On October 28 under section 230 of the communications decency Act, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey will be grilled by the United States Panel. Topics such as privacy and media domination will also be covered in the hearing.
CNBC reported that section 230 of the Communications Decency Act will be testified by the CEOs, which protects tech companies from liability over the content posted by users on their online services.
On Thursday the United States Senate Commerce Committee voted to subpoena the CEOs of Google, Facebook and Twitter to testify before the panel.
This hearing is going to be the Pichai and Zuckerberg’s first appearance before the Congress since the two testified along with Apple CEO Tim Cook and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos before the House Antitrust Subcommittee in July.
The May 28th executive order of United States President Donal Trump sought to blunt section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. Which generally protects internet companies from legal liability for user comments.
Republicans have repeatedly turned to Section 230 as a key area for reform in response to their concerns that social media companies censor conservative voices, a charge denied by Facebook, Google and Twitter.
Section 230 has been repeatedly turned to a key area by the Republicans to reform in response to their concerns that Social Media companies censor conservative voices, A charge denied by Facebook, Twitter and Google.
Maria Cantwell Washington Senator who initially opposed the subpoena which was introduced by Chairman Roger Wicker (Republican-Miss) said that she supported the move after Republicans included language in the subpoena about privacy and “media domination.”
She quoted saying that “What I don’t want to see is a chilling effect on individuals who are in a process of trying to crack down on hate speech or misinformation about COVID during a pandemic,”
“I welcome the debate about Section 230,” Cantwell said.
Section 230 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”.
Moreover, Nick Pickles Twitter’s Director of Global Public Policy Strategy and Development told that the company saw a shift from platform manipulation to public tweets from the state media and government accounts.
Jim Himes Democratic Representative pressed Nathaniel Gleicher Facebook’s head of security policy on what the company was doing to deal with the worries that its algorithm promotes polarization and anger. The users of Facebook do not want to alienating content and the platform has refocused to emphasize content from friends and family said, Gleicher.
The debate over the modernization of content has intensified in recent weeks as Facebook and Twitter diverged on how to handle inflammatory posts by President Donald Trump. Whereas social media companies have been accused of censorship by Trump and called for the government to roll back liability protections for tech platforms.
with IANSinput
