Senators took the chief executives of Facebook and Twitter to task on Tuesday for how the services handled misinformation around the election, showing bipartisan support for changing a law that protects the companies from lawsuits.
In a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that lasted more than four hours, the lawmakers forced Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter to defend their companies’ efforts to limit the spread of false information about voting and the election results. Republicans accused the companies of censoring conservative voices while Democrats complained about a continued surge of hate and misinformation online.
Here are the highlights from the hearing:
Lawmakers concentrated on how Facebook and Twitter moderate content. Both Democrats and Republicans focused on the minutiae of how Facebook and Twitter moderate the billions of pieces of content posted to their networks. Out of 127 total questions, more than half — 67 — were about content moderation.
Democrats called for more regulation of the tech industry. Several Democrats blamed Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Dorsey for a surge of hate speech and election disinformation after the election. They pointed to comments on Facebook from Steve Bannon, the former senior adviser to President Trump, who suggested beheading Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease expert, and posts on Facebook groups that spread false conspiracy theories about voter fraud.
Mr. Zuckerberg promised to be vigilant about moderating calls for violence. “I’m very worried about this, especially any misinformation that could incite violence in such a volatile period like this,” he said.
Republicans homed in on bias complaints. The committee’s Republicans attacked the power that social media companies have to moderate content on their platforms, accusing them of making politically slanted calls while hiding behind the decades-old liability shield of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the law that gives the companies legal protection for content posted by users.
Twitter and Facebook differed on how to handle Trump’s accounts after his presidency. Mr. Dorsey said Twitter would no longer make policy exceptions for Mr. Trump. During Mr. Trump’s time as a world leader, Twitter allowed him to post content that violated its rules, though it began adding labels to some of the tweets in May to indicate that the posts were disputed or glorified violence.
In contrast, Mr. Zuckerberg said Facebook would not change the way it moderated Mr. Trump. Since Election Day, Facebook has labeled a few of his posts and has pointed users to accurate information about the results of the election, but it generally takes a hands-off approach.
Kellen Browning contributed reporting.
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