Senate Commerce Committee to Hold Hearing with Big Tech CEOs October 28
The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation will hold a hearing with big tech CEOs on October 28th. The subject of the hearing is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Section 230 gives liability protection from content users post on internet platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Google.
The hearing is scheduled to take place at 10:00 AM EST on October 28th. The CEOs of Twitter (Jack Dorsey), Alphabet Inc., Google (Sundar Pichai), and Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg) are scheduled to be in attendance. Senators will look at whether the protections have outlived their usefulness with today’s technology.
The Committee scheduled the hearings in response to Facebook and Twitter censoring a recent New York Post article on Wednesday. The article discussed Hunter Biden’s international business activities and allegations that the former Vice President used his position to help his son.
Senators will also use the hearings to look at legislative proposals to modernize the law while increasing accountability and transparency from big tech platforms in how they moderate content on their sites. Finally, the hearing will examine the impact the consolidation of ad-tech into the hands of Facebook, and Google has had on local journalism and consumer privacy.
In early October, the Committee agreed on unanimously to subpoena the CEOs of Twitter, Alphabet Inc., Google, and Facebook. The ranking member of the Committee, Senator Maria Cantwell (WA) stated that she was pleased with consumer privacy issues and the impact on local journalism to the hearing agenda.
