I'm absolutely fed up with Congress and their antiquated methods of handling dis/misinformation perpetuated by big tech, so I decided to write a few words about it.
As the hearing started, I tweeted some initial thoughts, and I still stand by them. Calling in Pichai, Dorsey, and Zuckerberg gives the press a field day and makes Congress look productive, however, these CEOs are not responsible for day to day moderation and policy, and aren't the best folks to be answering questions.
Congress should have invited Guy Rosen, Facebook’s Head of Integrity, alongside other Heads of Public Policy, Trust & Safety, and Integrity so there could have been a deep dive on how moderation takes place, which policies are in use, and how legislation could help these companies mitigate their problems.
It baffles me that Congress would hold a hearing to learn about and explore tech’s role in perpetuating disinformation, but spend a majority of that time asking "Yes/No" questions, getting visibly impatient, and not allowing these leaders to explain their policies or themselves. Why even hold a hearing then?
Before the hearing commenced, Rep. Pallone (D-NJ) told Politico, “This is not a hearing just to hear the same old thing, we want to know what we can do legislatively. We want to pass laws.”
This is the 3rd tech based hearing we've had in the last year, and nothing has been introduced, nothing has changed, the country has only become more polarized, and Congress's inability to draft or pass legislation ends up giving big tech more and more power to do what they please.
I believe disinformation is a major problem plaguing this country, I believe there needs to be better intervention, I believe we cannot trust big tech to moderate themselves. However, based on these hearings, I'm starting to understand that we cannot trust Congress to help moderate these platforms either, for they fundamentally don't understand, nor do they seek to understand the nuance behind platform moderation.
It seems to me that they care about the perception of "doing work" or gaining headlines that they're "tough on tech". If you want to be tough on tech, fine, but don't go in with an anti-tech mentality. Go in with the curiosity to learn since *news flash* you don't know much about this particular subject.
Congress seems to be coming in with this preconceived notion that anything big tech touches is bad. I refuse to believe that.
I am someone who is deeply critical of Silicon Valley. I'm a Berkeley hippie, a semi competent startup founder, and a politically progressive individual. However to say that big tech has caused nothing but harm is an incredibly reductive statement, and in my opinion, shows that you may be too privileged to understand how tech has been used for good to uplift, and empower other individuals.
That said, tech is NOT all good. There are individuals with god complexes, who create policies, companies and systems that are mired in issues. We have companies who believe in "not discussing politics within the company unless it affects them in a positive way (ahem Coinbase)". We have issues with biases in AI and problematic usage of facial recognition software. We also have Facebook who has, in the past, been responsible for some pretty heinous things around the globe from Myanmar to issues within our own 2016 Presidential election.
Tech is not perfect, but constructive critics of tech, well-intentioned journalists and intelligent public servants are aiming to be productive, and are finding ways to work with tech to empower all sides. I cannot say that of Congress anymore, who seems hell bent on dragging tech through the mud since it'll help them with their polling and eventual re-election.
It is unclear to me what sort of research these Congressional individuals did or who prepared their questions, but it was completely off base and more in line with “gotcha journalism”. I would have asked questions on:
How do private companies view the 1st Amendment, given that you don’t necessarily need to abide by it?
Do you have hard data on whether tech companies are actually “biased” against conservatives?
Are paid advertisers treated differently or better when it comes to posting misinformation vs. normal users?
What are consequences for elected officials who post disinformation?
Do you feel partially responsible for the flow of disinformation which resulted in the Jan 6th riots and how are you hoping to clamp down on this?
Tell us more about the changes to your algorithms, recommendation engines, targeting in your efforts to make sure you’re not amplifying dangerous and false content to users.
To Facebook: For the longest time you’ve been against altering Section 230 of the CDA, but seem to be amenable to certain changes now. Is this because of the recent EU ruling against you?
This is just the tip of the iceberg, and I could go on and on. Can you tell the one thing these questions have in common? You can’t answer them with “Yes or No”. It involves so much research, analysis and detail that the CEO’s aren’t even the one’s equipped to talk about them in detail.
Side note, it doesn’t surprise me that Republicans tried to change the topic from disinformation to censorship, given that 11 Republicans involved in the hearing voted against certifying the Presidential Election, peddling the conspiracy theory that President Trump had beaten Joe Biden. These Republicans claim to be patriots, but have zero moral authority to speak on or ask questions about censorship or misinformation. Tech may be a strong contributing factor to fake news being disseminated, but these individuals, alongside the former President were ground zero.
I am not an expert in the matters of content moderation or disinformation, however, within my role at Wildfire, we get hundreds of thousands of posts per day at our colleges. It is my job to work with our teams to sift through, moderate, remove fake news and make sure that only verified news is reaching our campus communities. Now scale that up to billions of pieces of content per day. I cannot imagine how difficult things are at Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, but I do know that politicians sitting on their high horses, yelling at individuals in a condescending manner does not help us solve these very real issues.
I'm not a lawyer, I'm a barely a policy wonk, but from what I can understand, the 1st Amendment gives Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Snap, Tik Tok, etc the power to remove any content that goes against their community guidelines (as they are a private entity, and not the government). However, removing content at scale runs you into the problem of "censorship". According to critics, whether something is fake or true, people believe they have the right to post their "false or true" opinions. They believe, and to a certain extent, I agree, that it's the duty of tech companies to make sure those "false opinions" which have been validated as incorrect are not promoted by the algorithm to more users, causing more damage.
To be honest, I don't know what the perfect solution is to solve moderation at multi-billion dollar companies. There are entire teams with thousands of people dedicated to solving this problem. However, I do know that this problem cannot be solved by big tech alone. There needs to be legislative or legal oversight to help to quell the danger of disinformation within society.
Perhaps the answer is Congress appointing an independent commission of 1st Amendment lawyers to craft legislation that narrowly categorizes and outlaws certain types of disinformation. The reason I say narrow is because if the categorization is too big and encompasses too much, it will most certainly be struck down in court as an attack against free speech.
Ultimately, the price is too high for being complacent on this issue. Fighting disinformation is a national security issue as it sows chaos and discord in our society, and undermines public trust in democratic institutions. Repetition of deceptive information is what makes it so effective, and this where it becomes a tech related issue. However, I have no hope in the situation changing unless Congress stops with the politics and starts by educating themselves on what’s already been attempted, so we can work together to solve this scourge upon society.
Lastly, for the entirety of this article, I’ve only been speaking to disinformation and how it’s related to social media outlets. There are actually far more complicated and nefarious actors to cover, such as cyberattacks from nation-state’s such as North Korea, China or Russia, who’s sole goal often is to disseminate propaganda over years and years and watch institutions fall into chaos (ie: 2016 Presidential Election or 2016 DNC Hack). This is something I’m still learning about, and hope to cover sometime later.
Till next time, thanks for reading!