Posted on 07/13/2018 8:31:41 PM PDT by yesthatjallen
Top public policy officials from Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet's YouTube division are set to testify before Congress on Tuesday to determine whether the companies were politically motivated in filtering content on their platforms.
GOP Congressmembers have taken aim at the social media giants for what they have charged are politically biased practices in the content each site chooses to remove. The companies have denied such claims.
The companies will send their top public policy officials to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, including Facebook’s head of global policy, Monika Bickert; YouTube’s head of global public policy and government relations Juniper Downs; and Twitter’s senior public policy strategist Nick Pickles, according to the committee.
Google spokesperson Charlotte Smith and a spokesperson from Facebook both confirmed to The Hill that they would send representatives to the hearing. Twitter did not offer comment.
A committee aide said the hearing would also focus on the lack of transparency in the company’s content moderation practices as well as “examine the role of competition law in addressing these concerns.”
The hearing comes as a follow-up to another one held by House Judiciary in April, which the companies declined to attend.
The hearing, which devolved into a bitter shouting match at times, focused on Republican charges of bias against conservatives on technology platforms.
Facebook and Twitter have been working to address criticism from conservatives.
Facebook announced in May that it would conduct political bias reviews to address conservative concerns. In June, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey met with conservatives in D.C. to discuss their issues with his platform.
We need to get them documented examples of conservatives being censored and demonetized.
That headline was written for my tagline. 8~)
I have 33,000 followers on Twitter. Follower growth ground to a halt this last year. I am never listed in trending threads, though I am competitive as a writer. I must be actively shadowed.
Net Neutrality doesn’t mean what the billion dollar marxists want you to THINK it means.
>>to determine whether the companies were politically motivated
using the strzoker ace standard of “no bias” no doubt
Monika, Downs, Pickles....say it ain't so!
public policy officials = lawyers
all this showboating, it must be mid terms!
Nick Pickles? Seriously? Sounds like a name for a clown in the circus.
Isn’t Chucky Schumer’s daughter (the one who marched with her LGBT fiancé in the NY Gay Pride parade) one of the head honchos at Facebook. I’m sure she’ll take extra special care of Conservative postings on Fakebook.
FB has every right yo filter their site as does FR.
The POLICE STATE arrived much earlier than I expected.
We should want a free market solution to this bias/censorship problem.
All legislation is a double edged sword. Re: Trump and spygate.
If you do not like what Youtwitface (h/t to freeper whos name I forgot) is doing, dont use them. If enough people do that either Youtwitface will do an about face or someone will replace them.
Much better solution than letting the GOVT getting their fingers in the pie.
The solution is easy. Inform them that they will not censor anything other than obviously illegal speech (child porn, terrorism, making terroristic threats) OR they will be broken up as illegal monopolies.
If the feds can jump all over Microsoft for adding a browser to its windows software then one quick look at the market share of google, facebook and twitter makes it clear they are illegal monopolies.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.