Three tech and social media giants are scheduled to send their representatives to testify at a Senate hearing, following a string of accusations alleging that they foster a left-wing bias and routinely censor conservative voices.
FILE PHOTO. © Reuters
Facebook’s public policy director Neil Potts will attend the hearing held by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution next Wednesday, the company said. Twitter and Google are also expected to send their representatives to the event, entitled ‘Stifling Free Speech: Technological Censorship and the Public Discourse,’ The Hill reported, citing a source familiar with the issue.
The tech giants are likely to face some tough questions; the subcommittee’s panel is to be chaired by Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, who has already made his stance on the issue quite clear. “Big tech behaves like the only acceptable views are those on the far left,” Cruz said last week. “And any views to the contrary are suitable for censorship and silencing.”
The US social media companies have recently had to fight back against a series of accusations coming from Washington, and the White House in particular. In mid-March, Republican congressman Devin Nunes said he would file a $250 million lawsuit against Twitter over its alleged “explicit censorship” of conservatives.
Nunes accused the social network of “shadow-banning” right-leaning users, while refusing to take action against “abusive, hateful and defamatory” content from left-leaning users. Twitter refuted all accusations. However, it also soon announced that it would “label” messages that violate its rules but are still important for public discussion. The announcement prompted some US media to assume that President Donald Trump, who often uses the platform for fiery rants, might become one of the first to get “labeled.”
Trump himself, meanwhile, took issue with social media superpower Facebook, after it briefly gagged his social media chief. He also squarely accused Facebook, Google and Twitter of being “on the side of the Radical Left Democrats.”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1108004465121075200
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly dismissed accusations of liberal bias directed at the company. Grilled by Republican lawmakers on the topic last year, Zuckerberg claimed that their examples of censorship were once-off mistakes, but did admit that most of his employees probably lean leftwards, politically.
Surprisingly, Zuckerberg recently asked governments and regulators to tighten control over digital companies such as his own. At the same time, he seems to be pretty determined to keep control over what people should and should not read on the social network; he recently said he was considering hiring people to hand-pick “high-quality news” from “trusted outlets.”
Original: https://www.rt.com/usa/455695-facebook-twitter-google-senate-censorship/
Here is a case of abuse where government may insert itself. When we look at this, we see a centralized company. But in reality, any organization that can be tied to a geographic location and made subject to laws could run into the same fate. Going to be very interesting to see where this ends up.
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Only Steem platform can provide censor proof media. You made right choice to join in
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When people will start using decentralized platforms with no censorship, we won't have these problems anymore.
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Not exactly, or at least not at the moment. For instance, I would much rather to put all my family photos on Facebook compared to the steemit network for the simple reason that at least Facebook provides such functionality that I can restrict who is allowed to see my information, photos, etc. Whilst on the steemit network which is a public ledger, anyone is able to see any data they wish about anyone else, and at this moment is not possible to control who is allowed to see what you post and what you don't want certain groups of people to see.
Currently most of us already understand how Facebook and other big cooperations use our data for marketing purposes, and it could be used for many other uses; so there is a real concern there and this is why I feel government intervention is important. At the end of the day, this is why many countries around the world have a government, and that is to protect its citizens.
Obviously, business is important and that's what creates jobs, and Facebook, Google, Apple and all others, do create many many thousands of jobs in America and around the world, so there needs to be a clear line for government to punish business when necessary to protect its citizens but also to ensure that don't punish them until they are not able to do business any longer which creates unemployment.
I want to see how the US and EU governments tackle this issue. I would also hope to see more proactiveness from other big players and governments particularly in China where companies like Alibaba and Tencent are using the same techniques, and I would like to see how the Chinese government would tackle these issues. One of the reasons for this, is because now companies like Alibaba and Tencent are already well established in China and beginning expansion in Asian countries and through-out many other parts of the world.
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Well explained, thank you! All though, I would disagree with the idea of losing jobs. You are absolutely right about companies like facebook creating thousands of jobs, but if everybody would use Steemit or similar (more advanced) and revenue would be shared among participants, this revenue would replace lost jobs, would actually increase amount of people profiting and wouldn't cause the economy to collapse and tax money would continue to flow in direction of the government.
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What about all the illegal use of Facebook data by Cambridge Analytica and Aggregate IQ... Or do you not talk about that?
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It's ok for people to have an opinion as long as it fits our point of view.
Unfortunately that is what we are faced with at the moment. Until the majority of people stand up against this then it will just get worse. All they care about is money so that is how you fight back. Stop using the platforms, start talking about the issues, start putting pressure on influential people. Every bit helps.
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