Technology firms ‘biased against Trump’, hearing told
REPUBLICANS attacked Google, Facebook and Twitter for being “biased” against Donald Trump, the US president, during a tense virtual Senate hearing yesterday.
The politicians repeatedly accused chief executives at the technology companies of double standards for editing, deleting or fact-checking Mr Trump’s posts, while allowing harmful hate speech to remain on their services.
Jack Dorsey, the Twitter chief executive, sparked wrath after claiming that Twitter did not have the power to influence elections.
The social network has become a direct line for politicians to voters and followers around the world, including Mr Trump, who is renowned for tweeting several times a day. Under Mr Dorsey’s l eadership, the company has introduced several rules on what can be posted on the social network to meet concerns that they could be used to influence voters and affect democracy. It has added several fact- checking labels to Mr Trump’s tweets, including a post about postal voting.
Twitter’s decision to block users from sharing a controversial New York Post article about Hunter Biden, and locking the newspaper’s Twitter account, was recent evidence of political bias, Senator Ted Cruz claimed.
Mr Cruz said: “Mr Dorsey, who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear?”
He accused Mr Dorsey of double standards f or blocking the story because it was allegedly obtained through criminal means and allowing a New York Times article about Mr Trump’s tax returns to remain. Twitter said it suppressed the New York Post article because it contained hacked material. Mr Cruz pointed out that the
New York Times article used an individual’s tax returns, the publication of which is also illegal in the US.
Mr Dorsey agreed that they had made a mistake on the New York Post article, but disagreed that the New York Times should have been blocked.
Mr Zuckerberg said that Facebook stood for “free expression and to be a platform for all ideas”, but admitted that it was “a big company and mistakes are made from time to time”.
Mr Trump and several Republican politicians, including Mr Cruz, have dangled the threat of repealing Section 230, a digital law that grants the companies immunity from responsibility for what users post on their services, if the companies do not cease alleged “censoring” of voices on the right. Without S230, big tech and other smaller internet companies could face an onslaught of lawsuits.
Mr Trump, who alleges the firms stifle conservative voices, and Republican politicians sent a flurry of tweets as the hearing continued. “Repeal Section 230!” Mr Trump tweeted.
Democrat senators dismissed the hearing and politicising of S230 as a “sham” and “cheap stunt” to pressure social networks into allowing voting misinformation to remain online.