FEDS SWING SOCIAL CLUB
Threat to rein in as F’book & Twitter execs grilled
vinced the companies were making any headway.
“Clearly, this problem is not going away,” Burr said. “I’m not even sure it’s trending in the right direction.”
Senators had sharp words for Alphabet CEO Larry Page, who oversees Google and didn’t show up for the hearing.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) suggested the company might have bailed because it was “arrogant” while Sen. Susan Collins (RMaine) expressed outrage over Page’s absence.
To shame Page (inset far right), the seat reserved for him was left empty.
President Trump has accused the social- media companies of favoring liberal views over conservative ones — and even of interfering in the 2016 and 2018 elections to favor Democrats.
“I mean the true interference in the last election was that — if you look at all, virtually all of those companies are super-liberal companies in favor of Hillary Clin- ton,” Trump told The Daily Caller Web site.
After his stint at the Senate, Dorsey faced off with House members at a second hearing where GOP lawmakers accused Twitter of trying to silence conservative voices.
“What we are concerned about is how Twitter has in some ways ... selectively [and] adversely affected conservatives,” said Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.)
While Dorsey admitted the company had made unintentional mistakes in the past, he insisted that Twitter is now impartial.
“We don’t consider political viewpoints, perspectives or party affiliation in any of our policies or enforcement decisions. Period,” Dorsey told the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “Impartiality is our guiding principle.”
Republican gripes included Twitter not allowing Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) to promote her Senate campaign video that touted her pro-life efforts.
And some of Trump’s strongest GOP allies in the House — Reps. Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz and Mark Meadows — were “shadow-banned” this summer from Twitter when their names didn’t automatically pop up when typed in the search box.
Twitter admitted both were unintended mistakes.
“There will be times . . . where we need to experiment,” Dorsey said of new algorithms. “You need to test things and see if they work at scale and pull them back correctly if they don’t.”
Democrats panned their colleagues’ assault on social-media-company bias as a campaign stunt and fundraising ploy.
“Republicans are desperately trying to rally their base by fabricating a problem that simply does not exist,” said Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-NJ).
Sessions (inset left) is expected to meet with state attorneys general on Sept. 25.
Meanwhile, senators are debating new laws to regulate social-media companies.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) circulated a white paper of ways to rein in companies, including requiring transparency in advertising spending, rooting out bots and inauthentic accounts, and better data privacy and protections for consumers.
“The era of the Wild West in social media is coming to an end,” Warner said.
Facebook and Twitter are using increasingly sophisticated technology and artificial intelligence to combat the misuse.
But their approaches are different because their platforms are also different, as are their resources, where Twitter lags far behind.
Facebook is going after “inauthenticity,” or fake accounts. Twitter is focusing on analyzing behavior patterns to find suspicious activity because Twitter technically allows “fake” accounts in the form of spoofs, for example.