And @SenatorWicker is already into propping up the fake New York Post story - but let's see if he claims that what he calls the country's fourth largest newspaper was somehow silenced by not being able to post on someone else's website a/k/a Twitter. #Section230
Yep, well there it was, at least in elliptical fashion. @SenatorWicker calls it "censorship" when @Twitter decides not to amplify something. That's wrong. Private parties can't "censor" other giant large media companies by refusing to post something they've written. #Section230
The difference between blocking a website for *every* internet user (a #NetNeutrality issue) and blocking the New York Post's ability to post its already-published story on a single website (like Twitter) should be obvious to everyone. But not to @SenatorWicker! #Section230
At least @SenatorWicker read the text of #Section230 - which clearly allows platforms to remove content not just if it is obscene or violent but "otherwise objectionable" - even as Republicans say *they* get to define what's objectionable for Twitter. #Section230 #FirstAmendment
Good counter from @SenatorCantwell: she notices that the GOP majority didn't call the broadcast and newspaper lobbies in today to explain why they didn't publish or re-post certain stories that her Republican colleagues would like to see carried more broadly. #Section230
As @Jack begins, he zeroes in on exactly the right question: how and why do lawmakers get to question whether Twitter is acting in "good faith" when deciding that content is "objectionable" as those terms appear in #Section230.
Dorsey also suggests more transparency for content moderation decisions, and not just transparency for algorithms but more ability for users to make their own choices shaping those algorithms. While optimizing these tools for start-ups too. #Section230
Irony alert! As is any tech failure at a tech policy event. In recess till Zuckerberg could get online. #Section230
Here's Zuckerberg's well-publicized push to have the government help make content choices. This is very dangerous. We may talk about how the #FirstAmendment protects harassment or hate speech that incites violence, but government moderation standards is a huge leap. #Section230
At least Zuckerberg gets this right: some Democrats say eliminate #Section230 to make platforms take down more. Most Republicans who say that want FB to take down less. But the truth is keeping #Section230's core is essential to protecting expression online and people's rights.
As @SenatorWicker starts questioning @Jack, what could be more chilling? My governmental staff has documented several instances of you moderating content in ways that we don't like. #Section230
The whataboutism of Wicker is so painfully obvious here (as @SenWicker co-signs Trump's mail-in voting lies.) Maybe just maybe Trump's tweets get more attention than foreign actors and autocrats with a much smaller megaphone? #Section230
The right answer here, obviously, is that disinformation from any source could and even should be labeled by Twitter and others. But that doesn't make Twitter exercising its own #FirstAmendment rights and placing a label on Trump's disinformation wrong. #Section230
. @SenatorWicker citing an @AjitPaiFCC tweet - on Twitter - as evidence that Twitter censors too much is also pretty high on the irony scale. #Section230
. @Jack's answer on Iranian leaders' tweets is not great. To say some incitements are just saber-rattling and others violate the TOS is a pretty tough call. But that's the point - the platform gets to make that call unless the government can meet very strict scrutiny. #Section230
Sign of the times. Peters and Gardner ask to skip the line because they are both running very tough Senate races. #Section230
In response to questions from @SenCoryGardner, @Jack explains that Twitter doesn't have a flat ban on misinformation: it has policies against certain types of misinformation and separate ones against calls to violence. #Section230
Wow, @SenCoryGardner's close just melts into a list of self-contradictory talking points. He upbraids @Twitter for its moderation choices, but then tries to change teams to say he trusts government even less to make those choices. Which is it, Senator? #Section230 #FirstAmendment
And @SenCoryGardner's gotcha moment at the end is no gotcha. Not only should sites be liable for their content under #Section230 - they already are! But what possible liability could there be for labeling a particular political tweet as misleading? (Hint: none.) #FirstAmendment
Tuned back in for @SenTedCruz yelling and screaming about genuflection. It's very wrong for Cruz to claim that the fourth largest newspaper in the country "can't reach its audience" if Twitter doesn't carry posts about a story already on http://nypost.com . #Section230
"Who the hell elected you?" No one. That's why @Twitter is NOT censoring anyone. Only the government can censor, and the (likely fake) story from the NY Post is available lots of places - even if Cruz wants to make sure these lies can appear in more places. #Section230
. @SenBrianSchatz restores sanity as always. He's never seen a hearing this close to an election - especially one to yell (cough, cough, Cruz) at private citizens abut how they ought to influence the election. It's a "scar on the committee" & a misuse of tax dollars.💥 #Section230
. @SenBrianSchatz is on fire. This hearing is a sham, and he won't ask questions. He just notes that @SenateGOP has been running this play all year, and he won't stand for running it again today. #Section230
Per @SenBrianSchatz: Trump has tweeted five times "Repeal #Section230!" but "as if Trump understands what 230 is." Trump then essentially fired supposed independent agency commissioner @mikeofcc for failing. to line up the way that @SenateGOP and the @AjitPaiFCC has.
Tour de force: @SenBrianSchatz details bullying for electoral purposes engaged in by @SenateCommerce illegal campaign ads, all of the legislative ploys by @HawleyMo et al., and coordinated efforts in the press & in legal filings by @NTIAgov , @FCC , Trump & Bill Barr. #Section230
As @SenatorFischer worries that Twitter "is making value judgments," what power does the government have to substitute its own value judgments for these companies? #FirstAmendment #Section230
Again, no stories have been "blocked" from the NY Post or others, even if they have been blocked or downgraded by a single website called Twitter. I feel like maybe just maybe the NY Post has a website of its own. #Section230
And again with the slam on "value judgments" from @SenatorFischer. Does she want the Senate or the President to make these "value judgments" too for what the NY Post or the NY Times reports? Or only for Twitter? #FirstAmendment #Section230
To ask whether Twitter should receive immunity for choices they make when hosting third party content is extremely curious and problematic in Hunter Biden context - because what possible liability could Twitter (or any outlet) face absent #Section230 for NOT carrying that story?
Repealing #Section230 in retaliation for content moderation choices would harm internet platforms large & small; but it wouldn't magically make refusal to host or re-post another site's story on your own site into a tort or crime that Cruz could punish. #FirstAmendment
As @SenMarkey calls out: violence and hate speech online are real problems, anti-conservative bias is not. (And hosting conservative speech is profitable for these companies.) The @SenateGOP "propaganda parrots" are jus trying to keep more hate & election disinfo up. #Section230
And as Markey notes, amplifying election disinformation, foreign election interference, and incitement to violence are the real threats from platforms' algorithms & policies for next week & going forward. (What the government can do about that is a separate question.) #Section230
Nice job by Markey getting Zuckerberg to at least address Trump's calls for paramilitary groups and other white supremacists to come armed to polling places or elsewhere into the streets. Zuckerberg says some of this would violate FB's election suppression TOS. #Section230
Here's @MarshaBlackburn to repeat the ridiculous claim that private companies are "censoring" the government - that's exactly backwards: Twitter can't censor Trump - and uses her hearing platform to claim these social media companies control access to information. #Section230
As @Jack calmly explains to @MarshaBlackburn, Twitter doesn't "censor" world leaders (including Trump). It adds context and sometime labels their tweets as harmful or as disinformation. #Section230
And as @Jack & Zuck explain, they don't administer political tests to their content moderators. Does she wish they would? #Section230 Blackburn dutifully calls it the Democrat Party & repeats Breitbart manipulation claims. She's a talking points slot machine that always pays off.
"Censor, @MarshaBlackburn?" She's asking now if Zuckerberg upholds the #FirstAmendment - as if he is subject to it. #Section230
As Zuck tells @SenCapito, deleting or changing the meaning of "good faith" in #Section230, substituting government judgment for private entities', would make it harder for platforms to take down bullying and other "lawful but awful" content as @GauravLaroia calls it. #Section230
. @SenatorBaldwin tells it like it is: there are still too many threats to our democracy and to our public health, from voting disinfo and #COVID disinfo online. But this hearing is an attempt to keep that up and help Trump's election chances. #Section230
. @Jack says some of these tweets maybe were labeled after all, as @SenatorBaldwin notes Trump's #COVID immunity claims for himself are unscientific & absurd, and his "rounding the turn" claims for the pandemic are flatly false as cases surge in Wisconsin & elsewhere. #Section230
Wonder if @SenMikeLee will double down today on his claim that the US is not and should not be a "rank democracy"? No, he wants to claim that platform CEOs' statements about being unbiased makes them deceptive when they take down harmful content. #Section230
He's going to say that unless these CEOs can point to taking down posts from people @SenMikeLee identifies as liberals, then they are "censoring" conservatives. Lee is on the judiciary committee too, and has a real live law degree. #Section230
Here you go, @SenMikeLee. Just look at all the "censorship"! #Section230 #FirstAmendment https://twitter.com/pjb_media/status/1321462745208860673?s=20
I bet @evan_greer and @radsandy could provide @SenMikeLee with just a few examples of social media banning, suspending, or deleting posts from accounts that would pass the Senators new "are you a leftist" test. #Section230 #FirstAmendment
While @SenDuckworth asks sensible questions about social media's role in spreading #COVID disinfo and election interference, @SenRonJohnson asks for "honest" answers to his ridiculous question about the political beliefs of his employees. #Section230
And one more time, with feeling: no matter how loud @SenRonJohnson yells and bullies, Twitter didn't (and can't) censor the New York Post. The story was available to anyone who wanted it. #Section230 #FirstAmendment
I couldn't even process the "my dog Buttons" story @SenRonJohnson was shouting about. Does anyone have links? In any case, all of these complaints amount to the old (and always failing) defense of "why should I get a speeding ticket if other people speed?" #Section230
As @SenatorTester makes clear, there are lots of sober policy questions that these companies need to answer, but a hearing called to benefit Trump's campaign six days before the election and at his direction is not a proper use of Senate time. #Section230
Tester is not pulling punches: he cites the 2016 election interference from state actors and foreign interests, and notes that in 2020 these foreign interests even have assets who are sitting members of Congress to spread disinformation and sow confusion. #Section230
And as @SenatorTester concludes, this new @SenateGOP idea that Congress should be administering political tests for companies' hiring, and then deciding how to regulate them based on the political ideas of their employees, is "baloney." #Section230
What can one say about @SenRickScott's closing argument. "You can't pick which viewpoints to carry and still claim immunity under #Section230." Um, YES YOU CAN. That's the whole point of the law! https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230
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