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The leaders of Google, Facebook and Twitter testified on Thursday before a House committee in their first appearances on Capitol Hill since the start of the Biden administration. As expected, sparks flew.

The hearing was centered on questions of how to regulate disinformation online, although lawmakers also voiced concerns about the public-health effects of social media and the borderline-monopolistic practices of the largest tech companies.

On the subject of disinformation, Democratic legislators scolded the executives for the role their platforms played in spreading false claims about election fraud before the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. Jack Dorsey, the chief executive of Twitter, admitted that his company had been partly responsible for helping to circulate disinformation and plans for the Capitol attack. But you also have to take into consideration the broader ecosystem, he added. Sundar Pichai and Mark Zuckerberg, the top executives at Google and Facebook, avoided answering the question directly.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle returned often to the possibility of jettisoning or overhauling Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a federal law that for 25 years has granted immunity to tech companies for any harm caused by speech thats hosted on their platforms.

These Big Tech companies are among the wealthiest in the world, and their lobbying power in Washington is immense. Besides, there are major partisan differences over how Section 230 ought to be changed, if at all. But lawmakers and experts increasingly agree that the tide is turning in favor of comprehensive internet regulation, and that would most likely include some adjustments to Section 230.

To get a sense of where things stand, I caught up by phone with Jonathan Peters, a professor of media law at the University of Georgia, who closely follows Big Tech regulation. Our conversation has been lightly edited and condensed.

In her introductory remarks at the hearing today, Representative Jan Schakowsky of Illinois said, Self-regulation has come to the end of its road. What does she mean when she talks about an era of self-regulation on the internet? And how was that allowed to take hold?

The background of this hearing is that platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, and big parent companies like Google, have come to have an enormous amount of power over the public discourse. And the platforms routinely conduct worldwide private speech regulation, through enforcement of their content rules and their community guidelines, deciding what may be posted, when to honor any request to remove content and how to display and prioritize content using algorithms.

Another way of putting it is that they are developing a de facto free-expression jurisprudence, against the background of the platforms business and legal interest and their self-professed democratic values. That has proved extremely difficult in practice.

The internet exists on a layered architecture of privately owned websites, servers and routers. And the ethos of the web, going back to its early days, has been one governed by cyber-libertarianism: this theory that by design this is supposed to be a relaxed regulatory environment.

What these hearings are trying to explore is the question, as you mentioned: Have we reached the end of that self-regulatory road, where the government ought to have a greater role than historically it has had in this space?

With all of that in mind, is antitrust legislation from Congress likely? How does President Bidens arrival in the Oval Office change the prospects?

Its interesting: If you look at what Biden has said as a candidate and what Biden has done as president, theyre a little bit different. As a candidate, Biden said he would favor revoking Section 230. He does not have even the Democratic votes to go through with a full revocation of Section 230, although an amendment might be possible. I think hes facing the political reality that that is going to be a harder sell than he had initially thought.

In terms of whether broad antitrust legislation might pass this Congress, it does seem possible. Antitrust issues in the social media space have generated a lot more interest in the last couple of years than they have in the last 15 or 20 combined. If I could put that in just a little bit of historical context for you: 2019 marked the 100th anniversary of a monumental dissenting opinion in a Supreme Court case called Abrams v. United States. That was a case in which Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes really gave rise to our modern First Amendment, and the enduring concept of the value in a market of free trade in ideas.

With the rise of social media, our free-speech landscape today looks exceedingly different than it did when Holmes wrote those words. He was warning of the dangers of the governments ability to censor critics or other disfavored speakers, whereas now the entities best able to restrict our speech are nongovernmental internet and web platforms.

So, many traditional First Amendment principles dont map easily onto our reconstructed speech landscape. And I think the central concern at the heart of these antitrust cases is the power that is at the heart of what these companies do. Its not that they produce widgets; they play a significant role, every day, in public discourse on matters of public interest.

Have the events of Jan. 6 and the entire experience of the 2020 election which was riddled with false information about elections and voting affected the likelihood of change? Did it really turn up the urgency in a meaningful way around web regulation?

I would say that it did. And it also clarified the differences, in terms of why the Democrats believe that reform is necessary and why the Republicans believe that it is. There is a growing consensus that we need more regulation to ensure the openness and usefulness of the web, but Democrats and Republicans disagree on why.

Democrats generally would argue that the platforms allow too much harmful user content to be hosted and spread the kind of misinformation and disinformation we saw around the 2020 election, some of which of course contributed to or caused the Capitol insurrection. I would say that Democrats are also concerned with bullying, harassment and threats; hate speech; criminal activity that occurs on social media platforms; and the presence of dangerous organizations like terrorist groups or violently graphic content, and the effect those might have.

Republicans, by contrast, have sounded some of those same concerns. But they have focused a lot more on their concern that platforms censor conservative viewpoints that the platforms are engaging in viewpoint discrimination. Im not convinced that there is evidence of that, but that claim was made more loudly after President Trump was deplatformed by several of these major social media companies. I think it gave them another arrow in their quiver to try to advance that rhetorical argument that they had been making before the Capitol attack.

From Opinion

On an average day in the United States, more than 100 people are killed by guns. Most Americans want Congress to do something about this crisis, but for years, their representatives have offered them only political theater.

Why? Its not for lack of understanding of the problem, the cause of which is actually quite simple: The United States has a staggering number of guns. Over 393 million, to be precise, which is more than one per person and about 46 percent of all civilian-owned firearms in the world. As researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health have put it, more guns = more homicide and more guns = more suicide.

But when it comes to understanding the causes of Americas political inertia on the issue, the lines of thought become a little more tangled. Some of them are easy to follow: Theres the line about the Senate, of course, which gives large states that favor gun regulation the same number of representatives as small states that dont. Theres also the line about the National Rifle Association, which some gun control proponents have cast arguably incorrectly as the sine qua non of our national deadlock.

But there may be a psychological thread, too. Research has found that after a mass shooting, people who dont own guns tend to identify the general availability of guns as the culprit. Gun owners, on the other hand, are more likely to blame other factors, such as popular culture or parenting.

Americans who support gun regulations also dont prioritize the issue at the polls as much as Americans who oppose them, so gun rights advocates tend to win out. Or, in the words of Robert Gebelhoff of The Washington Post, Gun reform doesnt happen because Americans dont want it enough.

On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.

Is there anything you think were missing? Anything you want to see more of? Wed love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.

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Is a Big Tech Overhaul Just Around the Corner? - The New York Times

People who wish to hold a protest or other event on county property in Gaston County will now need permission ahead of time, according to a new ordinance approved Tuesday night by Gaston County commissioners.

The new rules require people to submit an application to the county at least 24 hours in advance of holding a protest with more than 25 people on county property. Festivals and other events on county property will require an application submitted at least two business days in advance.

It will be up to the sheriff and other county leaders to approve the applications. They're not supposed to deny any on social, political, or religious grounds.

Commissioners approved the new ordinance unanimously at their Tuesday night meeting, despite representatives from the ACLU and Duke University's First Amendment Clinic warning in a letter to commissioners that the rules are overly broad and may violate the First Amendment.

First Amendment Concerns

In the letter, the representatives argued that the notification requirement could stifle free speech, quoting a ruling in NAACP, Western Region v. City of Richmond that said, "The simple knowledge that one must inform the government of his desire to speak and must fill out appropriate forms and comply with applicable regulations discourages citizens from speaking freely."

The representatives also said the ordinance does not make room for spontaneous protests and gatherings that might occur in response to breaking news events.

They also criticized a provision in the ordinance that prohibits protests from occurring within 50 feet of a county building, calling it "overbroad and unconstitutional."

"The sidewalks and other open outdoor areas surrounding county buildings are almost always considered traditional public fora which must be open to the public for protest and assembly," the representatives wrote.

Speaking before Tuesday's vote, Gaston County Commissioner Ronnie Worley said it was not the commission's intention to limit free speech through the updated ordinance.

"Certainly this board's intention is not to inhibit or restrict First Amendment rights," he said. "It's about public safety. It's about the safety of our members of our law enforcement, especially."

He said the ordinance would give police time to prepare for protests and other mass gatherings. He also noted that the ordinance only applies to county property.

"Folks can still congregate and protest freely in other places any time, so it doesn't inhibit freedom or speech in any way," he said.

Past Ordinance Proposals

Tuesday's ordinance was a revision from an earlier, much more restrictive proposal. The earlier proposal would have required people to give 30 days notice and pay at least $250 to host a gathering of 25 people or more, or $750 for groups of 500 people or more on county property.

The proposal needed unanimous consent to pass, and failed after Commission Chairman Tom Keigher cast the lone "no" vote, raising questions about the proposal's constitutionality, The Gaston Gazette reported.

Commissioners have been considering updates to the county's mass gathering ordinance since protests began springing up in the summer of 2020 around a Confederate monument outside the Gaston County Courthouse.

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Gaston County Will Require 24 Hours Notice Before Allowing Protests On County Property - WFAE

The Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners approved two policies Tuesday dealing with requested police reforms.The first requires officers to have body-worn cameras on during every contact with the public. Video that won't be used in evidence will be retained for 180 days, the police department said.The second policy, the First Amendment Policy, prohibits officers from using less-lethal weapons and munitions, other than chemical agents, to disperse crowds in the event of an unlawful assembly. It also states, "Members will make all reasonable efforts to allow law-abiding individuals to continue to exercise their First Amendment-protected rights, and will focus efforts on those individuals in the active assembly who violate the law."The police department said it did extensive research and looked into best practices nationwide to draft the policies. Members also met with community and city leaders, as well as prosecutors and others to create policies that address community concerns."I commend you for continuing to do the work on this," Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said in a news release.The police department said the full text of the policies will be available online soon.

The Kansas City Board of Police Commissioners approved two policies Tuesday dealing with requested police reforms.

The first requires officers to have body-worn cameras on during every contact with the public. Video that won't be used in evidence will be retained for 180 days, the police department said.

The second policy, the First Amendment Policy, prohibits officers from using less-lethal weapons and munitions, other than chemical agents, to disperse crowds in the event of an unlawful assembly. It also states, "Members will make all reasonable efforts to allow law-abiding individuals to continue to exercise their First Amendment-protected rights, and will focus efforts on those individuals in the active assembly who violate the law."

The police department said it did extensive research and looked into best practices nationwide to draft the policies. Members also met with community and city leaders, as well as prosecutors and others to create policies that address community concerns.

"I commend you for continuing to do the work on this," Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas said in a news release.

The police department said the full text of the policies will be available online soon.

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KC police board OKs 2 police reform policies on body cams, dealing with protests - KMBC Kansas City

Forum held in response to Nov. 2019 protests, opposing views shared

In an effort to continue the discussion surrounding students constitutional rights on-campus, multiple Binghamton University groups teamed up to facilitate a conversation among student panelists about campus police and First Amendment rights.

Policing the First Amendment: A Roundtable Debate on Police and First Amendment Rights was a collaboration between the BU Scholars, BU Speech and Debate, Center for Civic Engagement (CCE), the Graduate Student Organization (GSO), Multicultural Resource Center (MRC), Student Association (SA) and the UDiversity Educational Institute. The forum discussed policing for the campus community and the right to assemble, specifically protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Sponsors and hosts of this forum were the CCE and the Division of Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI). Joseph Leeson-Schatz, director of BU Speech and Debate and lecturer of English, was the primary organizer and moderator.

Brian Rose, vice president for student affairs, provided the opening remarks for the forum, stating that he was impressed by the attendance and audience questions.

I am grateful to [the sponsors and hosts] and to the student participants for modeling how we can discuss sometimes divisive questions in a manner that allows us to listen to and learn from each other, Rose said. As [Leeson-Schatz] noted in pointing to an April program, this is not a single event, but rather part of a larger effort to continue to provide similar opportunities for community dialogue. I hope the takeaways are that we can talk to one another from different points of view while still respecting each other and that we should always be open to reexamining our own perspectives.

Nicole Sirju-Johnson, director of the MRC and assistant vice president for DEI, said the part of the series being held April 14 will be a campus deliberation on First Amendment rights. The entire campus community is invited to attend. The committee is currently recruiting interested individuals and will provide training to those wishing to serve as deliberation facilitators.

According to Leeson-Schatz, the forum was in response to two student-led protests that occurred on-campus in November 2019. On Nov. 14, 2019, approximately 200 students protested the BU College Republicans and Turning Point USAs tabling event in support of gun rights hours after a high school shooting in Santa Clarita, California. On Nov. 18, 2019, economist Arthur Laffer, who worked as an adviser to former President Donald Trump and former President Ronald Reagan, was scheduled to speak at the BU College Republicans and Young Americas Foundations (YAF) Trump, Tariffs, Trade Wars event. Over 200 attendees at the lecture were part of a sit-in protest, which resulted in Laffer being removed from the lecture hall by Binghamtons New York State University Police (UPD) and two hired protective agents from Pinkerton Consulting & Investigations, Inc.

Following these events, the Young Americas Foundation (YAF), a national conservative youth organization, filed a civil rights lawsuit against those they felt were violating their First and 14th Amendment rights. Other plaintiffs listed on the court document include the BU College Republicans and Jon Lizak, then president of the BU College Republicans and a sophomore majoring in business administration. BU President Harvey Stenger, Rose, UPD Chief John Pelletier, BU College Progressives, the SA and Progressive Leaders of Tomorrow (PLOT) were named as defendants in court documents.

Sirju-Johnson said this most recent forum was part of the Universitys effort to give students an opportunity to explore campus safety, including freedom of speech, the limits of the First Amendment rights and student engagement with campus police.

Since the November 2019 incidents, more recently, several racist incidents have taken place on-campus, some of which have centered on freedom of speech, Sirju-Johnson said. And while we do not condone the vile comments made, we thought it important to have a discussion on some of the tenets of free speech.

Prior to this weeks forum, the University had put together a roundtable free speech debate in the fall [link here: https://www.bupipedream.com/news/118842/auto-draft-571/%5D. Leeson-Schatz said topics of the most recent debate were decided based on last semesters roundtable and by talking with students directly through the planning committee. Students were also consulted directly through the CCE and MRC. The two most requested topics were centered around free speech and police brutality.

We workshopped the specific questions with our group and through communicating with students, and then finally our speakers, Leeson-Schatz said. Our hope was to create a series of events that produced an intelligent dialogue between the various perspectives to enable a better understanding and a path forward. I think it was great to see the diversity of the panel agree on certain aspects of the topics and disagree on others, but in all situations have an understanding of what the other side was saying and treating them with respect.

Coleen Watson, a social, political, ethical and legal (SPEL) philosophy doctoral candidate and SPEL philosophy GSO president, was a panelist at the forum. She said the debate was constructive and hopes the forum will empower students to discuss controversial issues with each other and improve the campus environment.

I wanted to share my views that I think are both nuanced and correct while hearing out what others had to say, Watson said. At the end of this, I was pretty surprised how much we all agreed on despite ostensibly being from all over the political spectrum.

Logan Blakeslee, another panelist at the forum and a sophomore majoring in history, agreed the debate was a collegial experience.

I hope [attendees] took away the idea that there is hope for compromise and mutual understanding, Blakeslee said. Pitting liberal and conservative students against on another constantly is unproductive, whereas the recent debate showed that there is common ground where a reasonable solution can be found to modern problems.

Kate Marin, a third panelist and a junior double-majoring in psychology and linguistics, proposed an alternative security team outside the context of an actual police force. According to Marin, this group would operate under the authority of the University. All panelists reached a consensus that this alternative force would have its benefits.

Our goal is to continue the dialogue on the importance of listening to one another, even when we have varying, polarizing opinions, Sirju-Johnson said. To continue the conversation about differing viewpoints and yet, create a space and time for members of the community to come together to listen to one another respectfully all of which can be done to bridge relationships.

Riccardo Monico contributed reporting to this article.

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Roundtable debate discusses UPD and First Amendment rights - Binghamton University Pipe Dream

Naeemah Clark and Brooke Barnett| Elon University

Recent debates in the U.S. Congress focused on the personal beliefs and allegiances of its members have increased the spotlight on balancing free expression, diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

Freedom of expression, diversity and inclusion of ideas are not mutually exclusive and in many cases, they work together to deepen connections and understandings between colleagues.

However, there can also be clear tensions when conflicting points of view collide with individual identities.

For example, many workplaces are actively seeking to support underrepresented groups on their teams, but if a co-worker is sharing views that are exclusionary to marginalized groups, this discourse can create hostile feelings in an otherwise productive workplace.

At the same time, when the power and privileges that come with majority race and gender identities control the discussions in the breakroom, the work environment can become toxic for those in marginalized groups.

Workplace guidelines can help support free expression efforts.

As a media law scholar and a communication industry scholar, we looked to First Amendment jurisprudence for helpful guidance to consider when balancing free expression and the support of a diverse and inclusive workplace.

The First Amendment states Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Congress is broadly interpreted to mean local, state and federal government as well as public funded organizations such as universities. Private organizations including private universities and companies that are not government entities are not bound in the same way by this special obligation. These institutions must develop their own ways to balance free expression and diversity and inclusion that support an organizations cultural climate.

There is a range of ways that the First Amendment can be considered when it comes to the balance of free expression and racist speech, homophobic, sexist or other offensive or problematic speech, but for the sake of brevity we will articulate the two major camps in the United States.

In one camp are those who see freedom of expression as a fundamental right that should be rarely if ever restrained. They argue that any restriction on speech is unwise because the regulations used to silence bigots can also be used to silence you as well.

Cases that have defended racist and anti-Semitic speakers have been used as arguments to defend those fighting for justice.

For strong free speech advocates, the solution to discriminatory or offensive speech is counter-speech, more speech, educational efforts and social norming campaigns. This philosophy known as the marketplace of ideas means more dialogue and learning opportunities.

In the other camp are those who argue that not all voices in the marketplace should have the same access to those in the public square.

In this perspective, absolute free speech in the workplace or public sphere does not adequately protect marginalized groups from the very real harms of hate speech.

They argue that not all speech is equal. Hateful speech for example can have a silencing effect that undermines the goals of free speech in the first place and we can limit it in the way we have with other forms of prohibited speech (e.g., legal obscenity, incitements to violence).

This view also holds that the marketplace of ideas notion doesnt work because the viewpoints of underrepresented groups have barriers to the marketplace, such as a lack of financial or social capital.

Whichever camp is considered, the underlying goal of the First Amendment hinges on speech that furthers a free, well-informed society. Using a similar mindset, all workplaces can create a strong culture that is clear about their values and can cultivate dialogues that further their missions.

When we worked together at Elon University we grappled with these conflicts and determined that we were trying to attempt to stretch a tightrope of tension and make it a narrow, but passable sidewalk.

We offer one modest, but tangibleway to construct your own passable sidewalk.

First, create a list of values that are elemental to your institution or organization.

Second, state what is not desired (e.g., proselytizing at work, harassment, hate speech) and then focus on what people should do (e.g., importance of respect, listening, responsibilities of speech, need for evidence-based reasoning).

Next, engage your community members and stakeholders in a series of dialogues where you can exchange views around these ideas to create a statement that reflects the commitments that will guide the institution. A collective group of us wrote a statement of Elon's commitment to the values of freedom of expression and inclusivity that is used as a starting place when difficult tensions arise.

The statement is not the end, but the beginning of a conversation. The statement, much like the First Amendment, should be considered to be a living document that can become a reference point when your organization is wrestling with a dilemma where free expression and an inclusive workplace are in competition.

Naeemah Clarkis the J. Earl Danieley Distinguished Professor and professor of cinema and television at Elon University in Elon, N.C. Brooke Barnett is dean of the College of Communication at Butler University in Indianapolis, Ind., and was formerly a member of the Elon faculty and administration.

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Column: Begin a pathway to free expression in the workplace - Burlington Times News