Meta once again repents to Republicans for hearing more than moderation, while Google sticks to its position

In a Senate hearing On Wednesday, regarding government censorship of tech platforms, a Meta executive lamented to Republican lawmakers for failing to speak out more publicly against Biden administration requests They remove misinformation related to health and elections, including sarcasm. Meanwhile, Google has stuck to its guns, saying that evaluating — and often rejecting — government content requests is business as usual. Democrats have questioned why Congress is revisiting years-old moderation resolutions instead of the Trump administration’s latest rhetoric crackdown — even as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) hopes to enlist them for a new anti-jaw bill. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, whom Cruz promised to question about threats to broadcasters, was nowhere in sight.

Meta’s vice president of public policy, Neil Potts, said the company takes responsibility for its content moderation decisions, but expressed regret for not responding more explicitly to the Democratic administration’s urging. He said in written statements: “We believe that the government pressure was wrong and we wish we had been more frank about it.” “We should not compromise our content standards because of pressure from any administration in either direction, and we are prepared to respond if something like this happens again.”

dead The Facebook page was recently removed To track Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions after “outreach” from the Department of Justice; Whether she considered herself pressured or not was not questioned at the hearing.

Markham Erickson, Google’s vice president of government affairs and public policy, didn’t go as far as Meta. He said Google regularly hears from governments around the world about content it believes should be removed, and sometimes — including in response to some Biden administration requests — it says no. “Regardless of how the information reaches us, we feel a responsibility and take pride in the way we handle those communications to make independent decisions,” he said.

Different strategies are important at a time when technology companies are spending millions the pressure And other projects discussed by critics Can constitute bribes To the Trump administration. Technology companies have Pumping money into Trump’s inauguration fund, settle Lawsuits Because their accounts were suspended after the January 6 uprising, they changed their policies to be more in line with the desires of conservatives.

Meta in particular introduced A A stark change in fact checking policies at the beginning of the year, and address long-standing criticism from the right. CEO Mark Zuckerberg also said he regretted not speaking out against the Biden administration last year. He told the Republican-led House Judiciary Committee That Biden pushed him to “censor” the content. In fact, a number of its decisions — including calls out posts about the coronavirus and false election claims, in addition Suspension of President Donald Trump -It happened during the Trump era.

Wednesday’s session pointed to differences in how tech companies deal with political pressure. But Google has also taken actions that could appease Republicans, including criticizing the Biden administration’s demands for content moderation. He – she He told the House Judiciary Committee It is wrong and unacceptable for any government, including the Biden administration, to try to dictate how a company moderates content. And that recently Established a “second chance” policy. For YouTube creators banned for elections and coronavirus-related misinformation, among other categories.

One of the goals of the hearing was to allow Cruz, chairman of the Commerce Committee, Preview the legislation It works to provide more transparency in government officials’ communications with technology companies, and to allow people who believe they have been wrongfully censored at the government’s request to collect compensation. All four witnesses — Butts, Erickson, Legal Director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) Will Creeley, and Vice President of Public Knowledge Harold Feld — said they generally supported Cruz’s approach, while caveating that they had not seen the final text.

Cruz appears eager to capitalize on Democrats’ allegations of censorship by the Trump administration to gain bipartisan support for the Jawbone Act, which he has not yet introduced. But at the hearing, Democrats largely criticized Republicans for focusing on incidents that occurred years ago A lawsuit has already been filed in the Supreme Court. They said the actions of Trump and his administration — which repeatedly deported legal immigrants over their political rhetoric and used its regulatory power to pressure media companies — were far worse than anything Biden officials did.

“While I fundamentally agree that this committee should examine the state of free speech in the United States, today’s hearing once again misses the mark,” said Senator Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.). “This is the second hearing to focus on accusations from years ago rather than the Trump administration’s near-constant attacks against free speech rights today.”

“We’ve spent a lot of time talking about the actions of the Biden administration but very little about Donald Trump’s repeated and more serious threats to the First Amendment,” said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). Threatening to imprison Meta CEO Mark Zuckerbergand He urged the Justice Department to “criminally prosecute Google.” Allegedly, critical news stories appeared about him in the first place. Markey asked Potts and Erickson whether President Joe Biden or any of his officials had threatened to prosecute their executives. Neither of them was aware of such a threat.

Field said that even Trump’s threats would usually be what he viewed as a soapbox exercise. But in Trump’s case, “we’ve seen that he means it.” He said there was a marked difference between the first Trump administration and the second, pointing to Trump’s first FCC chairman, Ajit Pai. He refused to revoke NBC’s broadcast license After the president’s criticism of its coverage, compared to… Carr’s threats against station owners Following comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death.

Cruz was one of the few Republicans who strongly condemned Carr’s statements about the Kimmel incident. However, Democrats have repeatedly shifted their focus to the FCC Chairman. “My main question is still where is Brendan Carr?” Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-WA) asked in her opening remarks. “We may have the right hearing, but I’m not sure we have the right witnesses. We may have the right questions, but I’m not sure we have the right administration to cast doubt on.”

Cruz said he expects Carr to testify before the committee as part of its oversight of the agency. This hearing may be the true test of how successful bipartisan action against government censorship can be.