Thread by @thedextriarchy

Are you in the right headspace to receive information that could possibly hurt you? Then check out the Senate livestream for our latest Section 230 nightmare hearing! commerce.senate.gov/2020/10/does-s…

The big prospect from this hearing, as explained by @mmasnick: Facebook throwing its weight behind one of the proposals to change Section 230. techdirt.com/articles/20201…

Roger Wicker nods to the (largely illusory) bipartisan anti-230 consensus. “There is strong agreement from both sides of the aisle that hearing from these witnesses is important.” The witnesses are Google’s Sundar Pichai, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.

I’m not going to bother summarizing Wicker’s opening statements much here, because you can just refer to basically any other Republican speech about Section 230.

The key note if you’re watching the Republican side of the aisle: Section 230 is *not the only law* that lets Twitter/Facebook moderate content. Unless they’re going to rewrite the Constitution, the goal is just scaring companies out of exercising First Amendment rights.

Wicker is comparing net neutrality to rules forcing Facebook and Twitter to host content. The pretty key difference here: virtually no serious person is calling for these sites to be literally classified as utilities. That is not the case with internet service providers.

The other key background element: the “bipartisan consensus” on repealing Section 230 involves Republicans and Democrats asking for *basically opposite* things out of a repeal.

Now the Democratic side with Maria Cantwell. Cantwell says she wants to avoid creating “a chilling effect on the very important aspects of making sure that hate speech and misinformation related to health and public safety are [not] allowed to remain on the internet."

Cantwell is focusing on election interference, hate speech, and misinformation — particularly anything voting-related, with the election next week.

Cantwell: “We have to show that the United States of America stands behind our principles and that our principles do transfer to the responsibility of communication online."

Facebook and Twitter’s testimony is online, by the way.

Facebook: assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7276…

Twitter: assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2039…

Maria Cantwell, wearily: "I think you're gonna hear a lot about algorithms today.”

AAHHAHAHAHAHAHHHH Wicker is now discussing a 3+ hour hearing, someone kill me now.

Wicker, summoning the ghost of Jack Dorsey from the etherwebs: “Do you hear us, and do we have contact with you?"

Dorsey says the problem is that people don’t think tech companies are acting in good faith. He’s implicitly supporting the various Section 230 amendments that would require companies to publish terms of service and algorithm info and have a clearer appeals process.

Worth noting that Twitter is *way* less algorithm-driven than Facebook and Google. On that note, I’d be curious to know how many people use “top tweets” versus the linear timeline.

Sundar Pichai is is up. He says the internet has been “a force for good” in the past decades, citing all the, um, good-force stuff you can do on the internet. Hurray for the internet.

Pichai: “We feel a deep responsibilty to keep the people who use our products safe and secure.”

Everybody should savor these opening statements, because it’s probably all downhill from here.

Pichai: “We approach our work without political bias. Full stop."

Some good unpacking of the logic behind this hearing:

https://twitter.com/daniellecitron/status/1321422926277693440

Wicker with an important update!!! “We are unable to make contact with Mr. Mark Zuckerberg. We are told by Facebook staff that he is alone and attempting to connect with this hearing.”

The coronavirus has turned every hearing into a scene from Apollo 13.

We’re going to take a five-minute break before attempting to reinitiate communion with the tech executive cyberspirits in the ether.

Ah, Zuck is back! Contact established! Again, here’s his testimony: assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7276…

The key sentence from this entire testimony: “I think that Congress should update the law to make sure it’s working as intended.”

We’re about to figure out just how much Facebook wants to dismantle 230.

Zuck is explaining Facebook’s election strategies, which we’ve covered in some detail:

theverge.com/2020/10/25/215…
theverge.com/interface/2020…

Alright, we’re starting 7 minutes of questioning for everyone on the committee. Current status: failing to find a picture of ‘70s-era Richard Hell wearing a PLEASE KILL ME shirt.

Wicker jumping right into things with a question about why Twitter puts labels on the president’s election misinformation tweets, trying to claim Dorsey is hypocritical for labeling a false tweet from the CCP more slowly.

Wicker is quoting a tweet from FCC chair Ajit Pai. (But he has not printed them on giant placards to set up behind him, so boooo.) Again, he’s trying to claim Twitter’s moderation is inconsistent — which is totally fair — because of political bias... which is sketchier.

Dorsey trying to explain why he hasn’t labeled some other nations' threatening tweets: “We consider them saber-rattling, which is part of the speech of world leaders … speech against our own people, our own citizens, we believe is different and could cause more immediate harm."

Some useful context here is that Trump implied he was going to start a nuclear war on Twitter in 2018 and Twitter was cool with it.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/948355557022420992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Sen. Peters is now asking about radicalization on Facebook, and if Facebook has any responsibility to stop them. “We actually do a little of what you’re asking about here,” says Zuckerberg, talking about trying to guide users away from white supremacist groups.

We’re getting a string of questions about extremists congregating on Facebook et al, and how web platforms might work with law enforcement to fight them. Peters is homing in on reports that Facebook recommendations have guided people to extremism. wsj.com/articles/faceb…

“It probably takes some time after we make these changes to be able to measure the impact of it, and I’m not aware of what studies are going on into this,” says Zuck of some recent anti-extremist algorithm changes. He wants outside academics to help study it.

Sen. Gardner up now. A question for Dorsey.

“Do you believe that the Holocaust really happened? Yes or no."

(Jack Dorsey does believe the Holocaust happened.)

The goal again here seems to be establishing that Twitter is holding Trump to a higher standard than other world leaders. We’re also talking about labeling and limiting the reach of tweets, not even taking them down. We are incredibly far afield of Section 230 here.

“I don’t see how you can label a president of the United States. Have you ever taken a tweet down from the Ayatollah?” (from Cory Gardner) is really one of those extremely 2020 statements.

Okay so, Gardner gets to defending Section 230: “we have to be very careful and not legislate in ways that stifle speech … You cannot unsubscribe from government censors.” Basically, Silicon Valley is bad but government regulation is worse.

Gardner: “Should [Google/Facebook/Twitter] be responsible for the specific content that you create on your platform?”

(everyone basically agrees this is standard practice under Section 230, although the definitions vary.)

Klobuchar is up, and she starts by saying that a week before the election, “I believe the Republican majority is politicizing what should not be a partisan topic."

Klobuchar: “We have had four years to do something when it comes to antitrust, privacy, local news, a subject that briefly came up, and so many other things.”

Klobuchar is pursuing a line of questions about whether Facebook actually reviews its political ads, or if they’re instantly placed by algorithms.

“We have computers and artifiical intelligence scan everything,” and then it’s referred to a human if there’s a red flag, says Zuck.

Klobuchar is bringing up the Honest Ads act, which requires more transparency in ads on digital platforms. We covered it here: theverge.com/2018/10/31/180…

We’re getting another question about algorithms promoting divisiveness. Klobuchar: “More divisiveness, more time on the platform, more time on the platform, more money. Does that bother you? What it’s done to our politics?"

Pichai has gotten off pretty easy so far, but Klobuchar is bringing up antitrust as a placeholder for a later hearing. Says he’s been “defiant to the Justice Department and [regulators] all over the world."

Frankly surprised YouTube hasn’t gotten more focus here. It’s come up in examples, but Pichai hasn’t been grilled about it the way Zuck and Dorsey have about their platforms.

Thune is up. He’s bringing up the PACT Act, one of the more bipartisan Section 230 bills.

Thune is taking exception with term “working the refs” because “it assumes you’re the arbiters of truth.”

“Mr. Zuckerberg/Dorsey/Pichai, are you the ref?”

Pichai is the ONLY person who’s being sort of honest about the fact that like… he *is* the ref on the specific platform that he owns? Like, the referee of a baseball game isn’t the literal owner of baseball!

Thune referencing the PACT Act: “Do you agree that users should be entitled to due process and an explanation when content they post is taken down?”

Everyone agrees with it.

Oookay we’re on the NY Post story. Thune wants Facebook to provide a list of every newspaper article whose circulation it’s limited, Zuck essentially defers the question to fact-checking partners.

Dorsey proactively says he agrees with the PACT Act’s requirement that companies post more info about their moderation policies.

I wrote a bit ago about how the PACT Act is a “split the difference” bill that tech companies might ultimately line up behind because it’s the least objectionable option. theverge.com/2020/7/28/2134…

Blumenthal up, and he’s angry! “Frankly I’m appalled that my Republican colleagues are holding this hearing literally days before an election when they seem to want to bully and browbeat the platforms here to try to tilt them toward President Trump."

Blumenthal has sponsored some distinctly bad Section 230 legislation, namely the EARN IT Act. theverge.com/2020/7/2/21311…

Haha okay Blumenthal’s audio has cut out, we are troubleshooting again.

Blumenthal: “We’re on the verge of a massive onslaught on the integrity of our elections. President Trump has indicated that he will potentially interfere by posting disinformation on election day or the morning after. … We’ve all received briefings that are literally chilling."

Blumenthal is that guy who really has more of a comment than a question.

Ted Cruz is up. Have renewed my search for the PLEASE KILL ME Richard Hell photo.

side note: if I have to think about this image then you do too

Ted Cruz is yelling at Twitter about whether it has the power to influence elections, and Dorsey keeps saying no, which seems like obvious nonsense, so everyone is losing here.

We are stuck in “Ted Cruz yelling at Twitter about blocking the New York Post stories” hell. Keep in mind that Twitter is BY FAR the smallest platform involved in this hearing. I dearly love this hellsite, but man, the media/political bubble around it is ridiculous.

Ted Cruz would really like to see Jack Dorsey’s manager now.

Ted Cruz: “Mr. Dorsey, who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear!???”

sir, this is Twitter

To loosely paraphrase Ted Cruz’s last statement, how dare the CEO of a company select what can be posted on its website.

Sen. Brian Schatz has refused to ask questions because he thinks this hearing is “a scar on this committee” … “an embarrassment" … “We have to call this hearing what it is: it is a sham" … "This is nonsense. And it’s not going to work this time."

Schatz is excoriating the ample bad-faith attempts to revoke Section 230, calling the whole thing as a publicity stunt.

This is fair and accurate. But man I really wish we could actually talk about Section 230 during this Section 230 hearing at some point.

I’m legitimately curious about whether there are meaningful ways to legislate against harassment and other literally illegal and clearly harmful things. Schatz is right that… this is not that. There is just no way to have a good faith discussion amid the weird bias complaints.

We are supposed to be 15 minutes out from a break and I have never needed one more. My brain is shutting down.

Okay, ONE MORE, we just have to get through Cantwell and then we get a five-minute reprieve.

The one thing I *really* wanted from this hearing was to get a better sense of where Facebook stands now on 230 legislation, because it so famously flipped on SESTA/FOSTA. This looks less and less likely to happen.

Maria Cantwell also has more of a comment than a question.

We are now back on the *other* topic that is not actually telling us much about how Section 230 reform might go, i.e. Democrats asking tech comanies about how they’re fighting election interference.

I would 100% not blame Zuck/Dorsey/Pichai for building a robot body double to appear at these hearings, because they are basically props at this point.

Hell the pandemic doesn’t even require a full body double! Just make a Dorseybot torso that will offer vaguely stoned platitudes about freedom of expression and set that thing in front of Zoom.

I’m clearly going insane and they have a break now, so let’s all take a breath.

Alright — I had to take a longer than expected break for an interview. Now I’m back in hell with the rest of you.

Ah I see we’re talking about the president posting on social media again, hurrah. Once again if we were actually talking about Section 230 we would be having a lot of extremely different conversations right now.

Zuckerberg is reiterating its general move toward limiting its recommendation algorithms, i.e. theverge.com/2020/9/17/2144…

Marsha Blackburn is speaking now. “Do any of you have any content moderators who are conservatives?”

Dorsey: We don’t ask political ideology.

Zuck: We don’t ask for ideology, but there are 35,000 of them.

Pichai: Yes, because we hire them through the United States. (?)

Blackburn is back in the game of trying to prove that Twitter is treating Donald Trump more harshly than Ayatollah Khomeini. Keeps calling the process of labeling tweets “censoring."

Blackburn asks if you “share any of your data mining with the Democrat National Committee.”

Dorsey: “I’m not sure what you mean by the question.”

As someone who is not primarily a political reporter, the convention of substituting “Democrat” for “Democratic” still keeps throwing me.

HAHSKJLDFKLASDKLFDJASDLKFJSKLDAF;ELSKRAIWESJ

Mark Zuckerberg just applied the “you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater” false truism

this is not a thing!

theatlantic.com/national/archi…

(He applied it in the context of a very general “we want to try to balance speech and safety” answer.)

The pattern is now basically set for this hearing: Republicans yell at the tech CEOs about specific moderation decisions, Democrats pivot to asking about election misinformation, occasionally somebody hints at something that might actually relate to Section 230 legislation.

We’re not getting new information about election integrity prep as far as I can tell — it’s just reiterating the press releases that companies have been putting out for the last few weeks.

I’m not going to summarize the election prep stuff, except to point you all to @CaseyNewton and his excellent work on the subject: theverge.com/interface/2020…

Sen. Capito is finally asking a real 230 question! Namely, whether you should redefine/reinterpret the protection for removing “otherwise objectionable” content in 230.

Jack Dorsey gives a reasonable answer, if not the one I would exactly — says “objectionable” content is stuff that might be legal, but makes people want to leave the internet.

The “otherwise objectionable” standard bit is pretty in the weeds for non-230 nerds, but basically, Republicans want to remove the explicit assertion that site owners can judge what’s “objectionable” for themselves, instead of using a legal checklist.

Capito says “I'm skeptical on the argument, quite frankly,” that eroding Section 230 would hurt small web services. She’s asking Facebook to explain it. Hey, you know what could have helped here, literally ever inviting small site owners into these hearings!

This is a long-running frustration: the Section 230 hearings have been overwhelmingly driven by legal experts and Big Four tech CEOs, and the groups that have the most to lose (i.e. newspapers, small sites, anyone else who relies on 230) have been basically invisible.