The House Energy & Commerce Committee has lined up the CEO's from Facebook, Google and Twitter to testify at a hearing on "Misinformation and Disinformation Plaguing Online Platforms," signaling that self-regulation has failed and Congress needs to step in.

The March 25 hearing with Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichair and Jack Dorsey will be a joint hearing of the Communications and Consumer Protection Subcommittees.

House Democrats have long complained that those platforms have not done enough to weed out dangerous speech. 

Also Read: Social Net CEOs Get Senate Grilling

“Whether it be falsehoods about the COVID-19 vaccine or debunked claims of election fraud, these online platforms have allowed misinformation to spread, intensifying national crises with real-life, grim consequences for public health and safety,” said Communications Subcommittee Chairman Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) and Consumer Protection Subcommittee Chair Jan Schakowski (D-Ill.).  “This hearing will continue the Committee’s work of holding online platforms accountable for the growing rise of misinformation and disinformation. For far too long, big tech has failed to acknowledge the role they’ve played in fomenting and elevating blatantly false information to its online audiences. Industry self-regulation has failed. We must begin the work of changing incentives driving social media companies to allow and even promote misinformation and disinformation.”

Also Read: House GOP Says Big Tech is Destructive Force

One of those is social media's Sec. 230 immunity for civil liability for third party content posted on their sites. Democrats and Republicans alike have said that immunity is too broad and should be reigned in or eliminated altogether. 

Republicans have created a Big Tech Accountability agenda, a GOP platform guided by four principles: 1) transparency; 2) accountability; 3) consistency and objectivity; and competition.

For Republicans, the de-posting or flagging of some content on conservative Web sites and the banning of then-President Trump from Facebook and Twitter have raised conservative bias claims to a new pitch.

House E&C Democrats, citing "deep concern," fired off letters to Dorsey, Zuckerberg and Pichai as part of their investigation into their handling of COVID-19 information, or, more to the point, disinformation.

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)

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.

Calls for Mark Zuckerberg to testify before Congress intensified Friday.

At about the same time House leaders were 'inviting' the Facebook CEO to appear before the House Energy & Commerce Committee in the near future, their counterparts on the Senate Commerce Committee were doing the same.

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chair of the committee, and ranking member Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) released a joint statement making the request and citing the Cambridge Analytica access to Facebook data of 50 million users.

Related: Markey Wants Investigation Into Facebook-Cambridge 'Bombshell'

“During our time leading the Commerce Committee, several questions about Facebook’s responsibilities and obligations to users have arisen even as the company’s reach and importance have grown. As a result, we have decided to ask Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify before our committee," they said.

Facebook employees privately briefed Commerce Committee staffers on what the legislators were billing as only the "most recent controversy."

The did not say when they would hold a hearing and invite Zuckerberg's testimony, beyond saying it would be in the "coming weeks," and that they would work with Zuckerberg and Facebook to find a suitable date.

But they were clearly unhappy with the company. "[W]e believe Mr. Zuckerberg’s testimony is necessary to gain a better understanding of how the company plans to restore lost trust, safeguard users’ data, and end a troubling series of belated responses to serious problems."

They did point out that Facebook has yet to provide written information about the controversy, with a March 29 deadline looming.

It might make sense to double up with the House E&C for a day-long affair.

The usual suspects of media moguldom are expected to descend on picturesque Sun Valley, Idaho at the annual Allen & Co. conference beginning Tuesday, with all eyes focusing on who or what could be the target for the next big a mega merger.

This year’s retreat – scheduled for July 8-23 – is unlike some recent Allen & Co. get-togethers in that two major deals are already in the works – Comcast’s $69 billion union with Time Warner Cable and AT&T’s $67 billion acquisition of DirecTV.  But according to several reports, analysts and observers are expecting continued consolidation in the distribution and programming sectors,  as well as some possible activity on the telecom and technology side.

According to several reports, guests expected at Allen & Co. chairman Herb Allen’s annual invitation-only get-away amid the mountains and streams of rural Idaho include Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts, News Corp. and 21st Century Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch, Walt Disney Co. chairman and CEO Bob Iger, CBS CEO Les Moonves, Time Inc. chairman and CEO Jeff Bewkes, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman, and DreamWorks SKG CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg. Some relative newcomers to the annual retreat include Alibaba Group CEO and the richest man in China Jack Ma and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. Rounding out the tech contingent include Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos and Apple CEO Tim Cook.

Some observers speculate that telecom companies could see some deal action at the conference – AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson and Verizon Communications CEO Lowell McAdam are expected to attend, although Verizon has said it has no intention to buy a big media company. Discovery Communications CEO David Zaslav, a regular conference attendee, is expected to have a full dance card at the retreat as his company has been among the top programmers expected to be searching for deals.

Allen & Co., has held the annual week-long retreat since the 1980s, where moguls can mix a day of golfing, hiking, kayaking, and fishing along with deal-making. Some legendary deals have come out of the conference – including  Disney’s 1995 purchase of Cap-Cities ABC  -- and some recent deals include Comcast’s 2009 NBC Universal joint venture with General Electric  (Comcast bought out the rest of the partnership in 2013)  and Bezos’ purchase of the Washington Post for $250 million last year.