Facebook, Twitter CEOs facing questions on election measures

A Senate panel is calling on CEOs of Facebook and Twitter to defend ir handling of disinformation in contest between President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden. But senators are deeply divided by party over integrity and results of election itself.

Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing Tuesday to question Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey on ir companies’ actions around closely contested election. two social media CEOs are expected to testify via video.

Prominent Republican senators, including Judiciary Committee chairman, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — have refused to kck down Trump’s unfounded claims of voting irregularities and fraud, even as misinformation disputing Biden’s victory has flourished online. Graham, a close Trump ally, has publicly urged: “Do t concede, Mr. President. Fight hard.”

Zuckerberg and Dorsey promised lawmakers last month that y would aggressively guard ir platforms from being manipulated by foreign governments or used to incite violence around election results — and y followed through with high-profile steps that angered Trump and his supporters.

Twitter and Facebook have both slapped a misinformation label on some content from Trump, most tably his assertions linking voting by mail to fraud. On Monday, Twitter flagged Trump’s tweet proclaiming “I won Election!” with this te: “Official sources called this election differently.”

Facebook also moved two days after election to ban a large group called “Stop Steal” that Trump supporters were using to organize protests against vote count. 350,000-member group echoed Trump’s baseless allegations of a rigged election rendering results invalid.

For days after election as vote counting went on, copycat “Stop Steal” groups were easily found on Facebook. As of Monday, Facebook appeared to have made m harder to find, though it was still possible to locate m, including some groups with thousands of members.

Warily eyeing how companies wield ir power to filter speech and ideas, Trump and Republicans accuse social media companies of anti-conservative bias. Democrats also criticize m, though for different reasons. result is that both parties are interested in stripping away some of protections that have shielded tech companies from legal responsibility for what people post on ir platforms. Biden has heartily endorsed such an action. But it’s actions that companies have taken around election that are likely to be a dominant focus at Tuesday’s hearing.

GOP majority on Judiciary panel threatened Zuckerberg and Dorsey with subpoenas last month if y didn’t agree to voluntarily testify for Tuesday’s hearing. Republicans on Senate Commerce Committee lambasted two CEOs and Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, at a hearing last month for what y said was a pattern of silencing conservative viewpoints while giving free rein to political actors from countries like China and Iran.

Despite fears over security in run-up to v. 3 and social media companies bracing for worst, election turned out to be most secure in U.S. history, federal and state officials from both parties say — repudiating Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of fraud.

Facebook insists it has learned its lesson from 2016 election and is longer a conduit for misinformation, voter suppression and election disruption. This fall Facebook said it removed a small network of accounts and ps linked to Russia’s Internet Research ncy, “troll factory” that has used social media accounts to sow political discord in U.S. since 2016 election. Twitter suspended five related accounts.

But critical outsiders, as well as some of Facebook’s own employees, say company’s efforts to tighten its safeguards remain insufficient, despite it having spent billions. “Facebook only acts if y feel re’s a threat to ir reputation or ir bottom line,” says Imran Ahmed, CEO of Center for Countering Digital Hate. organization had pressed Facebook to take down “Stop Steal” group.

re’s evidence that social media giants are biased against conservative news, posts or or material, or that y favor one side of political debate over ar, researchers have found. But criticism of companies’ policies, and ir handling of disinformation tied to election, has come from Democrats as well as Republicans.

Democrats have focused ir criticism mainly on hate speech, misinformation and or content that can incite violence, keep people from voting or spread falsehoods about coronavirus. y criticize tech CEOs for failing to police content, blaming platforms for playing a role in hate crimes and rise of white nationalism in U.S. And that criticism has extended to ir efforts to stamp out false information related to election.