D.C. hearing on online hate sees it firsthand
WASHINGTON — A congressional hearing on online hate turned into a vivid demonstration of the problem Tuesday when a YouTube livestream of the proceedings was bombarded with racist and anti-Semitic comments from internet users.
YouTube disabled the live chat section of the streaming video about 30 minutes into the hearing because of what it called “hateful comments.”
The incident came as executives from Google and Facebook appeared before the House Judiciary Committee to answer questions about the companies’ role in the spread of hate crimes and the rise of white nationalism in the U.S. They were joined by leaders of such human rights organizations as the Anti-Defamation League and the Equal Justice Society, along with conservative commentator Candace Owens.
Neil Potts, Facebook director of public policy, and Alexandria Walden, counsel for free expression and human rights at Google, defended policies at the two companies that prohibit material that incites violence or hate. Google owns YouTube.
“There is no place for terrorism or hate on Facebook,” Potts testified. “We remove any content that incites violence.”
The hearing broke down into partisan disagreement among the lawmakers and among some of the witnesses, with Republican members of Congress denouncing as hate speech Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s criticism of American supporters of Israel.
As the bickering went on, committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., was handed a news report that included the hateful comments about the hearing on YouTube. He read them aloud, along with the users’ screen names, as the room quieted.
“This just illustrates part of the problem we’re dealing with,” Nadler said.
The hearing comes as the U.S. is experiencing an increase in hate crimes and hate groups.
There were 1,020 known hate groups in the country in 2018, the fourth straight year of growth, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors extremism in the U.S. Hate crimes, meanwhile, rose 30 percent in the three-year period ending in 2017, the organization said, citing FBI figures.