A leading House Democrat lambasted President Trump for his claims that social media platforms are biased against conservative content and said big technology companies are aggressively promoting false or offensive posts by conservatives for their own profit.
“Don’t be fooled by made-up claims of bias against conservatives,” Illinois Rep. Janice Schakowsky, chairwoman of the House energy and commerce subcommittee on consumer protection and commerce, said in a hearing on “disinformation” Wednesday. “Today, it seems there is less of a bias against conservatives and rather a bias for conservatives,” she said.
Schakowsky said that on Friday, 9 of the 10 highest-performing political pages on Facebook were conservative, including that of Trump, Donald Trump for President, writer Ben Shapiro, Breitbart, and Fox News host Sean Hannity.
The accusation that social media entities are intentionally pushing conservative messaging and news comes a month after Trump claimed Twitter “totally silences conservatives’ voices” after the company added disclaimers to some of his posts for offensive speech.
“Our nation and the world are facing an unprecedented tsunami of disinformation that threatens to devastate our country and the world,” said Rep. Michael Doyle, the Democratic chairman of the House energy and commerce subcommittee on communications and technology. “It has been driven by hostile foreign powers seeking to weaken our democracy and divide our people, by those in our country who seek to divide us for their own political gain, and by the social media companies themselves — who have put profits before people as their platforms have become awash in disinformation, and their business models have come to depend on the engaging and enraging nature of these false truths.”
Rep. Brett Guthrie, a Kentucky Republican, said there should be “better transparency regarding how these internal guidelines are determined as well as the mechanisms by which such content is removed.”
House Energy and Commerce Chairman Frank Pallone Jr. said the issue is not false information but the extent to which Facebook is amplifying stories or posts that appeal to conservatives.
Schakowsky blamed a recent addition to the Communications Decency Act of 1996 for giving companies an out by not more closely monitoring false or offensive speech.
“Big Tech uses it as a shield to protect itself from liability when it fails to protect consumers from harm, from harmful, or harms public health, and use it as a sword to intimidate cities and states when they consider legislation,“ said Schakowsky. “The truth is, Section 230 protects business models and generates prolific scams, fake news, fake reviews, and unsafe, counterfeit, and stolen products. This was never the intent, and since both courts and the industry refuse to change, Congress must do it. But we must do it in a responsible way.”
Trump, who has said he is a victim of Twitter’s flags to his posts, signed an executive order in May designed to limit social media companies’ legal protections. Schakowsky called the move an attempt to “kneecap platforms that fact-check him.”
Democrats said the law should be amended to give companies the flexibility to censor some misinformation but did not share specifics on ideal reforms.
Rep. Bob Latta, an Ohio Republican who is the ranking member of the communications and technology subcommittee, indicated he does not want to repeal Section 230 of the communication laws but said additional congressional oversight could be a solution.
