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    Twitter and Facebook CEOs testify on alleged anti-conservative bias

    The chief executive officers of Twitter and Facebook took the stand on Tuesday to testify, again, about allegations of anti-conservative bias on their platforms.
    Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey were subpoenaed in October to appear at Tuesday’s hearing with the Senate judiciary committee in order to “review the companies’ handling of the 2020 election”.
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    Republican lawmakers frequently allege – without evidence – censorship of conservative views, but this particular hearing was called in response to the companies’ handling of a New York Post article about Joe Biden.
    When the story was published in October, Twitter took unprecedented steps to limit its circulation, blocking users from posting links or photos of the report. At the time, Twitter said the measures were taken due to “the origins of the materials” included in the article, which were allegedly pulled from a computer that had been left by Hunter Biden at a Delaware computer repair shop in April 2019. Twitter policies prohibit “directly distribut[ing] content obtained through hacking that contains private information”.
    The company later walked back on its response, tweeting that the communication around the actions on the article “was not great”. It also changed its hacked materials policies in response to the outcry. Facebook took a less aggressive stance, placing some limitations on the article due to questions about its validity.
    In his opening statement, Dorsey explained again the company took action against the New York Post tweet due to “the origins of the materials” included in the article and said that Twitter upon further review decided that action was wrong. “I hope this illustrates the rationale behind our actions and demonstrates our ability to take feedback,” Dorsey said. “Mistakes and changes were all transparent to the public.” More

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    Section 230: tech CEOs to defend key internet law before Congress

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    The CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and Google are expected to tell lawmakers in a rare appearance before Congress that a federal law protecting internet companies is crucial to free expression online.
    Wednesday’s hearing with Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pichai will take place less than a week before election day and was convened to address section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law underpinning US internet regulation that exempts platforms from legal liability for content generated by its users.
    The hearing will investigate “how best to preserve the internet as a forum for open discourse”, according to the Senate judiciary committee, and it comes largely in response to allegations of anti-conservative bias in the tech world.
    Senate Republicans indicated they wanted to question Pichai and Zuckerberg in October to discuss issues related to section 230. Dorsey was added to the mix after Twitter restricted the circulation of a controversial New York Post article that featured potentially hacked materials relating to Joe Biden’s son Hunter.
    In prepared testimony for Wednesday’s hearing, Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, said eroding the foundation of section 230 “could collapse how we communicate on the internet, leaving only a small number of giant and well-funded technology companies”.
    Facebook’s Zuckerberg warned that tech companies were likely to censor more content to avoid legal risks if section 230 were repealed. “Without section 230, platforms could potentially be held liable for everything people say,” he said.
    The Facebook executive also argued that without the law, tech companies could face liability for doing even basic moderation, such as removing hate speech and harassment. He said he supported “updating” the rules for the internet if it were done with the potential consequences in mind.
    Pichai said Google approached its work without political bias and was able to offer the information it did because of existing legal frameworks such as section 230. “I would urge the committee to be very thoughtful about any changes to section 230 and to be very aware of the consequences those changes might have on businesses and consumers,” Pichai’s written testimony said.
    Republicans’ allegations that tech companies unfairly silence conservative voices is unsubstantiated. In fact, a recent report alleged that Facebook had suppressed progressive content to appease Republican lawmakers.
    Still, Donald Trump has repeatedly accused Twitter and Facebook of censoring him and has zeroed in on section 230 as one of the culprits. Trump has stepped up his criticism since the companies began to label or even remove posts by the president or his campaign that spread misinformation or call for violence.
    “Repeal section 230!!!” Trump tweeted on 6 October, after Twitter added a misinformation warning label to one of his tweets claiming the flu is more deadly than Covid-19.
    Ironically, the repeal of section 230 protections would probably lead social media platforms to take more, not less, action over Trump’s posts, as it would hold them legally liable for any falsehoods he posts. Experts say the effects would be comparable to what was seen with the passage of Fosta/Sesta, legislation that held platforms responsible for sexual service advertisements posted on their sites. The passage of those bills led to the removal of Craigslist personal ads and upended content policies on sites like Tumblr.
    Privacy advocates have long called for the protection of section 230, saying it is integral to internet freedom. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit civil liberties group, called section 230 “the most important law protecting internet speech”.
    The Internet Society, another non-profit organization advocating for internet access, warned that poorly informed policy decisions on section 230 could bring “dire consequences” for what we are able to do online.
    That is because the law applies not only to platforms like Facebook and Twitter but to other internet infrastructure like domain name registries and internet service providers. Without section 230, these entities may have to approve content prior to posting or take other action that would significantly slow the flow of the internet as we know it.
    Despite the warnings, the modification of existing regulations has become a major point of contention in the run-up to the election, with both presidential candidates proposing section 230’s repeal. There have been an additional 20 attempts to amend or revoke the law in the past two years.
    In addition to discussions on reforming the law, the hearing will bring up issues about consumer privacy and media consolidation. On Tuesday, Senator Maria Cantwell, the top Democrat on the Senate commerce panel, released a report on how big tech platforms have decimated the local news industry, including newspapers and broadcasters.
    The tech executives will begin their testimony at 10am ET and all three will appear remotely.
    Reuters contributed reporting More

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    Facebook announces plan to stop political ads after 3 November

    Facebook has announced significant changes to its advertising and misinformation policies, saying it will stop running political ads in the United States after polls close on 3 November for an undetermined period of time.The changes, announced on Wednesday, come in an effort to “protect the integrity” of the upcoming election “by fighting foreign interference, misinformation and voter suppression”, the company said in a blogpost.Facebook’s chief executive officer, Mark Zuckerberg, had previously defended the controversial decision not to factcheck political advertising on the platform, but in recent weeks Facebook has begun to remove political ads that feature dangerous and misleading claims.In early September, the company pledged to stop running new political ads one week before 3 November, the day of the United States elections, to prevent last-minute misinformation. Now it will also disallow political advertising entirely following election day “to reduce opportunities for confusion or abuse”.In other words, Facebook will not allow new advertisements starting one week before 3 November, and immediately after polls close it will stop running all political advertisements indefinitely. The company did not give a timeline for if or when political advertising would return.The new policies mark important progress toward protecting elections, said Vanita Gupta, the president and chief executive officer of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of dozens of nonprofits and human rights groups advocating for democracy.“We are seeing unprecedented attacks on legitimate, reliable and secure voting methods designed to delegitimize the election,” Gupta said. “These are important steps for Facebook to take to combat disinformation and the premature calling of election results before every vote is counted.”Others said the change is too little, too late. Senator Elizabeth Warren called the changes “performative”. The internet freedom group Fight for the Future said in a tweet the change “isn’t going to fix the problem at all”. The group noted that Facebook’s recent decision to allow content from private groups to appear in newsfeeds will increase misinformation and negate any positive changes that come from an advertising ban.“Facebook is banning political ads but at the same time they’re tweaking their algorithm to go into overdrive recruiting people into groups where they’ll be spoon-fed manipulation and misinformation,” Fight For the Future said.Facebook is again making performative changes to try to avoid blame for misinformation on its platform. The problem isn’t the ads themselves. The problem is Facebook’s refusal to regulate its ads, change its broken algorithm, or take responsibility for the power it’s amassed. https://t.co/OkkyM1PtML— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) October 7, 2020
    Facebook is seeking to avoid another political disaster after it was found that Facebook was used by Russian operatives in 2016 to manipulate the United States elections.Since then, Facebook has hired thousands of people working on safety and security surrounding elections and has worked on more than 200 elections around the globe, “learning from each” and making “substantial progress”, the company said.Executives at Facebook, including Zuckerberg, reportedly became increasingly alarmed at language from Donald Trump suggesting the president would not participate in a peaceful transfer of power. Trump has also been accused of encouraging violence when he told white supremacists to “stand back and stand by” and encouraged supporters to “go to the polls” and “watch very carefully” at the first presidential debate.The company also said it will be removing calls for people to engage in poll watching that use “militarized language” or suggest the goal is to intimidate voters or election officials.Zuckerberg has previously expressed concern about challenges posed by the surge in mail-in ballots this year due to the pandemic.“I’m also worried that with our nation so divided and election results potentially taking days or even weeks to be finalized, there could be an increased risk of civil unrest across the country,” he said.Facebook said it would respond to candidates or parties making premature claims of victory, before races were called by major media outlets, by adding labels and notifications about the state of the race. More

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    'Too much power': key moments as tech CEOs face historic US hearing – video

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    Top US tech bosses are told they are censoring political speech, spreading fake news and ‘killing’ the engines of the US economy in a combative and historic congressional hearing.
    Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Tim Cook of Apple, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, appeared before members of the house judiciary’s antitrust subcommittee and faced intense questioning on everything from market dominance and data surveillance to military contracts and political censorship.
    ‘Too much power’: Congress grills top tech CEOs in combative antitrust hearing

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    Biden's path to the White House could hit a dead end on Facebook

    The Observer

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    Biden’s path to the White House could hit a dead end on Facebook

    Mark Zuckerberg’s autocratic nature and fear of anti-trust legislation might see him plump for Trump in the race for president
    Q&A with Facebook whistleblower Yaël Eisenstat
    Q&A with early Facebook investor Roger McNamee
    Carole Cadwalladr: If you’re not terrified about Facebook, you haven’t been paying attention More