Platforms

At a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing, senators had no shortage of complaints for Facebook and Twitter. They decried the platforms’ vulnerability to foreign influence, their arcane handling of user data, and the perception that they buried conservative voices. Congress wanted to send a signal that Silicon Valley would no longer get a free pass — and that the laissez faire environment that has allowed them to reap billions in profits despite the vitriolic culture that social media has engendered was not guaranteed to last. 

House Commerce Committee Republicans accused Twitter of being biased against conservatives. The charge drew rebukes from Democrats during a Congressional hearing that illustrated how partisan lines are increasingly being drawn on social media.  Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, repeatedly denied the accusations as Republicans suggested Twitter’s algorithms suppress conservative viewpoints and discriminate against Republican voices. Rep Mike Doyle (D-PA) called the idea that social media services exhibit a partisan slant a “load of crap.”

For years tech companies have been getting free content moderation from journalists who have often been the ones unearthing illegal or problematic behaviour on huge platforms, with social networks only dealing with issues once they know that there’s an impending news article coming. At a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey noted the role that journalists play in counteracting disinformation that spreads and is incentivized on his platform.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions plans to meet with state attorneys general in Sept 2018 to discuss whether tech companies may be “intentionally stifling the free exchange of ideas.” The meeting will also consider whether tech platforms “may have harmed competition” with their actions, a hint that the Justice Department may be weighing antitrust action against the firms. Legal experts said the agency's announcement “clearly suggests” a willingness to intervene on behalf of conservative critics who say they are victims of discrimination by the companies. The Justice Department’s statement:

Antitrust crusaders have built up serious momentum in Washington, making a strong case that big companies (especially big tech companies) are distorting the market to drive out competitors. We need a new standard for monopolies, they argue, one that focuses less on consumer harm and more on the skewed incentives produced by a company the size of Facebook or Google. Here's the case against four of the movement’s biggest targets, and what they might look like if they came out on the losing end. 

Significant shares of Facebook users have taken steps in the past year to reframe their relationship with the social media platform. Just over half of Facebook users ages 18 and older (54%) say they have adjusted their privacy settings in the past 12 months. Around four-in-ten (42%) say they have taken a break from checking the platform for a period of several weeks or more, while around a quarter (26%) say they have deleted the Facebook app from their cellphone. All told, some 74% of Facebook users say they have taken at least one of these three actions in the past year.

Notable shares of Facebook users ages 18 and older lack a clear understanding of how the site’s news feed operates, feel ordinary users have little control over what appears there, and have not actively tried to influence the content the feed delivers to them. When asked whether they understand why certain posts but not others are included in their news feed, around half of US adults who use Facebook (53%) say they do not – with 20% saying they do not understand the feed at all well.

When you build services that connect billions of people across countries and cultures, you’re going to see all of the good that humanity can do, and you’re also going to see people try to abuse those services in every way possible.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) says he hopes Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey's testimony on Capitol Hill provides insights into his company's algorithms and content monitoring practices as the social media giant battles allegations that its operations are influenced by politics. Rep McCarthy, who has been one of the most vocal critics of Silicon Valley companies over alleged anti-conservative bias, said that he expects Dorsey's testimony before the House Commerce Committee to be the first of several for members of the tech community. "This won't be the last hearing.

Twitter said that not even President Donald Trump is immune from being kicked off the platform if his tweets cross a line with abusive behavior. The social media company's rules against vitriolic tweets offer leeway for world leaders whose statements are newsworthy, but that "is not a blanket exception for the president or anyone else," said Twitter legal and policy chief Vijaya Gadde.