Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of tech giant Facebook, had trouble connecting to a Senate hearing on Wednesday.
Zuckerberg was “alone” and “attempting to connect” to a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on tech censorship but couldn’t, said committee Chairman Roger Wicker on Wednesday. The Senate hearing was put on hold for five minutes to allow Zuckerberg to fix his technical issues and connect to the hearing.
The nature of the technical issues was not disclosed, but they were resolved quickly and Zuckerberg connected to the hearing in less than five minutes.
The hearing involved the heads of Facebook, Twitter, and Google testifying on the alleged censorship of conservative content on their platforms.
Wicker and other lawmakers want changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to reduce or alter liability protections for social media companies. The law says online platforms are not to be held legally responsible for what their users post.
The issue of censorship rose to a level of national interest in June when Twitter decided to place fact-checking and warning labels on a few of President Trump’s tweets, setting off a political firestorm. The Trump campaign said the move showed “clear political bias” by the tech giant, and Trump signed an executive order in June to combat what he described as unfair censorship.
