Congress has new ammunition against Big Tech, and the bipartisan sponsors of legislation to crack down on or break up Meta are using it to push passage of their Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA).

In a statement early Friday (November 3), Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), lead sponsors of KOSA, cited allegations from whistleblower Arturo Bejar, former director of engineering at Facebook (now Meta), the owner of Instagram, which came in a story in The Wall Street Journal. The senators said the allegations were backed with “irrefutable evidence” that top Meta executives, including executive chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “were personally warned that millions of teens face bullying, eating disorder material, illicit drugs and sexual exploitation, often within minutes of opening the [Instagram] app,” but instead of addressing those “deadly” harms, they “hid that information from the public and congressional oversight, ignored recommendations to protect teens, rolled back safety tools, and dismantled teams responsible for kids’ safety.”

Bejar's allegations came in a Journal story about the Instagram safety executive, who said his warnings that the short-form video site’s approach to protecting teens wasn't working fell on deaf ears.

Blumenthal and Blackburn are the chair and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security Subcommittee.

Also Read: Blumenthal Says Facebook Weaponizes Childhood Suffering

Bejar's allegations come on top of those of Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen.

When Haugen testified to Congress a year ago, Blumenthal called it Facebook's "Big Tobacco" moment.

A former Facebook product manager and data scientist, Haugen took documents when she left the company that she said show its algorithms “amplify polarizing and hateful content” for the sake of profit — a motive partly responsible for “tearing societies apart” — and said the company had research showing that but obscured the fact that it is harmful.

Of Bejar’s latest revelations, Blumenthal and Blackburn said in a joint statement: “Facebook along with other tech giants have been fighting our legislation with armies of lobbyists, lawyers, and opposition campaigns, but the broad coalition of young people, parents and experts will win. It is time to say ‘enough is enough’ to Big Tech and pass the Kids Online Safety Act.”

Meta had not responded to a request for comment early Friday.

There is nothing that can unite the warring political parties like a Big Tech target, and Meta is one of the biggest.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), chair of the Senate Judiciary Tech and Privacy Subcommittee, and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), its ranking member, want some answers from the Facebook parent on why details of its “Large Language Model Meta AI (LLaMA)” program were leaked.

AI is a growing tool for a host of businesses, including video production, from recommendation engines through “scripting, shooting, post-production, meta-tagging and distribution.”

“[T]he company appears to have failed to conduct any meaningful risk assessment in advance of release, despite the realistic potential for broad distribution, even if unauthorized,” Blumenthal and Hawley wrote to the company on Monday (June 6).

The leaked underlying data and software from Meta’s version of an AI text generator — which showed up on BitTorrent for any to see, could be used for “spam, fraud, malware, privacy violations, harassment” and more, they said.

While the senators concede that open-source AI software and data can be helpful for furthering research on standards and transparency — Meta was trying to release it only to approved researchers — they say in the wrong hands, they can be “dangerously abused.”

“Meta’s choice to distribute LLaMA in such an unrestrained and permissive manner raises important and complicated questions about when and how it is appropriate to openly release sophisticated AI models,” they said.

Also Read: White House Updates AI R&D Plan

And while Meta is trying to be a leader in AI, they pointed out the compamy is currently under a Federal Trade Commission consent decree related to the safety of its platform.

The senators want answers by June 15 to a bunch of questions, including what risk assessments it undertook about a potential leak, how many people were given access to the model and who in the company made the decision to release it to them. They also want to know what Meta is doing to “prevent or mitigate” future damage. 

Citing some of the Justices in the recently argued Gonzalez v. Google, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Privacy Subcommittee, said that there appears to be an “emerging consensus” that Congress has to do something about what he called an outdated construct that has led to toxic, algorithm-driven content.

He expressed that view in his opening remarks in a hearing on Big Tech and Section 230 prompted by the U.S. Supreme Court oral argument in the case, which revolved around whether social media can be held liable for abetting terrorist speech.

Blumenthal was not sounding much like a Democrat when it came to the argument for a neutral internet, though he was talking about edge providers, not internet service providers. “I think that the time when the internet could be regarded as a kind of neutral, or passive, conduit is long since passed,’ he said.

Gonzalez v. Google revolves around the issue of whether social-media platforms could be held legally liable for aiding and abetting terrorism. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that Section 230 — the provision of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 immunizing social media from civil liability in most cases — generally bars such aiding and abetting claims.

Also: Big Tech Battles Threat to Content Moderation

But with regard to a different complaint, the same court concluded that Google, as well as Twitter and Facebook, could be liable for aiding and abetting terrorism.

The justices seemed to suggest Congress needed to step in to decide what Section 230 should mean in a post-algorithm world — the statute dates from 1996 — given the implications for the operation of the internet if sites began being held liable for suggestions, recommendations or “next ups” under the plaintiff’s argument.

They clearly appeared uncomfortable with trying to set the precedent of what kind of content online platforms should be liable for, with Justice Elana Kagan suggesting that they were not the nine most internet-savvy people around.

"Fifteen years ago, when I was [Connecticut] attorney general dealing with MySpace and Craigslist and many the same issues that we’re confronting today, I said to my staff, ‘We should repeal Section 230,’ ”Blumenthal said. “And they came down on me like a house of bricks and said, ‘Whoa, you can’t repeal Section 230, that’s the Bible of the internet!’ Well, it’s not the Bible of the internet, it’s not the Ten Commandments that have been handed down. It is a construct that is now outdated and outmoded and needs reform.”

Big Tech has been pushing back hard on efforts to reform the section, saying it threatens their business model and would lead to more, not less, censorship — including self-censorship by platforms as a form of self-protection. Tech firms have even been trying to play into Republican fears of censorship of conservative speech.

In a sign of the bipartisan nature of the Section 230 reform movement, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), pretty much the political polar opposite of Blumenthal, got a shout-out from the chairman for his work on the issue. In turn, Hawley said the slow progress of possible reform was as much, or perhaps even more, the fault of Republicans as Democrats.

Hawley said the time has come to give parents and kids the basic right to hold Big Tech legally liable for content on their sites.

Protecting ‘Defective Products’

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) said social-media platforms had for too long been protected by Section 230 from being designed in a way that produced “dangerous and defective products.”

Blumenthal said Congress should make clear what is going on: Big Tech is making big bucks by driving more eyeballs to content the harms of which they are aware. He said they may not want to promote that content, but know that repeating and amplifying it is addicting kids to that content, and with “certain consequences.”

Andrew Sullivan, president of the Internet Society, stood up for Section 230 in his hearing testimony. He said that there was potential to do a lot of harm to the internet by targeting that provision. 

“The broad protections that Section 230 affords are essential for — in the words of that statute — [the] ‘interactivity’ [of] the Internet,” he told the senators. “Simply stated, without the basic protections that Section 230 provides, we would not have the robust engagement of hundreds of millions of Americans in the online conversation, nor would we have the astounding innovation in online services that we have witnessed over the past 25 years.”

But Blumenthal said in closing there should be no doubt that “change is coming,” and that that should be the takeaway from the hearing. ■

A bipartisan Senate duo looked this week to put a spotlight on legislation, the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), that would crack down on Big Tech. They are trying to get the bill passed in the waning, lame-duck days of the current session of Congress.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), chair and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security, met this week with young people and parents of young people they said had “died or were harmed” due to social media.

For example, one of the people they met with was the mother of a girl who died of fentanyl poisoning “from drugs she and a friend purchased from a dealer they used Facebook to find,” Blumenthal’s office said. He is co-sponsor of the bill.

Also: Kids Online Protection Bill Introduced

S. 3663, the Kids Online Safety Act, passed unanimously in the Senate Commerce Committee last July. It would attempt to protect children's online mental health, including addressing issues like body image, eating disorders, substance abuse, and suicide.

Blumenthal and Blackburn led hearings on issues surrounding social media and its impact on children.

The result was the bill, which:

1. “Requires that social media platforms provide minors with options to protect their information, disable addictive product features, and opt out of algorithmic recommendations. Platforms would be required to enable the strongest settings by default.
2. “Gives parents new controls to help support their children and identify harmful behaviors, and provides parents and children with a dedicated channel to report harms to kids to the platform.
3. “Creates a responsibility for social media platforms to prevent and mitigate harms to minors, such as promotion of self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual exploitation, and unlawful products for minors (e.g. gambling and alcohol).
4. “Requires social media platforms to perform an annual independent audit that assesses the risks to minors, their compliance with this legislation, and whether the platform is taking meaningful steps to prevent those harms.
5. “Provides academic and public interest organizations with access to critical datasets from social media platforms to foster research regarding harms to the safety and well-being of minors.”

Also: Blumenthal Says Facebook Weaponizes Childhood Suffering

“The [legislation] will hold social media companies accountable and establish a duty of care for protecting children online,” Parents Television & Media Council president Tim Winter said in July. ▪️

Senate Democrats are massing along a new front in the war with Big Tech and Elon Musk is in the line of fire.

A powerful group of senators led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) has asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate potential consumer-protection laws by Twitter, which Musk has just bought.

“We write regarding Twitter’s serious, willful disregard for the safety and security of its users, and encourage the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate any breach of Twitter’s consent decree or other violations of our consumer protection laws,” they wrote in a letter to FTC chair Lina Khan.

Also: Groups Turn Up Heat on Twitter Advertisers

Khan herself has been a big critic of Big Tech, so they are in some sense preaching to the choir.

Musk has only been running the company for a few weeks, but the senators say his actions have “undermined the integrity and safety of the platform,” including by announcing new features “despite clear warnings those changes would be abused for fraud, scams, and dangerous impersonation.” Most notably was Musk's rollout — since rolled back — of Twitter Blue and the ability for users to buy blue verification check marks that allowed them to impersonate others.

Also: Twitter Chief Elon Musk Slams ‘Media Elite’

One of those already impersonated, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), has already called on Musk to answer a raft of questions about how he is operating the company.

Markey was among those calling Thursday (November 17) for the FTC investigation.

Back in May, Twitter agreed to pay $150 million to settle allegations it had violated a 2011 consent decree by using its users’ email addresses and phone numbers for marketing purposes after promising not to. ▪️

Two Senate bills that would protect children’s data and, hopefully, their mental and physical well-being, passed out of committee Wednesday (July 27), which means they have been favorably reported to the full chamber for a vote.

S. 3663, the Kids Online Safety Act, passed unanimously. It would attempt to protect children's online mental health, including addressing issues like body image, eating disorders, substance abuse, and suicide.

The Children and Teens’ Only Privacy and Protection Act — or COPPA 2.0, as author Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) dubs it, updates the senator's 1998 COPPA law — passed by voice vote, but with some no votes, including those of Sen. Marsha Blackburn, the co-author of the Kids Online Safety Act, and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah).

Both Blackburn and Lee had problems with the extent of the Federal Trade Commission’s rulemaking authority under the bill. But Blackburn said she expected by the time it got to a floor vote, she could get to a “yes,” which Lee also suggested would be the case. Blackburn said she didn't say she would oppose the rulemaking authority, but said it needed to be tightened up and made more focused and specific.

Blackburn wanted to make sure the FTC “stayed in their lane,” she said.

Markey, who was also a sponsor of the Kids Online Protection Act, said the bills would stop a historic attempt to engage in predatory behavior and sends the message to Big Tech that “enough is enough.”

Markey said he would work with all members on the legislation as it moves to the floor.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), co-sponsor of the Kids Online Safety Act, said that they would work with both Lee and Blackburn on their concerns and also felt confident they could come to a meeting of the minds.

Blumenthal said he planned to move both bills on the floor. And while he said he was sure Big Tech was not just going to sit back and would instead employ their armies of lobbyists and lawyers to derail the process. He said, instead, he hoped they would join with Congress and help as they had on other issues. 

But regardless, the kind of doggedness Markey had displayed on the issue over decades would inspire lawmakers to pursue the bills like “a dog with a bone, not going away, not surrendering no matter the obstacles,” Blumenthal said.

“The Kids Online Safety Act will hold social media companies accountable and establish a duty of care for protecting children online," said Parents Television & Media Council President Tim Winter. "The Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Protection Act expands privacy protections to teens and for children under age 13. We support both bipartisan bills and urge Congress to pass them swiftly. The youngest generations must not be the guinea pigs for technology’s harmful impact.” ▪️

A pair of powerful Democratic senators has asked the Biden administration to use the $48 billion in broadband infrastructure spending overseen by the Department of Commerce‘s National Telecommunications & Information Administration as a way to restore net neutrality rules, at least for those government-funded network buildouts.

That's according to a letter to NTIA administrator Alan Davidson from Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-N.Y.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.).

The Federal Communications Commission, under Trump-era Republican chairman Ajit Pai, eliminated its rules against blocking, throttling and paid prioritization, plus a catch-all rule that would allow the FCC to regulate conduct that did not fall under the other rules but that it concluded might hurt an open internet. Current chair Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, would almost certainly like to restore those rules but lacks a majority, and Congress has been unable to agree on legislation establishing or defining the FCC‘s regulatory oversight of the internet.

In a letter advising Davidson on how to oversee that $48 billion, most of which is going to the states for their own projects, the two senators suggested NTIA‘s oversight of the money should include promoting “safeguards for the free and open internet.”

Blumenthal and Markey want NTIA to “implement measures that promote net neutrality as it fulfills its mandates under [the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act],” they said. The senators argue that such a set of neutrality principles were needed to “keep the internet open to all and free of discriminatory practices by powerful broadband providers” and to prevent those providers from “blocking or slowing down customers’ internet access; charging websites to reach users at quicker speeds; and instituting other unjust, unreasonable and discriminatory practices. These rules benefit consumers, promote free speech, and enrich the economy by making the internet a fair playing field where entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes can thrive.”

The senators did not explicitly advise NTIA to put net neutrality conditions on the money, but their signal was clear. Both Blumenthal and Markey have been vocal proponents of net neutrality rules. ■

The Senate Judiciary Committee has favorably reported the EARN It Act to the full Senate, but with the agreement to work on some issues as it moves toward a floor vote. 

The Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies [EARN IT] Act would remove Section 230 immunity from liability from edge providers who knowingly distribute or promote child sexual abuse materials on their websites. 

The vote came during a committee markup of the bill on Thursday (Feb. 10).

Computer companies have opposed the EARN It Act, while law enforcement and child protection advocates support it. Some human rights groups have expressed issues about encryption and privacy and the bill‘s impact on journalists and others.

The EARN It Act would not mandate an affirmative duty for companies such as Google, Amazon, Netflix or Facebook to police their sites or review material. It would only remove the immunity for not “reasonably inspecting” their material, which means if they are informed of such material and do nothing to keep it off their sites, they would lose civil liability immunity for that particular third-party content.

One issue was the bill's impact on encryption of private communications, but bill co-sponsor Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said that the bill does not prohibit encryption, but only the misuse of encryption to further illegal activity.

Also: DAs Make Case for EARN It Act

Both Democrats and Republicans signaled that if any Big Tech company tried to use the lack of an affirmative duty as a loophole, those legislators might have to circle back and mandate that the sites review their material.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the bill's other principal co-sponsor, said that whether there should be an affirmative duty to police sites is another issue and that when informed of such content he hoped Big Tech would act responsibly. If not, he signaled such a duty would be “in his next bill.”

Blumenthal said that despite the arguments of Big Tech‘s armies of lawyers, the bill was not about encryption, which he called a “gigantic red herring,” or free speech, he said. “Rape is not free speech,” he said. There are companies that are vigorous partners in the effort to fight child sexual abuse, he added, because they know it can be done.

He said the bill was about expanding mandatory reporting, doubling the time that companies are required to preserve evidence of child exploitation, fostering the next generation of technology to fight abuse and holding tech companies accountable when they fail to supervise and prevent the spread of child sexual abuse material.

Among the issues to be worked out before a full Senate vote include whether not having the affirmative obligation in the bill is a loophole that needs fixing now, clarifying the encryption provision, the impact of the law on smaller websites and whether a state definition of knowledge of illegal material should be incorporated into the bill, as is currently the case.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) pointed out that could mean that in Illinois, for example, whose knowledge standard goes beyond “knew” to “should have known,” tech platforms could be held to that standard.

Blumenthal said he thought incorporating state standards was still better than “straitjacketing” them to a federal standard. ■

The Senate Judiciary Committee has overwhelmingly passed the bipartisan Open App Markets Act, according to its sponsors, Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). The vote was 21-1 — with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) was the only nay — to favorably report the bill to a vote in the full Senate.

The legislation is billed by Blumenthal as “breaking Apple and Google’s ironclad grip on the multibillion-dollar app market,” including by stopping predatory fees on consumers and lowering barriers to rivals. Blackburn called it a response to market failure. She said she was not saying Big Tech is bad, but that it was clear that guard rails are now needed.

Defeated during the bill markup was an amendment offered by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) that would add language about Big Tech censorship of conservative political and religious voices. Blumenthal said the bill was not about political speech but about protecting consumers.

The explicit goal of the bill is to “reduce gatekeeper power in the app economy, increase choice, improve quality, and reduce costs for consumers.”

Reading like an app net neutrality rule for Apple and Google, the legislation would prevent a covered company from restricting the use of alternative in-app payment systems; or from favoring their own terms of distribution, pricing or conditions of sale; or penalize developers for using different pricing terms or conditions via another in-app payment system.

It prevents a Google or Apple, for example, from using info derived from a third-party app to compete with that same app.

In general, reads the bill, “a covered company shall not provide unequal treatment of apps in an app store through unreasonably referencing or ranking the apps of the covered company or any of its business partners over those of other apps.” The definition of “unreasonable referencing” includes algorithms that prioritize apps owned by the covered company or its partners but does not include “clearly disclosed” ads.

Violations would be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission since those violations will be considered unfair methods of competition, which the FTC has authority to police. In addition, any state attorney general can also bring a civil action based on a violation of the act and there is also a private right of action so that any developer can also sue, and get treble damages if they win.

The bill's co-sponsors include Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), John Kennedy (R-La.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).

Praising passage was Consumer Reports, which has pushed for the legislation.

“Senators on both sides of the political aisle agree it is time to address the stranglehold that Apple and Google have on our smartphones," said Sumit Sharma, senior researcher for tech competition at Consumer Reports. "The Open App Markets Act will allow consumers to get better deals by introducing competition in payment systems on smartphones, and it will enable app developers to freely inform consumers about these cheaper alternatives.” ■

Computer companies are not happy with the news that Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) have reintroduced the Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies (EARN IT) Act.

That is the bill that would amend Section 230 of the Communications Act to say that the section's immunity for online platforms from civil liability for third-party content does not extend to child exploitation, meaning a Facebook or Twitter could be held liable for posts that illegally exploit children.  

It would also establish a National Commission on Online Child Exploitation Prevention to establish best practices for preventing such exploitation.  

The Computer & Communications Industry Association called it a misdirected effort to combat child sexual abuse material online, and that would instead weaken the law (Sec. 230) that companies use to address objectionable third-party material online--without the threat of civil suits.

“Instead of directing more resources toward prosecution of industry-reported content, this bill aims to put a government commission in charge of how digital services operate,” CCIA president Matt Schruers said. “Enforcing existing criminal statutes in known cases would prevent more crime than placing a federal committee in control of how internet services police content.”

Also: EARN IT Act Debut Earns Plenty of Input

Fight for the Future (FFTF) executive director Evan Greer was even tougher on the bill, calling it “[O]ne of the most poorly conceived and dangerous pieces of internet legislation I have seen in my entire career and that’s saying a lot.” Greer said the bill “will trample human rights and online free expression, particularly for trans and queer folks.”

FFTF launched an email campaign against a prior introduction of the bill and plans to update the campaign for the reintroduced bill.

Among those on the other side of the issue are the Parents Television and Media Council (PTC) and the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCSE). 

“The PTC proudly endorses the EARN IT Act of 2022,“ PTC president Tim Winter said. “We applaud the bipartisan and bicameral leadership of Senators Lindsey Graham  and Richard Blumenthal, Reps. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.) and Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas), and over a dozen co-sponsors from both sides of the political aisle, all of whom have come together with the noble goal of protecting children from the growing and ever-present threats that are so prevalent in today’s toxic digital media environment.”

“Big Tech has no incentive to prevent predators from grooming, recruiting, and trafficking children online and as a result, countless children have fallen victim to child abusers on platforms like Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok,”  NCSE president Patrick A. Trueman said when the bill was first introduced. “EARN IT gives us these missing incentives by making the current gift of immunity under the Communications Decency Act Section 230 conditional. To keep immunity, social media platforms will have to demonstrate they are actively working to prevent online sexual exploitation of minors and child sexual abuse material (CSAM).” ■

In the wake of a report in The New York Times on a website that provides instrucctions and support for people contemplating suicide, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wants the major search engines to remove the site from their search results.

“We are in the midst of a mental health crisis, particularly among young people,” Blumenthal wrote in letters to Google and Microsoft’s Bing. “By providing instructions and social pressure, the site is helping to fuel this crisis and is directly culpable for the deaths of many young people.”

Blumenthal has been one of the big critics of Big Tech companies for how they moderate content on their site. He’s among the lawmakers threatening to remove or weaken social media sites’ exemption from civil liability under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act for most third-party content on their platforms, particularly if they don't use power to pre-empt dangerous content.

Also: House E&C Leaders Seek Meetings About Suicide Website

Blumenthal cited the Times story’s assertion that while both platforms had been asked to “steer people away from the website” — which is actually a step further than just not showing it among the results — they have declined to do so. The senator said the companies have not only the ability but the legal authority to do so given the “Good Samaritan” provision of Section 230, which allows companies to take actions to limit protected speech.

“Congress made clear its intent for companies like Google to act as Good Samaritan managers of their platforms, not to shield it from its obligations to protect vulnerable communities," the senator said.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) issued a pointed reminder Monday (Nov. 8) to top social media platforms that he expects them to deliver on their promises to open the books, as it were, on their internal impact studies. 

Blumenthal, chair of the Senate Consumer Protection Subcommittee, wrote to TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube as a follow-up to an Oct. 26 hearing in his subcommittee at which representatives of all three testified.

Also read: Blumenthal Says Facebook Chronically Ignores Alarms

“Your representative agreed to provide me with your internal research on the mental health effects and addiction-like use of your platform by children and teens,” Blumenthal wrote in a letter to Snap. Similar letters were sent to TikTok and YouTube. “Your representative also agreed to make your platform’s datasets and algorithms accessible for independent researchers to assess these risks. Thank you for your commitment, as this transparency and access is critical to identifying possible harms to young users and preventing their devastating consequences. As the subcommittee works to draft protections for kids online, this information is also vital to our legislative efforts.”

Various bills have been introduced that could reduce Big Tech's civil liability for third party content tied to how they do or don't protect users.

A Facebook whistleblower’s documents on that company’s internal research on the impact of Instagram on young people helped generate Congress’s interest in getting access to similar documents from other platforms.

Blumenthal was particularly focused on making sure independent researchers could study the “profound risks” of their platforms, suggesting he has already drawn some conclusions.

The senator also wanted to know if they planned to withhold any information and, if so, why.

He wants answers by Nov. 24.

Based on new documents from Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen (being dubbed “The Facebook Papers”), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), chair of the Senate Consumer Protection Subcommittee, said it was just more evidence that the social media platform has “chronically ignored serious internal alarms.”

Blumenthal has called on Facebook to make public all its internal research on the impact of its platform on users and said the latest revelations “demand the full release of the company‘s research on the harms to teens and even to our democracy.”

Also Read: Big Tech Targeted Bill Introduced

There has already been a drumbeat for more documents — which Facebook execs said the country would contemplate — after Haugen turned over internal research showing some young users felt the platform hurt their self-esteem and even prompted thoughts of suicide.

Facebook has defended that research, pointing out that the majority of respondents said Facebook's Instagram platform was a help, not a harm, and that the company was responding to those who felt the other way, with the research helping them identify the issues.

Also Read: Blumenthal Calls on Facebook CEO Zuckerberg to Testify

The company has also launched an ad campaign calling on D.C. to regulate it so it knows what the boundaries for its moderation of third party content should be.

Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube have agreed to testify at an Oct. 26 hearing in Blumenthal‘s committee, the fourth in a series on the impact of the edge on children and young people.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security Subcommittee, is trying to pressure Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify on Instagram's impact on youth before his panel, saying to date the executive has been evasive and his company dismissive of evidence it puts profits before the health of teen users.

Also Read: At Haugen Hearing, Blumenthal Calls It Big Tech's Big Tobacco Moment

That pressure has been growing in the wake of Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s testimony to Congress. Haugen, armed with internal research, told the Senate that the company prioritizes profit over the mental health of its users and knows it is doing so. Facebook says the research shows the company’s Instagram social-media platform is helpful, not harmful, to most teens, and that it used the research to help the minority who said Instagram reinforced their negative body images.

Haugen told Blumenthal and the subcommittee that Facebook was buying its profits with consumer safety and that it intentionally hides documents and repeatedly misleads the public. Until incentives change, she argued, the company won't.

Blumenthal wrote that “as recently as this weekend,” the company was continuing to downplay the reporting about the impact of the research as an “orchestrated ‘gotcha’ campaign.”

The senator said Zuckerberg needed to clear up some inconsistencies between Haugen's testimony and that of Antigone Davis, global head of safety for Facebook, in a separate hearing. There have been multiple hearings on Big Tech's impact on little users.

Blumenthal, in a letter to the CEO dated Wednesday, said Zuckerberg has “doubled down on evasive answers” and “kept hidden” reports on the health of its teenage users, only providing vague plans for action sometime in the future. "Rather than casting baseless aspirations on whistleblowers and journalists, Facebook should be vigorously acting to provide parents with firm commitments for dramatic reforms and direct answers. Sadly, it is not," he says.

Blumenthal wrote that it was “urgent and necessary” for Zuckerberg or Adam Mosseri, who heads up Instagram for Facebook, to testify.

While Facebook has been pushing back on characterizations related to its internal research, it has at the same time blanketed D.C. with ads talking about how it wanted the government to step in and set rules of the road for content moderation.

That effort is in part to head off tough legislation that could break up Big Tech companies or curtail or eliminate their immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act from civil liability for most third-party content.

Representatives from Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube have agreed to testify at an Oct. 26 Senate hearing, and they should probably come in flak jackets.

The hearing is the bipartisan handiwork of Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security chairman Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and ranking member Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), both of whom have been highly critical of edge provider practices.

Also Read: Big Tech-Targeted Senate Bill Introduced

“The bombshell reports about Facebook and Instagram — their toxic impacts on young users and lack of truth or transparency — raise serious concerns about Big Tech’s approach toward kids across the board,” said Blumenthal, who has been saying for a while that he wanted to get representatives from other platforms to testify before the committee.

The Oct. 26 hearing is the fourth in a series on the impact of the edge on children and young people.

“Big tech companies continue to prioritize profit over safety and, in doing so, are harming children online,” Blackburn said, going further than Blumenthal in hammering the upcoming witnesses by name. “TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube all play a leading role in exposing children to harmful content.”

Blumenthal has said he believes Big Tech is having a Big Tobacco moment, an observation that came following the revelations about Facebook's internal research findings that some young people found Instagram contributed to their depression and negative body image.

Also Read: ‘How to Stop Facebook’ Campaign Launched

Facebook, Instagram’s owner, has bought a lot of airtime in Washington for ads arguing for regulations on its content moderation, likely because it sees Washington is serious about regulating the platform. The social-media giant wants to head off the potential elimination of its immunity from civil liability for most third-party content on its sites under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, whose last job at the social media company was working on the counterespionage team, may have opened up a new front in Congress’s war on the social platform.

That came during a hearing in the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security, where she was testifying on children's online safety and the alleged lack of it when it came to Facebook.

She was explaining that among the things she looked at was China’s tracking and surveillance using the platform and Iran’s tracking of other state actors. She said Facebook’s “consistent” understaffing of their counterespionage information operations and counterterrorism was a national security threat.

She said she was already speaking with “other parts of Congress” about it.

That got the immediate attention of Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), a member of the Armed Services Committee, who asked whether she was saying that whether Facebook knew it or not it was being used by the country's adversaries “to push and promote their interests at the expense of America’s.”

Haugen said that Facebook was “very aware” that it was happening and the fact that Congress does not get a report from the company on how many people are working on the issue internally is "unacceptable." She told the committee she had “strong national security concerns” about how Facebook operates.

Subcommittee chairman Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told Haugen, “you may have just opened an area for another hearing.” He said “we may want to discuss this issue,” at least informally and possibly for another hearing, which Sullivan definitely supported.

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen got an angry and attentive bipartisan audience at a Tuesday (Oct. 5) hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Data Security, led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who called it a Big Tobacco moment for Big Tech.

A former Facebook product manager and data scientist, Haugen took documents when she left the company that she said show its algorithms “amplify polarizing and hateful content” for the sake of profit — a motive partly responsible for “tearing societies apart” — and that the company had research showing that but obscured the fact that it is harmful.

Haugen said Facebook was buying its profits with consumer safety and that it intentionally hides documents and repeatedly misleads the public. Until incentives change, she argued, the company won't.

Also Read: Sen. Blumenthal Says Facebook Weaponizes Childhood Suffering

She pointed out that the government took action to curb serious auto accidents (seat belt mandates), against tobacco and against opioid abuse, suggesting taking action now against Facebook was in the same category.

Blumenthal, the subcommittee’s chairman, called the company “morally bankrupt” and called on Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to come before the committee rather than taking a “nothing to see here” approach by “going sailing,” as he suggested Zuckerman had done.

He said if that misleading charge is true, the Federal Trade Commission needs to step in using its authority to pursue false and misleading information.

Also Read: Hill to Hear from Facebook Whistle Blower

Citing last week’s Facebook hearing witness, Antigone Davis, global head of safety for Facebook, who said the research was not a bombshell, Blumenthal said it was the very definition of a bombshell and that Big Tech was having its Big Tobacco moment, the moment when research shows they knew its product was harmful, but concealed that knowledge for the sake of profit. As Connecticut’s attorney general, Blumenthal had led that state’s action against Big Tobacco and remembered the moment when he had the files that showed tobacco knew its product caused cancer.

Ranking member Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said Facebook abused consumers’ privacy, did not respect its users, invaded the privacy of children, and was in violation of federal law — the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), ranking member of the parent Senate Commerce Committee, said Congress must act against powerful tech companies to protect children and the public at large. He called their product addictive, and agreed that legislators on both sides of the aisle are concerned. Wicker said he had talked to an opinion maker just before the hearing who said “the tech gods had been demystified.” Wicker agreed, and said that the hearing was furthering that process.

Both Blumenthal and Blackburn suggested they would be looking to narrow Big Tech's immunity from civil liability for third-party content on their platforms under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. 

Haugen said the way to modify Sec. 230 is to exempt platform decisions about their algorithms. Those platforms may arguably not have the control over third-party content, but she said they have 100% control over their algorithms. 

But while there have been ongoing bipartisan differences between what is considered particularly sensitive data and how that should be protected, Facebook’s research revelations could potentially be the tipping point that brings Democrats and Republicans together over a common “enemy.” That certainly seemed to the the case Tuesday,

Blackburn predicted that this Congress would be the one where online privacy legislation finally passed, something both sides have been talking about for almost a decade.

Also Read: Facebook Whistleblower's Identity Revealed on ‘60 Minutes’

The time has come for action on privacy legislation, agreed Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), "and I think you are the catalyst," she told Haugen.

Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) said he agreed it was time to bridge the partisan differences and pass bipartisan privacy legislation. Blumenthal said he thought the differences were minor, particularly in the face of what they had learned about Facebook. Joined by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) they agreed it was time to get to work and get it done.

Haugen revealed her identity on CBS’s newsmagazine 60 Minutes, which drew a strong rebuttal from Facebook. Haugen told the committee she had revealed herself at great personal risk because she believed there was still time to address the Facebook issues. Blumenthal assured her that the committee would do what it could to protect her from any retaliation.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), historically one of the strongest advocates for children's online protections and a primary author of COPPA, called Haugen a 21st Century American Hero.

Markey warned that Facebook lobbyists would he making visits after the hearing telling Congress it can't act.

Facebook took aim at Haugen's authority on the subjects on which she testified, and again said they supported some regulation of Big Tech.

“Today, a Senate Commerce subcommittee held a hearing with a former product manager at Facebook who worked for the company for less than two years, had no direct reports, never attended a decision-point meeting with C-level executives – and testified more than six times to not working on the subject matter in question," said Ena Pietsch, director of policy communications. "We don’t agree with her characterization of the many issues she testified about. Despite all this, we agree on one thing; it’s time to begin to create standard rules for the internet. It’s been 25 years since the rules for the internet have been updated, and instead of expecting the industry to make societal decisions that belong to legislators, it is time for Congress to act.”

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said Thursday (Sept. 30) that he and Consumer Protection Subcommittee chairman Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) will reintroduce their KIDS Act, which would remake online content targeted to kids.

Markey also called for banning influencer marketing to kids online, as selling by hosts is banned in children’s TV programming.

That came at a subcommittee hearing with the global head of safety for Facebook, Antigone Davis, where her company was hammered for, among other things, planning an Instagram Kids version of that site for children 12 and younger.

The Markey-Blumenthal bill would, among other things, ban auto-play settings, push alerts and reward “badges” on websites and/or apps for kids and young teens.

Also Read: Big Tech Bashed in Senate Hearing On Protecting Kids Online

It would also prohibit websites from recommending content with host-selling and influencer marketing, including “unboxing videos” to kids and young teens or from “exposing children and young teens to marketing with embedded interactive elements.”

Also Read: Senators Push for Research into Tech Impact on Kids

In questioning Davis, Markey said online platforms should not allow influencers to push products on children because they lack the ability to distinguish between ad and non-ad content. He pointed out that such host selling is not allowed on TV — per his own children’s TV legislation — and that that regime should apply to influencers as well.

If Facebook has taught us anything, he said, it is that self-regulation is not an option.

Asked if she supported the bill, Davis said it was certainly time for updated regulations and she would be happy to work with him and would follow up. He pointed out that the company had had access to the legislation — which was launched in March 2020 — for months.

"[E]very single Senator who called out Facebook today should support Senator Markey and Senator Blumenthal's KIDS Act...," said Josh Golin, executive director of Fairplay (Formerly Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood). "[W]e need legislation to address the damaging design and predatory data collection practices of platforms like Instagram."

Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said Tuesday they will hold a public hearing with a Facebook whistleblower Oct. 5 about Facebook's and Instagram's impact on young people and other issues.

That hearing in Commerce's Consumer Protection Subcommittee will come only days after the Sept. 30 hearing in the same subcommittee on the same topic featuring Antigone Davis, Facebook’s global head of safety.

Also Read: Sen. Blumenthal says TikTok Needs Hill Grilling

The senators said hearing from the whistleblower will be key to understanding what Facebook actually knows about its "toxic effects on young viewers" and when they knew it.

They are holding a series of hearings on children's protections, or lack of them, online.

Also Read: Facebook Gets Beatdown in Hill Hearing

Facebook has been in the hot-seat most recently over a Wall Street Journal article saying it had data showing the negative impact of Instagram on young people, but downplayed it.

Some powerful lawmakers are telling Facebook it should pull the plug on plans for a kids‘ version of Instagram, not simply suspend them, and have signaled that Congress is stepping in regardless.

Facebook announced the pause on Monday (Sept. 27), but said it still thought a kid-targeted version of Instagram was a way to help prevent children under 13 from trying to access inappropriate apps.

The opposing view from lawmakers came in a joint statement from, among others, the lead senator for a hearing this week on the adverse impact of the adult/teen version of Instagram on young people, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.).

Joining Blumenthal were Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), one of the leading voices for kids’ online privacy, as well as Reps. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) and Lori Trahan (D-Mass.).

The legislators said that though they were glad Facebook had heeded their call to back off the kids’ version, a pause was not enough.

“Facebook has completely forfeited the benefit of the doubt when it comes to protecting young people online and it must completely abandon this project,” they said in a joint statement. “Time and time again, Facebook has demonstrated the failures of self-regulation, and we know that Congress must step in.”

In this case, that step is the Kids Internet Design and Safety (KIDS) Act, which the lawmakers said they plan to introduce. The bill would give young internet users “the protections they need to navigate today’s online ecosystem without sacrificing their well-being.” 

They said it is critical legislation and called upon their colleagues to support it.

Facebook has agreed to send a witness to Washington for a hearing next week in the Senate Consumer Protection Subcommittee.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), chair and ranking member, respectively, of the subcommittee are both unhappy with a Wall Street Journal report that Facebook had data showing Instagram could be harmful to young people, but downplayed it.

Also Read: Senator Says TikTok Needs Hill Grilling

The title of the Sept. 30 hearing advertises that bipartisan concern: “Protecting Kids Online: Facebook, Instagram, & Mental Health Harms.” 

And if that were not sufficient tip-off, Blumenthal made it clear: “This hearing will examine the toxic effects of Facebook and Instagram on young people and others.“ 

“[Founder and CEO] Mark Zuckerberg’s guiding principle for Facebook is profit,” added Blackburn.

Blumenthal’s office said that Facebook has agreed to send global head of safety Antigone Davis to the hearing. It also signaled there will be more hearings where this came from, with other social media companies having agreed to appear at future hearings “looking at whether Big Tech is knowingly harming people.”

If past is prologue, Davis can expect to get a grilling next week.

Earlier this month, Blumenthal and Blackburn launched a probe of Facebook's alleged "coverup" of the impact of its platforms on teens and children, tapping a Facebook whistleblower in that effort.

Blumenthal is also calling on TikTok to explain how it is combating the Devious Licks issue and also plans to hold a hearing on that platform on kids and teens.

Facebook took unfriendly fire from both sides of the aisle Tuesday (Sept. 21) in a Senate Judiciary Committee Antitrust Subcommittee hearing on Big Data.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told Facebook witness Steve Satterfield, VP of privacy and public policy, that the company needed to supply a witness to a hearing next week in the Commerce Consumer Protection Subcommittee, saying that was needed to explain the company's "coverup" of its platforms' negative impact on children.

Satterfield would not say yes definitively, but did say the company was discussing the request.

Facebook has been on the hotseat most recently over a Wall Street Journal article saying it had data showing that negative impact, but downplayed it.

Also Read: Sen. Blumenthal: TikTok Needs Hill Grilling on 'Devious Licks'

Blumenthal and Consumer Protection ranking member Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) had written Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg last month asking if it had conducted research on teens that found "a negative effect on children's and teens' mental health or well-being such as increased suicidal thoughts, heightened anxiety, unhealthy usage patterns, negative self-image, or other indications of lower well-being."

Given the subsequent Wall Street Journal article's revelations, Blumenthal said Facebook's responses to the letter were "misleading and evasive," not to mention "directly contradicted" by the journal article.

"The simple fact of the matter is that Facebook has known for years that Instagram is directly involved in an increase in eating disorders, mental health issues, and suicidal thoughts – especially for teenage girls," Blumenthal said at the hearing. "Despite that horrifying risk, Facebook is now dead set on pushing Instagram to even younger children. Far from being transparent about this danger...Facebook in fact has been blatantly deceptive and disingenuous about it."

Satterfield said he understood the frustration but disputed the characterization. "The safety and well-being of the teens on our platform is a top priority for the company," he said. "We’re going to continue to make it a priority. This was important research. We're proud that we did it. We're going to continue to, you know, study these really important issues."

Asked by Blumenthal why Facebook had concealed the study if it was proud of it, Satterfield said it did not make such information public as "an important way of encouraging free and frank discussion within the company about hard issues."

On the other side of the aisle, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), one of Big Tech's biggest critics, asked Satterfield if teenagers were safe on any of Facebook's platforms, to which Satterfield would only say they were working "really hard" to ensure that. Satterfield also would not commit to not accepting behavioral advertising for products "accessed" by children, telling Hawley that advertising was "very valuable" to Facebook but that it had made changes including limitations on reaching those under 18.

But Satterfield did say that the company had a responsibility to invest the billions of dollars it was investing "to make sure these things don't happen."

Hawley said Facebook had actively and deliberately mislead Congress for years about the impact of its platforms. That was another set of characterizations Satterfield strongly rejected.

A pair of powerful senators have launched a bipartisan congressional investigation into Facebook's alleged "coverup" of the impact of its platforms on teens and children tapping a Facebook whistleblower in that effort.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), chair and ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Commerce Consumer Protection Subcommittee, said they were launching that probe.

Last month, both the legislators asked Facebook for internal research on the impact of their platforms, including Instagram Kids--on young people's mental health.

That probe comes amid pushback on Facebook's plans for Instagram Kids and in direct response to a story in the Wall Street Journal that got widespread coverage.

Also Read: FTC Accuses Facebook of Surveillance-Based Ads

Under the headline and leadline "Facebook Knows Instagram Is Toxic for Teen Girls, Company Documents Show, Its own in-depth research shows a significant teen mental-health issue that Facebook plays down in public," the Journal reported Tuesday that, based on internal memos, Facebook had research showing that Instagram had an adverse impact on a number of teens, particularly teen girls, almost a third of whom polled said Instagram made them feel worse about their bodies.

Facebook emphasized that a large percentage of teens were not adversely affected.

Also Read: Groups Tell Facebook To Abandon Instagram Jr. Plans

“It is clear that Facebook is incapable of holding itself accountable," said Blumenthal and Blackburn in a joint statement. "The Wall Street Journal’s reporting reveals Facebook’s leadership to be focused on a growth-at-all-costs mindset that valued profits over the health and lives of children and teens. When given the opportunity to come clean to us about their knowledge of Instagram’s impact on young users, Facebook provided evasive answers that were misleading and covered up clear evidence of significant harm. We are in touch with a Facebook whistleblower and will use every resource at our disposal to investigate what Facebook knew and when they knew it – including seeking further documents and pursuing witness testimony. The Wall Street Journal’s blockbuster reporting may only be the tip of the iceberg.”

"While the story focuses on a limited set of findings and casts them in a negative light, we stand by this research," said Facebook in a blog post Tuesday. "It demonstrates our commitment to understanding complex and difficult issues young people may struggle with, and informs all the work we do to help those experiencing these issues."

Facebook had no comment beyond the blog.

Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), and Mark Warner (D-Va.), have reintroduced a bill that would require more transparency about edge providers' use of secret algorithms to frame user's online experience.

The Filter Bubble Transparency Act, which was introduced back in 2019, requires large internet platforms (over 1 million users and generating more than $50 million in gross revenues, to inform users how their experience is being shaped and allow them to exit that information bubble if they choose.

Also Read: Big Tech Sues Florida

Specifically, the bill would require those platforms to:

1. "Clearly notify its users that their platform creates a filter bubble that uses secret algorithms (computer-generated filters) to determine the order or manner in which information is delivered to users; and

2. "Provide its users with the option of a filter bubble-free view of the information they provide. The bill would enable users to transition between a customized, filter bubble-generated version of information and a non-filter bubble version (for example, the “sparkle icon” option that is currently offered by Twitter that allows users to toggle between a personalized timeline and a purely chronological timeline)."

It would be illegal for anyone to operate a covered online platform that uses a "secret algorithm" unless the above two conditions are met. The Federal Trade Commission would enforce the legislation, including giving it the power to seek civil penalties for willful violations.

The bill's 2019 bipartisan incarnation may not have made it into law, but Silicon Valley is under renewed, heavy, and bipartisan criticism for how it treats content and its users.

“Big tech’s manipulative algorithms have exploited consumers and their data for far too long,” said Blumenthal. “By notifying and providing users with options for how they are viewing information, this bill will grant Americans the transparency and privacy they deserve. I’m proud to join a bipartisan coalition in the ongoing fight for stronger data privacy protections.”

“The more transparency consumers have with respect to how social media and other internet platforms prioritize content on their services, the better,” said Thune, ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee Communications Subcommittee (all the bill's sponsors but Warner are members of the committee). “This legislation helps consumers better understand how algorithms are used to select content in their ‘feed’ and gives users more control over what information they are digesting. I’d like to thank Sen. Schatz for adding his support to this bill, which increases the momentum behind this important issue.”

Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai takes issue with the characterization by Democrats that he “refused” to brief House Energy & Commerce Committee staff on a Motherboard story that wireless carriers were not disclosing real-time location data.

Pai told The Wire that while he did not brief them during the government shutdown, once the government was un-shut, he immediately offered “the FCC’s career staff” to provide such a briefing, an offer that was accepted. “That briefing has been given and we are committed to working with Congress and any other interested stakeholders on the committee or the Senate to provide them the information that we can, consistent with the obvious rules on pending enforcement investigations,” Pai said during an interview. One Democratic staffer familiar with the meeting confirmed it had taken place, but suggested there was not a lot of meat on the bone.

Democrats in the House are ramping up their oversight of the FCC, along with virtually every other agency under the Trump regime. But Democratic senators aren’t wallflowers either, although they remain in the minority.

Sens. Ed Markey, Richard Blumenthal and Ron Wyden called on Pai to investigate if carriers were throttling and prioritizing traffic and not being transparent about it. That would violate the FCC’s Restoring Internet Freedom order, which relies on disclosure of conduct the Federal Trade Commission can decide is or is not anticompetitive, false or deceptive. Pai was not briefing the senators or anyone else about that. “I can’t comment on any investigations that may arise or may in fact be underway,” he told The Wire.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, said Tuesday that evidence is mounting that Google is using its search dominance to favor its own content online.

That came in the wake of an European Commission finding that the company favored Google Shopping over other comparison shopping competitors. The commission also has ongoing investigations into Google, the Android platform and AdSense.

“This significant action by European regulators is the latest in a powerful collection of evidence suggesting Google has repeatedly and consistently abused international competition law,” said Blumenthal in a statement. “Here in the United States, the FTC must confront the mounting evidence that Google is manipulating search results in anticompetitive ways and possibly running afoul of our antitrust laws. The FTC has a duty to investigate and discipline Google for any illegal actions that may have unfairly disadvantaged competitors and limited consumer choice. Our economy – particularly when it comes to the rapidly growing tech sector – needs robust competition to thrive and to ensure consumer protection.”

RELATED: FTC, NHTSA Rev up Connected Car Privacy Issues

As he pointed out Tuesday, Blumenthal has been pushing the FTC to reopen its 2013 probe into the FCC's alleged anticompetitive practices.

The Federal Trade Commission closed an investigation into Google search in 2013, concluding that based on the evidence presented, "Google’s display of its own content could plausibly be viewed as an improvement in the overall quality of Google’s search product. Similarly, we have not found sufficient evidence that Google manipulates its search algorithms to unfairly disadvantage vertical websites that compete with Google-owned vertical properties.

WASHINGTON -- As expected, the Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing for Nov. 19 on The FANS Act, legislation backed by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) that would remove the antitrust exemption for sports leagues that include blackouts of game broadcasts in their licensing agreements.

It is actually the rescheduling of a hearing initially targeted for before the election.

At the urging of Blumenthal, among others, the Federal Communications Commission earlier this year voted to eliminate its sports blackout rules, which backstopped those contractual blackouts, but that did not change the fact that the leagues -- the National Football League was the prime target -- were still free to make such blackouts part of their rights contracts.

 The NFL argued the policy was to protect the stadium revenues and jobs sustained by fans in the seats.

 The hearing is titled: "The FANS Act: Are Sports Blackouts and Antitrust Exemptions Harming Fans, Consumers, and the Games Themselves?"