Lawmakers press Big Tech CEOs on speech responsibility

WASHINGTON – The CEOs of tech giants Facebook, Twitter and Google faced a grilling in Congress Thursday as lawmakers tried to draw them into acknowledging their companies’ roles in fueling the January insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and rising COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.

In a hearing by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, lawmakers pounded Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg; Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, which owns YouTube; and Twitter chief Jack Dorsey over their content policies, use of consumers’ data and children’s media use.

Republicans raised long-running grievances, unproven, that the platforms are biased against conservative viewpoints and censor material based on political or religious viewpoints.

There is increasing support in Congress for legislation to rein in Big Tech.

“The time for self-regulation is over. It’s time we legislate to hold you accountable,” said Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., the committee’s chairman.

That legislative momentum, plus the social environment of political polarization, hate speech and violence against minorities, was reflected in lawmakers’ impatience as they questioned the three executives. Several lawmakers demanded yes-or-no answers and repeatedly cut the executives off.

“We always feel some sense of responsibility,” Pichai said. Zuckerberg used the word “nuanced” several times to insist that the issues can’t be boiled down. “Any system can make mistakes” in moderating harmful material, he said.

The three CEOs staunchly defended their companies’ efforts to weed out the increasingly toxic content posted and circulated on services used by billions of people, while noting their efforts to balance freedom of speech.

“I don’t think we should be the arbiters of truth and I don’t think the government should be either,” Dorsey said.