This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen
on .
It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
Facebook and Twitter bosses testify to Congress on Russian meddling – live
Facebook and Twitter bosses testify to Congress on Russian meddling – live
(35 minutes later)
Lankford asks about WhatsApp.
The hearing is adjourned.
Sandberg: We are strong believers in encryption. Encryption helps keep people safe.
My quick take: This was a fairly congenial hearing, with senators largely emphasizing their desire to work together with tech companies, and Dorsey and Sandberg taking pains to emphasize how much they want to cooperate as well.
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, whose fake news broadcast Infowars was recently banned from Facebook, is present at the hearing. He apparently had a testy exchange with Marco Rubio in the hallway.
The absence of Google provided a convenient whipping boy for the senators, and a contrast for Dorsey and Sandberg, who got to look transparent and accountable in contrast.
Wow, this video. Alex JONES calls RUBIO a "frat boy" and touches Rubio on the shoulder. Rubio tells Jones not to touch him and that he won't be arrested because I'll "take care of you myself."https://t.co/AGRMrDBMGa
Ultimately, there was not much new information, but it was interesting to see Sandberg and Dorsey engage on this stage for the first time.
Senator James Lankford is also concerned about “deep fakes”. “Americans typically can trust what they say and suddenly in video they can no longer trust what they see.”
Burr is now offering closing remarks. He notes that the Russian influence operation was against the American people, not the American government.
Angus King asks about the line between providing context and true information, and censoring. “I’d hate to see your platforms become political in the sense that you’re censoring any one side.”
“There is a very human component to this. No single algorithm can fix the problem. Social media is a part of our life. It serves as the family newsletter... Unfortunately other states are now using the Russian playbook. We’re at a critical inflection point. Will using social media to sow discord become an acceptable form of statecraft? Your companies must be at the forefront of combatting those issues.”
Dorsey says Twitter “defaults to freedom of expression.”
Warner is providing some closing remarks: I think we’re going to see more cases where misinformation actually incites violence. He raises the specter of violence like in Myanmar occurring elsewhere.
“We need to understand when that default interferes with other fundamental rights”, such as freedom from harm.
Burr asks Sandberg and Dorsey to let him know if there are ways the government can work better with them.
Angus King asks about deep fakes. Is there a technological way that you can determine that a video has been manipulated and tag it?
Reed: Do you believe that your users should have the right to control what you do with their data.
Sandberg: Deep fakes is a new area, and as always we’re going to do a combination of investing in technology and investing in people.
Sandberg: Yes, very strongly, it’s your information.
There’s a pretty substantial contrast between Dorsey’s and Sandberg’s tones today. Sandberg is fairly upbeat in defending Facebook and its various efforts to address serious issues. Dorsey is taking a more confessional tone, referring repeatedly to his company’s failures.
(There are many, many caveats to any assurances from Facebook that users have any control over their data. But Sandberg delivers the Facebook talking points much more believably than Mark Zuckerberg does.)
Blunt asks Dorsey what is the business downside of working on these issues. A backdrop to this question is that Twitter’s stock price has dropped significantly during this hearing.
Reed is asking why Twitter doesn’t label bots, which is an issue Warner already brought up.
UPDATE: Twitter shares among top losers on S&P 500, stock falls as much as 6 percent $TWTR pic.twitter.com/Z7zxN4ehbG
Dorsey notes that some of the bots are still difficult to identify because they mimic human activity. So if they label some bots, it might fool users into thinking that every account that isn’t labeled is a bot.
One reason for that may be Dorsey’s repeated statements that Twitter is considering making “tectonic shifts” in how it incentivizes user behavior.
Sandberg: We’re committed to working with you on it.
But we all have to think a lot bigger, and decades past today. We must ask the question: “what is Twitter incentivizing people to do (or not do), and why?” The answers will lead to tectonic shifts in how Twitter, and our industry, operates. Required changes won’t be fast or easy.
Jack Reed asks if the government is working with them to combat election interference, giving Dorsey and Sandberg a chance to praise them.
Roy Blunt is questioning Sheryl Sandberg: “What’s the big challenge about being at the forefront of trying to figure this out from a business perspective?”
Cotton: Why does Facebook allow Wikileaks and Julian Assange?
Sandberg: “We have been investing very heavily in people, in our systems, and I that’s what you’re seeing pay off.
Sandberg: I’m nog going to defend Wikileaks and Julian Assange. Wikileaks is public and it doesn’t violate our terms of service.
Sandberg praises “tighter coordination” between social media companies, government, and law enforcement to combat foreign interference.
Dorsey: We also haven’t found violations of terms of service, but we are open to law enforcement insight that would tell us that there has been a violation.
Welcome to our live coverage of executives from Facebook and Twitter are testifying before Congress. This is their latest attempt to assure lawmakers that they are capable of protecting the upcoming midterm elections from foreign interference – but the loudest message so far may have come from Google, which is represented by an empty chair.
Cotton asks Dorsey if he prefers to see the US remain the dominant world power.
“The era of the Wild West in social media is coming to an end,” warned Senator Mark Warner, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, in his opening remarks. “Where we go from here now is an open question.”
Dorsey is dodging that question, and trying to thread a needle of being “consistent” with following its own terms of service when it comes to dealing with government requests.
The hearing is the fourth in a series examining how social media platforms have evolved from fun time-wasters into what committee chair Senator Richard Burr called “a threat to our democracy”.
Senator Tom Cotton: Both of you should wear it as a badge of honor that you are blocked in China.
“Clearly this problem is not going away; I’m not even sure it’s trending in the right direction,” Burr said of the threat to US elections from foreign influence operations on social media platforms.
Cotton criticizes Google for “cooperating” with “the Chinese Communist Party” (via device maker Huawei) while simultaneously reportedly taking steps to build a censored search engine for China and backing away from working on weaponized AI for the US government.
“What happened in the 2016 election cycle was unacceptable,” said Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg in prepared remarks. “We were too slow to spot this and too slow to act. That’s on us … We are learning from what happened, and we are improving.”
This is... complicated, and Cotton’s statement is beyond questionable. But Google’s failure to show up for this hearing is allowing Twitter and Facebook to look much more ~patriotic~ than Google.
Jack Dorsey, chief executive of Twitter, also acknowledged his company’s past failures. “Abuse, harassment, troll armies, propaganda through bots and human coordination, misinformation campaigns, and divisive filter bubbles – that‘s not a healthy public square,” he said in opening remarks. “We acknowledge the real-world negative consequences of what happened, and we take full responsibility to fix it.”
Manchin: But do you all feel any responsibility?
Google, which declined to send CEO Sundar Pichai or co-founder and Alphabet CEO Larry Page, was notably absent, an empty chair and nameplate providing a constant visual reminder of the snub. The company sought to send senior vice president for global affairs Kent Walker, but was rebuffed.
He raises the prospect of passing some kind of law akin to SESTA/FOSTA to limit the CDA Section 230 safe harbor clause and make internet platforms more liable for drug sales.
“I’m deeply disappointed that Google – one of the most influential digital platforms in the world – chose not to send its own top corporate leadership to engage this committee,” said Warner. “Given its size and influence, I would have thought the leadership at Google would want to demonstrate how seriously it takes these challenges and to actually take a leadership role in this important public discussion.”
Manchin: Why are you not doing business in China?
Both say: We are blocked.
Sandberg: The Chinese government blocked us... In order to go into China we would have to be able to do so without sacrificing our values and that’s not possible to do right now.
Manchin says that prosecutors are looking to hold drug dealers are responsible for the deaths of drug users. He asks to what extent platforms bear responsibility for deaths of drug users if they die from drugs bought on platform.
Sandberg and Dorsey are silent for a long moment, before Sandberg jumps in to say that the sale of drugs on the platform is against policy. She then adds that FB is cracking down on predatory drug rehab centers.
Dorsey: We are looking deeply at how this information and activity spreads so we can shut it down.
