Sen Harris grilled Sheryl Sandberg about Facebook's struggle with hate speech

In one particularly revealing line of questioning during the Sept 5 Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Sen Kamala Harris (D-CA) asked Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg how Facebook makes money and whether the company’s hate-speech policies are truly aimed to protect vulnerable communities that are often the subject of prejudice and animus. Her point was that there’s a real question as to whether Facebook, a company whose first responsibility is to its shareholders, is adequately poised to address false news, hate speech, or any other harmful—and highly engaging—content that users generate. Through her questioning, Sen Harris was suggesting that if Facebook was indeed dedicated to making its community safer for all users and weeding out hate speech, it probably would’ve examined its definition of hate speech before it was called out by journalists. And Sandberg didn’t offer much of an explanation for the oversight. Sandberg admitted Facebook was wrong in the past, admitted Facebook makes money from increased engagement, and said Facebook has changed its policies—but she couldn’t address the real problem Sen Harris was scratching at. That problem is that Facebook has every incentive to allow hate speech against historically targeted groups if it means more engagement and little incentive to remove it without outside pressure or regulation. Which might lead critics to a question Sen Harris didn’t ask but was probably thinking: Would the company do better if failing to protect its users’ civil rights was against the law?