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

The Republican party members of the Judiciary Committee questioned whether the tech giants should be taking such steps of labelling posts at all. This was also the second time in three weeks that both Dorsey and Zuckerberg were cross-examined. Even now the US lawmakers’ are concerned with an American law known as Section 230 that basically allows the social media platforms to avoid legal complications over illegal or offensive content posted by the 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 the regulation should be “revoked” since it promotes the spread of baseless claims. Meanwhile, Republican Senator Blackburn lashed out on the social media websites for taking editorial decisions about what shall be taken down, or allow without any change. This, according to them makes Facebook and Twitter publishers and not just mere publishers. Therefore, republican argued, that the tech firms should not be shielded with Section 230.

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

Twitter and Facebook's response

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

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