The Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee took its turn taking Big Tech to the woodshed in a hearing Tuesday (Nov. 17) entitled "Breaking the News: Censorship, Suppression, and the 2020 Election" that included threats of breaking up companies and/or heavily regulating them.

Republicans have been focused on what they see as Silicon Valley's censorship of conservative speech, including the President's. Democrats are also concerned about Big Tech, but see edge providers as too lenient on what they see as hate speech and disinformation, some arguing the companies have been cowed by Republican attacks to back off flagging content.

Related: Rep. Cicciline Calls on Twitter to Suspend Trump Account

On hand, virtually, were Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who said they were doing their best to moderate content while balancing free speech and privacy.

Committee chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), one of the President's biggest supporters, and ranking member Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) set the tone of the hearing from the outset. 

Graham said he was concerned that social media had addictive properties, like tobacco, that posed a health risk, in this case a mental health risk, particularly to young people constantly connected to the Web and from companies that try to maximize that engagement.

Related: Social Net CEO's Get Senate Grilling

He cited studies showing links between social media and heightened depression and anxiety--Zuckerberg said those studies were not conclusive--and said social media was designed to sustain attention and engagement, an addictive mix akin to a slot machine, and gamified social interactions to keep them going.

Asked if he agreed his platform was addictive, Zuckerberg said it was definitely not designed to be so.

Blumenthal was even harsher on his witnesses. 

Sen. Blumenthal said that Facebook and Twitter are terrifying tools of persuasion and manipulation, with power exceeding that of the old robber barons as they strip mine data and promote hate speech and voter suppression. He said the platforms had taken baby steps to address the problems, but that their destructive, incendiary misinformation was still a scourge, one that needed addressing via antitrust enforcement.

He told them their platforms had weaponized child predators and violent white supremacists, setting back civil rights protections, consumer protections, and competition. 

Both agreed that there needed to be substantive changes to the Sec. 230 immunity social media platforms enjoy from civil liability over how they moderate third party content, content that looks a lot like editorial decision-making to some Republicans still unhappy with Twitter's flagging of the President's tweets and the blocking of a story in the New York Post about Hunter Biden.

Related: Justice Unveils Legislation to Regulate Social Media

In fact, Dorsey suggested that how it handled the Hunter Biden story was essentially the reason for the hearing, and that it was only because the story featured hacked materials and it has a policy of taking down posts based on hacked materials.

Graham said he would prefer that companies come up with their own best practices, including transparency on how they decide what to take up and leave down and who is deciding it. He also said that Twitter and Facebook had in the most part been a boon to society and communications.

Blumenthal was more focused on strong government action up to and including breaking up Big Tech companies and potentially eliminating most of Sec. 230's liability protections.

Related: Trump Tackles the Edge

He said he didn't want the government deciding what content to take up or down, but when you have companies that have more power than governments or traditional media outlets, he said, "something has to give. Sec. 230 needs to be changed.

Blumenthal said he agreed that change must come. Even both Dorsey and Zuckerberg said they also agreed some change to Sec. 230 was necessary, with Zuckerberg more amenable to the government helping determine the best way forward of content moderation.

But while Graham and Republicans were concerned about partisan flagging and blocking content, Blumenthal said they needed to do more of that, and that when it came to what he saw as voter suppression and disinformation (like voter fraud theories), was their civic responsibility.

Related: Group Seeks Federal Protection for Journalists

Blumenthal said he feared the hearing was meant to bully the platforms from taking more responsible action by threatening Sec. 230 reform. He said the hearing title was a misnomer, and that what the majority called censorship was avoiding amplifying disinformation, some of it dangerous.

But Blumenthal agreed that change was coming, including to Sec. 230 and antitrust enforcement. 

Sen. Blumenthal said he hoped there would be further hearings on privacy and antitrust and Sec. 230 with Big Tech. Graham agreed that would be a good idea, though if the Republicans retain the gavel, that will be up to the new Judiciary chairman, Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)

Senate Republicans appear to be continuing to put the pressure on Big Tech during the lame duck session, with a couple of the biggest names in tech testifying this week.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing for Tuesday (Nov. 17) on "Breaking the News: Censorship, Suppression, and the 2020 Election."

Related: Minority Report Finds Big Tech Threatens Local News

Scheduled to testify, according to the committee, are Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Those are the same two executives who testified before the Senate Commerce Committee in advance of the election, talking about, among other things, how they would flag misinformation. Twitter has been particularly active, flagging multiple tweets by President Trump related to the election and his allegations, to date unsubstantiated, of widespread fraud.

“Because of protections provided by federal law, digital services can take action against a variety of objectionable online behaviors, including everything from harassment, to spam and disinformation to promoting self-harm," said Computer & Communications Industry Association president Matt Schruers of the upcoming hearing. "These protections are critical to services that allow people to connect with family and engage in economic activity online, particularly during a pandemic. If consumers disagree with moderation decisions that a particular service makes, there are a wealth of competitors to choose from.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously Thursday (Oct. 22) to issue subpoenas to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

The two are already scheduled to testify at a hearing in the Senate Commerce Committee next week on Sec. 230 but Judiciary wants to do its own delving into the issue of online content moderation, according to that Committee's chairman, Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.).

Related: Big Tech Bigwigs to Testify Before Senate Commerce

Initially, Graham had signaled only a subpoena to Dorsey--Twitter has been particularly in the spotlight for flagging some of President Trump's tweets as misleading or potentially inciting violence, then more recently for its blocking of New York Post stories about Hunter Biden--but Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) asked that Zuckerberg be included.

The vote's unanimity was all on the Republican side, however, because the Democrats had boycotted the business meeting due to the item preceding the subpoena vote--on the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

But Graham said he was proceeding with the subpoena vote anyway since he understood that some of the Democrats also wanted to hear from the execs. He said it would "hopefully give us some leverage to secure their testimony." Unlike Commerce, Judiciary witnesses are sworn in before they testify similar to a trial.

On news of the Vote, House Republicans, who don't control the gavel, again urged the Democratic leadership of the Energy & Commerce Committee to force Big Tech CEOs to testify on that side of the Capitol.

“Once again, we call on Chairman Pallone to join with us to protect the integrity of our elections and stop the censorship of political speech," said ranking member Greg Walden (R-Ore.), Communications Subcommittee ranking member Bob Latta (R-Ohio), and Consumer Protection Subcommittee ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.). "It’s long past time for the Energy and Commerce Committee to compel the testimony of the CEOs of the powerful tech platforms."

The Republican chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee wants to know if social media giants have been providing any data to the presidential campaigns.

In advance of an Oct. 28 hearing on Big Tech and Section 230, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) sent letters to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, both of whom are scheduled to testify, asking them for the information by Oct. 26 given the fast-approaching election.

Related: Tech Bigwigs to Testify

Given that the candidates use the platforms for campaigning and communicating with voters, wrote Wicker, and in the interests of full disclosure, "I request that you provide the Committee with specific information regarding whether and how [Facebook/Twitter] has provided access to any data, analytics, or other information to either major political party, candidate, or affiliates thereof," he said, which means essentially anything that might influence the campaign or candidate's decision-making.

Wicker said it was critical that the public know how the information was being disseminated publicly, as well as privately with candidates or parties, and whether the information was being provided "equitably to all candidates."

President Trump has repeatedly accused social media platforms of working for the election of his opponent, Joe Biden, and against his own reelection.

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said the committee will issue a subpoena next Tuesday to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to testify about his company's blocking New York Post stories over the past couple of days on Hunter Biden.

The stories, about connections with China and Russia, are based on e-mails allegedly from Hunter Biden's computer.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), talking during a break in the confirmation hearings Thursday (Oct. 15), said that both Twitter and Facebook had interfered in the election in favor of Joe Biden by blocking the stories about his son and that the committee planned a hearing to question Dorsey next Friday (Oct. 23).

Graham, speaking at the same break, said that stories about President Trump and Russian election meddling had never been blocked, and that an "accounting" of social media platforms was overdue because the stories' blocking by twitter "crystalizes" the problem with Big Tech, which was that "the power behind these platforms has been taken to a dangerous level.

The announcement followed letters sent Thursday by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) to Facebook and Twitter inviting them to testify before Congress on the same issue. Hawley said Thursday the subpoena should be extended to Facebook as well.

Hawley and other critics of the blocking decisions argue that those moves violate campaign finance reform law because it constitutes an in-kind contribution to the Biden campaign.

Hawley wrote letters to both Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to invite them to testify before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, which Hawley chairs.

Hawley said Twitter was "asymmetrically applying its terms of service and restricting the distribution of a New York Post article entitled “Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad,” as well as by suspending the official account of the presidential campaign of Donald Trump for
discussing this story."

He told Zuckerberg that his company had contributed to the campaign by "suppressing the distribution" of the Post story.

Hawley is one of Big Tech's biggest critics in Washington.

Senators from both sides of the aisle expressed their concerns to Twitter Thursday (July 16) following reports of a massive bitcoin-related hack that affected high-profile accounts from Bill Gates to Joe Biden. 

Reportedly, the accounts were hacked to send tweets to followers asking them to donate to a cryptocurrency account. 

"I understand that Twitter is investigating the matter and has taken steps to remove the offending tweets," Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chairman of the Commerce Committee, said in a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. "But it cannot be overstated how troubling this incident is, both in its effects and in the apparent failure of Twitter’s internal controls to prevent it." 

“I’m extremely troubled by this hack of Twitter accounts,” said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) one of Congress' longest and strongest voices for consumer privacy. “While this scheme appears financially motivated and, as a result, presents a threat to Twitter users, imagine if these bad actors had a different intent to use powerful voices to spread disinformation to potentially interfere with our elections, disrupt the stock market, or upset our international relations," he said in a statement. "That is why Twitter must fully disclose what happened and what it is doing to ensure this never happens again. This hack also make clear how essential it is that we establish strong cybersecurity standards to protect Americans’ from scams, misinformation, and data theft online.” 

Wicker agrees with the potential for such hacks to extend beyond stealing. "It is not difficult to imagine future attacks being used to spread disinformation or otherwise sow discord through high-profile accounts, particularly through those of world leaders," he told Dorsey. 

In the wake of the hack, Fight for the Future has launched a campaign to get the company to implement default end-to-end encryption on its Direct Messages (DMs), though it was not clear whether the hack extended to DMs.

Former Viacom executive VP of global content distribution Denise Denson has been named chief operating officer at cloud-based content rights and media tech company Molten, the company said Tuesday.

Molten was formed in 2018 by a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and its platform allows media companies to simplify rights, content, and distribution management. Advisors to the company include Twitter founder and CEO Jack Dorsey.

In her new role Denson will be responsible for Molten’s business development and operations functions including its expansion of capabilities into digitizing rights, content, distribution and financial operations. She reports directly to Molten founder and CEO, Arjun Mendhi.

“As demand for media and entertainment content continues to grow, Molten is evolving the underlying operations to bring scalable, automated and cost-effective cloud solutions to media and entertainment organizations,” Mendhi said in a press release. “We are thrilled to incorporate Denise’s extensive experience driving digital transformation across media distribution channels and platforms.”

Denson left Viacom (now ViacomCBS) in 2016 after 22 years at the company, where she developed and implemented a worldwide distribution strategy and led traditional and digital content distribution for more than two dozen channels, growing distribution revenues over a 10-year period from $1 billion to $5 billion annually.

“For the past 20 years, while other industries digitally transformed around us, entertainment content management kept its roots firmly planted in legacy systems built for another time,” Denson said in a press release. “Now, as consumers’ need for content grows, being able to manage and distribute content quickly is critical.”

President Donald Trump has had his bones to pick with social media, but he is also the Tweeter-in-Chief, and took the opportunity Tuesday (April 23) to Tweet about his meeting with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, suggesting he was willing to keep an open mind about an edge he has targeted with cutting criticism.

[embed]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1120793199650463747[/embed]

Dorsey was among the tech CEO's who testified on the Hill last year as D.C., drilled down on issues of edge giant power, data sharing, election meddling and more.

The President has accused edge providers, including Twitter in particular because he is a frequent user, of a bias against conservatives. "I have many, many followers on Twitter and it's different than it used to be," he said. "Things are happening. Names are taken off. People aren't getting through," he told Daily Caller last month. "It seems to be if they are conservative, if they're Republicans, if they are a certain group, there's discrimination. I see it absolutely on Twitter, and Facebook and others," though he said he focused on "the one platform [Twitter]."

Related: Mueller Report Finds President's Tweets Are within Scope of Obstruction of Justice

The President used Twitter throughout special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election meddling to attack the investigation, investigators, and witnesses. 

Jack Dorsey will soon remove his “interim” tag, as the Twitter co-founder will be named the social media giant’s new permanent CEO as early as Thursday, Re/code reported.

Twitter’s former chief exec, Dick Costolo, stepped down in July as the company struggled to achieve growth levels that investors were looking for. In July, Twitter pulled in Q2 results that soundly beat analysts’ estimates.

Dorsey, who has been considered the frontrunner for the permanent CEO post at Twitter, will also continue to run mobile payment startup Square, Re/code said, noting that sources said Twitter’s board might also be in store for a shakeup.