from Mr.
Trump after some of his own tweets were labeled misleading. Those
tweets addressed mail-in voting, violent protests, the coronavirus
and claims that he won the presidential election.
When Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) suggested Twitter had
done too little by labeling Mr. Trump's tweets but not taking them
down, Mr. Dorsey said the platform is "focused on providing more
context to people."
Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Tex.) criticized the labeling practice as
turning Twitter into a publisher making editorial decisions. He
pointed to one label directing users to a page stating, "Voter
fraud of any kind is exceedingly rare in the United States."
"That is taking a disputed policy position, and you are a
publisher when you are doing that," he said. "You don't get to
pretend you're not a publisher and get a special benefit under
Section 230 as a result."
Mr. Dorsey said Twitter's page was "pointing to a broader
conversation with tweets from publishers and people all around the
country." At another point, he said the company is "learning and
improving how we address these challenges and earn the trust of the
people who use Twitter."
Election officials have reported no evidence of widespread fraud
in the 2020 election and have defended the process as fair.
Both executives signaled cautious support for modifying Section
230 of the Communications Decency Act, which gave online platforms
near-total legal immunity for the acts of their users as well as
broad powers to police their content.
"It may make sense for there to be liability for some of the
content that is on the platform," the Facebook chief said. He said
Facebook stands ready "to work with Congress on what regulation
could look like, whether that means Section 230 reform or providing
guidance to platforms on other issues such as harmful content,
privacy, elections and data portability." He called for a
requirement that platforms report quarterly on content
moderation.
Mr. Dorsey said platforms ought to disclose more about their
policies and decisions, including actions taken by algorithms. He
encouraged Congress to work with industry to build on Section 230,
whether through additions, industry self-regulation or a new
legislative framework. He warned against laws that would simply
carve out certain types of activity from Section 230's shield,
saying that would favor large incumbent companies.
Mr. Graham announced the hearing before the election to "focus
on the platforms' censorship and suppression" of disputed articles
in the New York Post that made allegations against President-elect
Joe Biden, then the Democratic nominee, which his campaign denied.
Twitter initially blocked tweets of the articles, including from
the Post.
Twitter later said it would allow posts about the articles,
which the Post said were based on documents obtained from a laptop
owned by Hunter Biden, Mr. Biden's son, and concerned international
business dealings, including in China. The Biden campaign disputed
the allegations made in the Post articles, which The Wall Street
Journal hasn't independently verified.
Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas), pressed Mr. Dorsey about Twitter's
initial response to the Post's content. "You do realize that by
taking down that story you probably gave it more prominence and
visibility than it ever would have gotten had you left it alone,"
he said.
"We realize that," Mr. Dorsey said. "And we recognize it as a
mistake that we made both in terms of the intention of the policy
and also the enforcement action of not allowing people to share it
publicly or privately, which is why we corrected it within 24
hours."
Write to John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com and Ryan
Tracy at ryan.tracy@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 17, 2020 16:39 ET (21:39 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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