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Updated March 25th, 2021 at 16:38 IST

Facebook, Twitter, Google CEOs to testify in Congress: What are five things to look for

For the first time since Donald Trump supporters stormed US Capitol, the CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter will be testifying before Congress on Thursday.

Reported by: Aanchal Nigam
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For the first time since former US President Donald Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol to hinder the Congress convened to certify the election victory of now President Joe Biden, the CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter will be testifying before Congress on Thursday (local time). Here are five things that shall be noted in the testimonies of Facebook Inc's Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai of Alphabet Inc and Twitter Inc's Jack Dorsey before the two subcommittees of the Energy and Commerce Committee. 

1. Role of Social media

Just after the November 3 presidential election, the social media platforms were flooded with false narratives about voter fraud and other websites as support for Trump spurred. Eventually, the build-up led to pro-Trump protesters storming the US Capitol on January 6. The riot took the entire nation by shock and also led to the death of several people including one police officer. As per reports, lawmakers are likely to inquire about the role of social media in inciting violence.

A non-profit Avaaz said in the latest report released only this week that it had found at least 267 Facebook pages and groups including “Stop the Steal” groups with nearly 32 million followers that promoted violence late last year. 

2. Section 230 

For a very long time, the tech giants have lobbied to protect Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act that basically allows the social media platforms to avoid legal complications over illegal or offensive content posted by the users. However, several Republicans have argued for the section to be scrapped and other bipartisan proposals have even suggested revising the American law.

Reportedly, Zuckerberg suggested in a written testimony released on March 24 that Section 230 to be changed to provide platforms immunity from the liability only if they adhere to the best practices of deleting the damaging material. Meanwhile, Pichai and Dorsey have separately suggested approaches such as developing content policies that are transparent and provide users with methods to appeal decisions. 

3. Actions taken against Donald Trump

In the aftermath of shocking US Capitol violence in January, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google’s YouTube suspended the official accounts of former US President Donald Trump for inciting the riot. However, the move angered several republican lawmakers especially in the closing days of his administration and argued against the general stifling of conservative voices. Hence, reports have suggested that Republicans might pressure the tech giants’ CEOs to reverse the course as Trump’s accounts still haven’t returned. 

4. Misinformation during COVID-19

As the COVID-19 pandemic has continued to spread for more than a year, lawmakers in the United States have often voiced their disagreement with the flack of misinformation on social media regarding novel coronavirus, COVID-19, and even the vaccines that have been approved by the government. Twitter, Facebook and Google have even begun labelling the posts related to the pandemic. Facebook recently said that it removed more than 12 million posts about COVID-19 and vaccines that health experts flagged as false information. But, the Center for Countering Digital Hate said in its report released last week that all three platforms failed to satisfactorily practice vaccine misinformation policies.

5. Measures taken by platforms

In the testimony, all three platforms will have to lay down the measures they have respectively taken to combat the challenges that drastically increased last year. Throughout the year, there were updates, deletion of posts, suspension of accounts and introduction of new guidelines. While Facebook, Twitter and Google have boasted about tackling the misinformation and hate content on their platforms, it is expected that the lawmakers question about the investment they have done in content moderation at curbing misinformation and the level at which the rules are practised.

(Image credits: AP)

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Published March 25th, 2021 at 16:38 IST

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