CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg testifies remotely during the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing 'Does Section 230's Sweeping Immunity Enable Big Tech Bad Behavior?', on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, U.S., October 28, 2020. Photograph:( Reuters )
The big debate was around the future of Section 230. It is a legal provision that provides immunity to tech giants. It protects their rights to regulate content on their platform. Twitter and Google defended the law fiercely. Facebook was open to possible amendments
It was billed as a must-watch showdown between US Senators and big tech. What we got instead was a political slugfest. The Q&A revolved around content moderation. Republicans accused big tech of an anti-conservative bias. Democrats did not want to be there at all. They rejected the hearing as a sham. A Republican plan to discredit fact-checking on social media is trying to score political points. Both sides ended up giving a free pass to the 3 CEOs.
The big debate was around the future of Section 230. It is a legal provision that provides immunity to tech giants. It protects their rights to regulate content on their platform. Twitter and Google defended the law fiercely. Facebook was open to possible amendments.
"Section 230 is the most important law protecting Internet speech and removing Section 230 will remove speech from the Internet," said Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter.
"Our ability to provide access to a wide range of information is only possible because of existing legal frameworks like Section 230," said Alphabet Inc (Google) CEO Sundar Pichai
"I believe Congress has a role to play, too, in order to give people confidence that the process is carried out in a way that balances societies deeply held values appropriately," said Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
When the hearing moved on to the question of anti-conservative bias, things got a bit heated up.
"Mr. Dorsey, who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear? And why do you persist in behaving as a Democratic super PAC," said Ted Cruz, Republican Senator from Texas
"We're not doing that and this is why I opened this hearing with calls for more transparency. We realize we need to earn trust more. We realize that more accountability is needed to show our intentions and to show the outcome. So I hear the concerns and acknowledge them but we want to fix it with more transparency," said Jack Dorsey in response.
Jack Dorsey fielded 48 questions compared to 21 for Zuckerberg and 12 for Pichai. The Republican Senators were putting on a show for Donald Trump and from the White House, the President was watching, and tweeting.
Three and half hours of questioning and it again got underlined that tech giants are too big. Their control over political discourse must be reigned in. Big Tech has made enemies everywhere. It plays the role of publisher, fact-checker and arbiter. Ideally, these roles should not be centralised. But ambiguous digital laws let them get away with it.
Fact-checking has been delegated to third party groups. But are these groups truly neutral? Or are they using fact-checking as an excuse for censorship? Can a private company be made the gatekeeper for social and political narratives?
Countries are waking up to the threat this poses. The European Union is preparing a new digital rulebook. India is also mulling regulations on social media content. Big tech is in the dock. The question they face is this, who is fact-checking the fact-checkers?