Facebook, Twitter grilled by Senators on poll response; social media giants admit mistakes

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey have been grilled by US Senators for handling of US Election 2020. From Republican Senator accusing platforms of using “power to run amok” to Democrats questioning if Twitter’s measures of flagging US President Donald Trump’s posts ‘disputed’ had gone far eugh, chief executives of social media websites were prompted to defend its policies. grilling came after Facebook and Twitter were challenged by US government over its most recent actions especially when nation was embattled with prolonged vote counting, misinformation, and threat of violence. 

Republican party members of Judiciary Committee questioned wher tech giants should be taking such steps of labelling posts at all. This was also second time in three weeks that both Dorsey and Zuckerberg were cross-examined. Even w US lawmakers’ are concerned with an American law kwn as Section 230 that basically allows social media platforms to avoid legal complications over illegal or offensive content posted by users. 

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Republican Senators' argument against platforms

Democrats were seen echoing similar comments as 46th US President-elect Joe Biden who has reportedly suggested that regulation should be “revoked” since it promotes spread of baseless claims. Meanwhile, Republican Senator Blackburn lashed out on social media websites for taking editorial decisions about what shall be taken down, or allow without any change. This, according to m makes Facebook and Twitter publishers and t just mere publishers. refore, republican argued, that tech firms should t be shielded with Section 230.

BBC quoted Blackburn saying that Federal law gave Facebook and Twitter “ ability to stand up and grow without being hit by lawsuits” but added, “You have used this power to run amok.” Following grilling, both chief executives were seen defending policies.

Twitter and Facebook's response

Jack Dorsey even ackwledged that it was a “wrong” decision to have taken down investigative report by New York Post over Joe Biden’s son Hunter before elections and its failure on reviving newspaper’s own tweets about same. Zuckerberg, on or hand, avoided direct reference of matters reportedly in opening remarks but talked about its strong measures to tackle issue. Twitter CEO said, "I hope this... demonstrates our ability to take feedback, admit mistakes and make all changes transparently to public." While Facebook CEO challenged some claims by Democrats by stressing, "We strengned our enforcement against militias and conspiracy networks like QAn to prevent m from using our network to organise violence or civil unrest."

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