Nuked We had another hearing with the platform CEOs. We also had a hearing with platform CEOs, platform ceoss. Platform CEOs are also hearing.
Congress shows up with a full command of the issues, and then he’d come along at the end of the day to walk you through the more provocative questions. He gesture at what likely policy outcomes we could expect from this exercise in representative democracy.
‘does section 230’s sweeping immunity enable big tech bad behavior?’ A hearing of the Senate committee on commerce, science, and transportation. The word’- sham’ got kicked around a lot, especially by the participants.
House Republicans organized a hearing to investigate why the vloggers had experienced a decline in traffic sent to them by Facebook. The most likely explanation was that changes to Facebook’s algorithms often affect traffic patterns, to publisher of all kinds.
Media matters published results of a nine-month study showing that right-leaning pages generate engagement at similar rates. Right-Leaning pages generated 43 percent of total interactions by pages posted about American politics, despite making up only 26 percent of posts.
Anecdotes can be combined into a working theory about platform governance. Platforms are big, and make mistakes, and those mistakes turn into anecdotes.
A week before the election, Senate Republicans held a hearing to complain about the unfairness of the race. A report that dozens of former intelligence officials say is likely a Russian disinformation campaign failing to gain traction.
David McCabe and Cecilia Kang have been in the New York Times for the first time since 2011. David McCabe is one of the biggest names in the U.S..
Of the 81 questions, 69 were about censorship and the political ideologies of tech employees responsible for moderating content. Democrats asked 48 questions about regulating the spread of misinformation related to the election and the coronavirus pandemic.
The hearing seemed especially true of Sen. TED Cruz, R-TX, who had promoted the fight on Twitter with a UFC-style infographic promising a free speech showdown. Cruz’s timeline today includes at least 19 clips of his sparring with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.
Sen. Brian schatz called the hearing’an attempt to bully the CEOs of private companies into carrying out a hit job on a presidential candidate’.
The question over section 230 and how the Internet should be regulated is one of the most important debates facing the tech industry. I wrote an in-depth explainer earlier this year.
There is agreement that the law is showing its age, and in need of updating. What speech should tech platforms be allowed to host, and to amplify?. When a citizen is terrorized by online harassment, what recourse should they have?.
To get there, you have to start asking really nettlesome questions. But that’s not enough to craft policy or law.
Facebook, Google, and Twitter have signaled varying degrees of support for amending section 230. Facebook has gone the furthest, suggesting that Congress set performance targets for the speedy removal of illegal content.
The last time section 230 was amended – with Facebook’s full support – the ripples were broad and destructive. In fact, the last thing was amended, with the full support was full.
The 2018 fosta-sesta law, supposed to curb sex trafficking, resulted in many online personals sites shut down completely over liability fears. The most predictable effect of limiting speech on the Internet would be to prompt platforms to over-moderate themselves.
Fosta-sesta did not come up once today’s hearing. Even though, in a sane world, that’s where the hearing would have begun.
Facebook, Google, Twitter all have the resources to adapt to changes. Twitter has the fewest resources of the three, but it uses the same designated moderation model that its peers do.
Instead, the victims are likely to look more like Reddit, which relies on volunteers to help moderate the site in a way that an amended section 230 might no longer allow.’unraveling 230 would basically further ensure that dominance, while undermining the ability of smaller companies like Reddit to challenge that dominance with alternative models of innovation,’ said Reddit’s general counsel.
Lz Granderson: if Senate Republicans had their way, the Internet would only become smaller. He says section 230 can be repaired in a way that makes the Internet better.
