discursos de odio responsabilidad de intermediarios curación y moderación de contenidos desinformación restricción a la protesta social

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the Streaming Platforms' Hearing Before the U.S. Congress

To learn more about how social media platforms currently tackle misinformation, we recommend visiting letrachica.

By Luisa Fernanda Isaza

Once again, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and Sundar Pichai had to answer questions from the U.S. Congress. The CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were summoned to testify about misinformation and extremism on their platforms. But this time, the summons seemed personal: On January 6, 2021, a mob of misinformed people stormed the Capitol, terrorizing members of Congress, in protest of the alleged election fraud that cost Donald Trump the presidency. The purpose of the hearing was to assess the role these platforms played in promoting the insurrection. The stakes are high: the underlying debate is whether Congress should reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. This legislation grants platforms broad immunity: they are not liable for what their users post, nor are they liable if they decide to moderate content. For this reason, both lawmakers who want platforms to exercise greater control and those who criticize them for blocking content or accounts are interested in amending it. Of course, the pandemic was also part of the discussion. Although the platforms took steps to try to control harmful content, misinformation about the coronavirus still persists on the platforms. In this regard, we recommend reading The New Normal?, CELE’s latest paper, which examines the platforms’ response to misinformation about the virus. As usual, the hearing was disappointing. Here are the good, the bad, and the ugly aspects of the hearing. Also included is Facebook’s proposal on how regulation should work. The Good

  • When asked about potential regulation, the three executives agreed that platforms need to be more transparent about their content moderation processes.

  • Without hesitation, the executives acknowledged that harmful content circulating on their platforms has a more severe impact on minorities and African American communities. The Bad

  • The proposed topic for discussion was the role of platforms in promoting misinformation and extremism. However, as usual, the questions went off on all sorts of tangents: What are they doing to combat misinformation, suicides, illegal drugs, bullying, hate speech, anti-Asian sentiment, illegal human trafficking at the Mexican border, etc.? And furthermore: How do they ensure racial diversity in the workplace, how do they protect data, how do they ensure free competition, etc.? The members of Congress tried to cover too much ground and, as a result, didn’t press the issue very hard.

  • The format didn’t work well. Each member of the committee had three witnesses and five minutes to speak. In their eagerness to reach definitive conclusions in a short time, they insisted on asking yes-or-no questions, while the executives insisted on providing complex explanations for complex issues. Communication frequently broke down, and the hearing was largely unproductive. The Ugly Some members of Congress didn’t do their homework and, as usual, asked irrelevant questions. One of them asked Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, how he and his children used YouTube. Another asked all three if they had already seen the documentary The Social Dilemma. Yet another asked if they had already been vaccinated against the coronavirus. What Is Facebook Proposing Regarding Regulation? Mark Zuckerberg spent the most time on screen. Much of the lawmakers’ attention was focused on Facebook. Although all three platforms spoke in favor of regulation to promote transparency, it was Zuckerberg who put forward the most detailed proposal:

  • That platforms be required to monitor “clearly illegal” content (bullying, for example, is not clearly illegal; child sexual exploitation and terrorism are).

  • That platforms retain immunity, which they earn by complying with “best practices” standards. That is, by demonstrating that they have systems in place to identify and remove illegal content. However, he clarifies that platforms should not be held liable if a particular piece of content slips through those systems.

  • That this obligation be proportional to the size of the companies, so that no requirements are imposed that would hinder competition from new and smaller players in the market. The proposal, which at first glance might seem reasonable, has drawn criticism: ultimately, the company is proposing a form of regulation tailored to its own needs. When it comes to setting industry “best practices,” Facebook can argue that its own are the best. Furthermore, as Mike Masnick points out, if Facebook’s measures become the “industry standard,” it would create an incentive for other companies to copy this strategy and stop proposing their own solutions to the problem of misinformation. To learn more about how social media platforms currently tackle misinformation, we recommend visiting letrachica.digital, the project through which CELE is tracking changes to the platforms’ community guidelines. Written by Luisa Isaza Tw: @luisaza