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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testifies remotely during a Senate Commerce Committee hearing Wednesday about reforms to Section 230, a key legal shield for tech companies. Greg Nash/Pool/Getty Images hide caption

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testifies remotely during a Senate Commerce Committee hearing Wednesday about reforms to Section 230, a key legal shield for tech companies.

The CEOs of some of the biggest tech platforms defended the way they handle online speech to an audience of skeptical senators, many of whom seemed more interested in scoring political points than engaging with thorny debate over content moderation policies and algorithms.

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter's Jack Dorsey and Google's Sundar Pichai appeared virtually Wednesday at a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee that was supposed to focus on a decades-old legal shield insulating tech companies from liability over what users post.

But many Republicans on the committee used the opportunity to berate the executives over suspicions that their companies and employees are biased against conservatives a frequent complaint on the right for which there is no systematic evidence. Several members pressed Dorsey about Twitter's decision later reversed to block links to a controversial New York Post story about Hunter Biden, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's son.

"Mr. Dorsey, who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear?" Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas bellowed at Twitter's chief executive in one of the hearing's most theatrical moments.

Dorsey, a yoga devotee who says he tries to meditate every day, quietly responded that users agree to Twitter's terms of service when they sign up and said Twitter did not have the ability to influence elections.

Democrats mainly focused their questions on what steps the platforms are taking to protect from election interference and crack down on hate speech and radicalization as well as how the tech companies have contributed to the downfall of local news media by sapping advertising spending.

Several Democratic members called foul on the timing of the hearing, just six days before the election. "We have to call this hearing what it is, it's a sham," Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii said. "I'm not going to use my time to ask any questions because this is nonsense."

Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut accused his Republican colleagues of wanting to "bully and browbeat these platforms" into favoring President Trump.

Bipartisan agreement that Section 230 should change but not about why or how

All of the companies have changed their policies this year about what posts are allowed about voting and the election. Facebook and Twitter in particular have taken increasingly aggressive action against posts that make false claims about voting or undermine confidence in the electoral process including putting warning labels on some of the president's most inflammatory attacks on voting by mail.

The law in question, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, is under attack from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle but for different reasons.

Republicans say it gives cover for tech platforms to censor conservatives unfairly, including Trump, while Democrats say the companies should have to take more responsibility for the hate speech, false claims and other harmful content that proliferate on their platforms.

"The reality is that people have very different ideas and views about where the lines should be," Zuckerberg told senators. "Democrats often say that we don't remove enough content, and Republicans often say that we remove too much."

Trump says the law should be revoked, and his Justice Department has asked Congress to pass legislation holding platforms more accountable for what their users post.

Biden has also said the law should be revoked. House Democrats have introduced their own bill that would hold tech companies liable if their algorithms amplify or recommend "harmful, radicalizing content that leads to offline violence."

Tech executives say legal shield is essential to promote online speech

On Wednesday, the CEOs told the committee they agreed that the law should be updated to reflect the current state of the world, 24 years after it was first written. But they defended its legal protections and warned that removing it entirely would result in their companies taking a heavier hand with user content.

They noted that Section 230 not only makes them largely immune from liability of what users post but also empowers them to make decisions about what content to remove and what to allow.

Dorsey and Zuckerberg said there should be more "transparency" about the decisions that online platforms make when determining what content can stay up and what they take down.

Dorsey said he agreed with critics that the companies' policies can feel "like a black box" to outsiders.

"Section 230 is the most important law protecting Internet speech, and removing Section 230 will remove speech from the Internet," he said.

Editor's note: Facebook and Google are among NPR's financial supporters.

Originally posted here:
Facebook, Twitter, Google CEOs Defend Themselves From GOP Censorship Accusations - NPR

Censorship and loss of First Amendment rights should concern us all

In reference to an Oct. 28 letter to editor from Bill Powell concerning theft of campaign sign, removing/stealing a sign from someones property is not only a crime, but violating their free speech right.

As bad as this is, I would ask Mr. Powell to look beyond this, to todays environment on social media. We used to have news organizations that reported the news, not their ideology. We now have social media, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. These companies now put a blackout/ censorship on any point of view that they do not agree on. And sadly, many take it as the truth.

We should all be of concern of our First Amendment rights being taken away from us, no matter what side of the political fence you may stand on. Wake up people!

Gerald Davis

LaVale

The rest is here:
Censorship and loss of First Amendment rights should concern us all - Cumberland Times-News

Editors note: As the Nov. 3 election draws near, the Daily Universe is exploring different national and local issues impacting voters in a series of stories.

A number of recent nationwide surveys suggest political self-censorship may be on the rise in America, particularly among young adults.

Data from a July 2020 survey from the libertarian Cato Institute showed 62% of Americans say the current political climate prevents them from sharing their views in fear of causing offense, up from 58% in 2017. Additionally, 37% of responders under 30 admitted they were worried their political opinions could hurt their career paths, compared to 30% of 30-54 year-olds and 24% of 55-64 year-olds.

Similarly, a fall 2019 Heterodox Academy survey found 55% of college students in the United States are reluctant to share political views with their peers.

With the 2020 presidential election just days away, some BYU students acknowledged their hesitancy to share political views and attributed it to a variety of fears, including confrontation, losing friends and cancel culture.

In a social media survey on The Daily Universe Instagram account, 51% of responders said they do not generally feel comfortable sharing political opinions while 22% said it depends on the situation. Just 27% of responders noted their willingness to express political views regardless of the circumstance.

One student admitted they generally feel comfortable talking politics in one-on-one conversations, but over social media or in public, heck no. Another student said they also choose to steer clear of addressing political topics on social media because people are much more tactless behind a screen.

One student responder said it seems when you share them people view it as an attack on their views and get upset. While another said, people are incredibly rude if you have an opinion different than theirs.

Malia Vick, a freshman from Fayetteville, Georgia, acknowledged her willingness to share political opinions depends on how intense people are.

I wont deny my beliefs, Vick said. But some people just want to fight.

BYU political science professor Lisa Argyle, who is currently doing research on political self-censorship, has found talking politics can bring a high level of anxiety to some.

Political conversations can create tension, confrontation, put you on the spot for things you are not very confident about or challenge your view of yourself and the world, Argyle said. All of these things create what psychologists call self-threat, which manifests as anxiety. The easiest way to avoid the discomfort and anxiety is to not talk politics at all.

Fellow BYU political science professor Ethan Busby agreed with Argyle, noting that many people want to avoid the tense conflict that can come from political discussions. Busby pointed to uncomfortable family gatherings, workplaces and certain marriages as common settings where political self-censorship can take place.

With regard to younger, college-aged adults, Busby feels some might be hesitant to talk politics because they think they dont know as much or havent been involved in politics for very long.

It could also be that younger people feel that theyre generally less-established and have more to lose from controversy and disagreement, Busby said.

Jeremy Pope, another BYU political science professor, noted some college-aged adults might refrain from talking politics to appear more socially acceptable. He also acknowledged some can be nervous about how an authority figure might react to their political opinions.

According to Pope, the difficulty in analyzing political self-censorship among young adults is determining whether or not this behavior is really problematic or just social interaction as it normally unfolds.

While Argyle noted talking politics can seem threatening to some college students, she has found that younger people are generally more likely to share political views than older people. She mentioned college can be a formative environment where students are exposed to a wide range of new ideas and beliefs.

This leads to more political discussion and changing attitudes than people typically have later in their lives, Argyle said.

As the 2020 presidential election nears, Busby said some people choose to remain silent about politics simply because they are tired of hearing so much about the candidates and issues. He noted election fatigue can be common at the end of any campaign in any election year.

Argyle mentioned political self-censorship has been present in America for several years, no matter who the president is or the prominent national issues at the time. She also expects the behavior to continue well into the future, regardless of who wins this years election.

It is a natural psychological reaction for people to shift what they are willing to say and how they want to say it based on who they are talking to and the context they are in, Argyle said. That is not a new development in the last four years and I think its unlikely to go away in the next four years, no matter who wins the election.

Excerpt from:
Is political self-censorship on the rise? - The Daily Universe - Universe.byu.edu

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Facebook and Twitter "spent years preparing to face" the kind of controversy that came with the New York Post's publication of emails allegedly taken from the computer of Joe Biden's son Hunter, said Robert McMillan at The Wall Street Journal. They still ended up with a mess. Twitter, which initially blocked users from sharing the article (and even froze the Post's official account), did "an about-face" after an outcry from Republicans and said it would change its ban on hacked content "unless it's directly shared by hackers." Meanwhile inside Facebook, "executives had performed role-playing exercises about how to respond to an email dump." Following the playbook they developed, Facebook flagged the Post's articles for fact-checking and limited their exposure in news feeds. That didn't shield Facebook from widespread criticism: Republicans lawmakers complained of censorship, even as the Post's articles stayed at the top of the most-shared charts.

"What were they thinking?" asked Matthew Walther at The Week. The platforms' explanations of their actions "are not credible." If Facebook was really concerned about users sharing "unconfirmed" reporting, it wouldn't have waited until last week to block Holocaust denial. It looks instead like "the deliberate use of long-tolerated monopoly power to influence the course of an election." The fallout could well mean that those monopolies as we know them now "will not survive another presidential election." Imagine if these Silicon Valley giants united to ban all content critical of President Trump and promote criticism of Biden, said Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept. Twitter's rationale about blocking documents taken without authorization is unjustifiable and dangerous. What about The New York Times' reports on Trump's leaked tax returns? Anyone cheering for Twitter or Facebook now is "being short-sighted and myopic."

If you're complaining that there is no simple rule telling social media companies what to publish, you've fallen for a false narrative about "censorship," said Max Boot at The Washington Post. "Social-media companies have no obligation to pass along possible Russian disinformation," and it "would be the height of irresponsibility" to broadcast these stories without some fact-checking first. After they got burned in 2016, "it's entirely understandable and proper that Facebook and Twitter exercise some caution." That's not censorship. "It's editorial judgment," and we need more of it.

These platforms have never been neutral, said Kevin Roose at The New York Times. They've been controlling what we see for years. It's just that "their decisions were often buried in obscure 'community standards' updates or hidden tweaks to the black-box algorithms that govern which posts users see." They've just made their "high-stakes decisions" more visible. But Facebook and Twitter still haven't provided nearly enough visibility into their decision, said Andy Kessler at The Wall Street Journal. On the contrary, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's explanations and reversal have given "his adversaries the fuel to burn his tweet house down." If the social media giants with their multibillion-dollar valuations want to survive this, they'll need to go much further on transparency. I want to see Facebook's community standards "chiseled in stone" and detailed explanations for each banned post.

This article was first published in the latest issue of The Week magazine. If you want to read more like it, you can try six risk-free issues of the magazine here.

Excerpt from:
Is social media censoring speech or combating disinformation? - The Week

For nearly four years, unverified stories from unnamed sources about the Trumps have abounded. Reported as fact were whistleblower statements and unsubstantiated dossiers attempting to implicate the Trumps in all manner of nefarious doings. Unverified tax records have been fodder for gleeful little fantasies.

Former Hunter Biden associate, retired Naval Lt. Tony Bobulinski held a press conference Thursday. He confirmed the Biden emails were authentic including the ones sent to him. He also made some incriminating allegations about Joe Bidens dealings while he was vice president.

Most news services declined to cover the story.

One example concerns taxpayer funded NPR. Back in Jan. 13, 2017, Elizabeth Jensen of NPR lamented about once again having to report on what she called unverified information (the Russian dossier paid for by Hillary Clinton).

Last week, NPR Editor Kelly McBride responded to a question about why NPR was ignoring the Hunter Biden story. McBride said the NY Post story hadnt been verified and the assertions didnt amount to much. So unverified stories about the Trumps are used while stories, verified or unverified, about the Bidens are not. Thats biased censorship by a taxpayer funded agency.

Since the debates Donald Trumps speeches have been a positive message of hope for a return to normalcy. A return to across the board prosperity for all Americans like we had before the plague from China. He believes success will unite us and hes delivered before.

Joe Bidens message is to end fossil fuels which would destroy industries, plunge us into darkness and close many businesses. During a pandemic recession Joe would raise taxes and the minimum wage. A grimacing Joe made the outrageous claim he would end the virus with masks. He said on the floor of the senate he favored cutting social security but now like so many other things hes said, he denies it.

In Pennsylvania Joe called his opponents supporters chumps but claims hes a healer. Saturday he said we have put together the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics. What does that mean?

Now sounding even more grim, Joe is predicting a dark, dark winter. With his ban on fossil fuels along with quarantines and closures, a future with Joe and the Democrats would be dark. It would be a return to the misery of the Dark Ages.

Do we want rolling blackouts like California with homelessness, hopelessness and helplessness caused by more government regulations? Do we want a leader in a black mask bringing about a new Dark Ages for our children and grandchildren? Do we really want Joe Biden?

Ralph Miller

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Censorship And The New Dark Ages - The Chattanoogan