Highlights Of Big Tech CEOs Testifying In A Congressional Hearing Over Misinformation

I want to start by asking all three of you, um, if your platform bears some responsibility for disseminating disinformation related to the election and the Stop the Steal movement that led to the attack on the Capitol. Just a yes or no answer. Mr. Zuckerberg. Chairman, I think our responsibility is to build systems that can help... Mr. Zuckerberg, I just want a yes or no answer, okay? Yes or no, do you bear some responsibility for what happened? Congressman, our responsibility is to make sure that we build effective systems. Okay, the gentleman refuses not to answer the question. Mr. Pichai, yes or no? We always feel a deep sense of responsibility, but I think we worked hard. This election effort was one of our most substantive efforts. Is that a yes or a no? Congressman, it's a complex question. We... Okay, we'll move on. Mr. Dorsey. Yes, but you also have to take into consideration a broader ecosystem. It's not just about the technology platforms we use. Will you admit today, um, that, uh, Facebook groups in particular, um, played a role in the, uh, in fomenting the, uh, extremism that we saw and that led to the, uh, Capitol siege? Certainly there was content on our services and, um, and, and from that perspective, I think that there's further work that we need to do to make our services and moderation more effective. Some studies are confirming what parents in my community already know. Too much time on screens and social media is leading to loneliness and despair. And it seems to be an accepted truth in the tech industry because what we're hearing today, making money is more important. Bill Gates put a, put a cap on screen time for his daughter. Steve Jobs once said in a quote, we limit how much technology our kids use at home. Mr. Zuckerberg, you've also said that your kids, or you don't want your kids sitting in front of screens passively consuming content. So Mr. Zuckerberg, yes or no, do you agree too much time in front of screens passively consuming content is harmful to children's mental health? Congresswoman, the research that I've seen on this suggests that if people are using computers and social apps, I don't think that the research is conclusive on that, but I can summarize what I've learned. If that's helpful, what specific changes do you support in section two thirties? Thanks, Congressman. I would support two specific changes, especially for large platforms. Although I want to call out that I think for, for smaller platforms, I think we need to be careful about, about any changes that we make that remove their, their, their immunity because that could hurt competition. So let me just call on these for, for larger platforms. I think first platform should have to issue transparency reports that, that state the prevalence of content across all different categories of harmful content, everything from child exploitation to terrorism, to incitement of violence, to intellectual property violations, to pornography, whatever the different harms are. Let me ask you real quick now, where are those transparency reports be reported to and how often do you think those should be going out? Well, Congressman, as a model, Facebook has been doing something to this effect for every quarter, right? Where we, where we report on, on the prevalence of each category of harmful content and how effective our systems are at identifying that content and removing it in advance. And, and I think the, the company should be held accountable for having effective systems to do that broadly. The second change that I would propose is, is, is creating accountability for the large platforms to have effective systems in place to moderate and remove clearly illegal content. So things like sex trafficking or child exploitation or terrorist content. And I think it would be reasonable to condition immunity for the larger platforms on having a generally effective system in place to moderate clearly illegal types of content. Let me interrupt real quick because I'm running really short on time because I know in your testimony you're talking about that you would, you say the platform should not be held liable if a particular piece of content evades its detection. So again, that's one of the areas when you're talking about the transparency and also the accountability I'd like to follow up on. Let me have to go on real quick. Mr. Pichai, yes or no. Do you agree with Mr. Zuckerberg's changes to section 230? There are definitely good proposals around transparency and accountability, which I've seen in various legislative proposals as well, which I think are important principles and, and we would, we would certainly welcome legislative approaches Okay, Mr. Dorsey, do you agree with Mr. Zuckerberg, yes or no? I think the ideas around transparency are good. I think it's going to be very hard to determine what's a, what's a large platform and a small platform, and it may incentivize the wrong things. The first question goes to Mr. Zuckerberg. Facebook currently provides their advertisers with insight on how to get their ads in front of people who are most likely to find their ads irrelevant by utilizing tools to use criteria like consumer's personal interest, geography, to fine tune the targeting. This is often used code that target or avoid specific races or other protected classes of people. Let me add that I'm aware of the updates to your special ad audience. However, why does Facebook continue to allow for discrimination in the placement of advertisements that can violate civil rights laws? Congresswoman, we've taken a number of steps to eliminate ways that people can target different groups based on racial affinity and different ways that they might discriminate. Because this is a very important area. And we have active conversations going on with civil rights experts as to the best ways to continue improving these systems. And we'll continue doing that. It's not often I find myself agreeing with Bernie Sanders. But in an interview earlier this week, and I quote, he said, if you're asking me, do I feel particularly comfortable that the President of the United States should not express his views on Twitter? I don't feel comfortable about that. He went on to say, because yesterday was Donald Trump, who was blamed and tomorrow it could be somebody else. Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Dorsey. Do you think the law should allow you to be the arbiters of truth as they have under Section 230? Mr. Zuckerberg first. Congressman, I think that it is good to have a law that allows platforms to moderate content. But as I've said today, I think that we'd benefit from more transparency and accountability. Mr. Dorsey. I don't think we should be the arbiters of truth, and I don't think the government should be either.