The CEO of Facebook Inc. Mark Zuckerberg and CEO of Twitter Inc. Jack Dorsey argues that their social media platforms are just reflecting the views of a society that is badly broken when they and the CEO of Alphabet Inc. Sundar Pichai plans to testify before a House subcommittee on misinformation on Thursday.
“Our society is deeply divided, and we see that in our services too,” Zuckerberg said in an opening statement to the House Committee on Energy & Trade.
Dorsey, owner of TWTR,
Former President Donald Trump took off his platform in January, haunting his megaphone to about 89 million followers, and said in a written statement: “Simply put, it lacks trust. has been building over the last few years, and it has created uncertainty – here in the United States and around the world. “
Thursday’s hearing, the latest in a series on Capitol Hill a few weeks ago to address Big Tech’s huge impact on the American economy and life, will come as the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission discuss drill down on Google GOOGL searches,
GOOG,
Facebook FB,
Apple Inc. AAPL,
and Amazon.com Inc. AMZN,
at the same time lawyers work on trust-related legislation.
Zuckerberg, Dorsey, and Pichai should be expected at a brushstroke from all Republicans and Democrats who are increasingly rattling for changes in the ways the biggest tech companies do business.
Read more: Google, Facebook will carry out appeasement campaigns ahead of the President’s in-House presentation Thursday
Zuckerberg, who has been a match at conference hearings, will outline the steps the social networking giant has taken to tap the brakes on misinformation. “We have directed over 2 billion people to our Covid-19 Information Center, and over 140 million people to our Voting Information Center,” he says. “This is
an important part of our work to build a healthier information ecosystem. ”
He says political positions make up just 6% of what U.S. consumers see in their Newsfeeds, and hate content makes up just under 0.08%. Facebook has invested $ 100 million to help local news and journalists and is funding a $ 1 million grant program to support testers with information covering the virus, Zuckerberg said.
“Facebook is successful because people all over the world have a great desire to connect and share, not to stand alone and to fight,” Zuckerberg concludes. “This reaffirms our belief that connections and unity are ultimately more powerful ideas than division and disorder – and that technology can be part of the
solve the deepest challenges in our society. ”
Dorsey on Twitter says the company is looking for ways to improve transparency in how it develops content evaluation policies.
“In the last few months, for example, there have been questions about how we should deal with policy breaches from world leaders,” Dorsey says. “As a result, we are currently reviewing our approach to world leaders and seeking feedback from the public. Our feedback period is open and our review
it will be available in over a dozen languages to ensure that a global perspective is reflected. ”
To that end, Twitter’s machine learning teams are “exploring ways and developing a roadmap to ensure that our current and future algorithmic models are
maintain a high standard when it comes to transparency and fairness, ”he said.
Twitter is also trying out two projects to reduce misinformation: Bird guards, a pilot program that expands the range of voices involved in handling misinformation, and Bluesky, an independent team of open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop open and decentralized standards for social media and ultimately reduce hate speech.
“As we look to the future, I agree with this Committee that technology companies have a long way to go to gain the trust of those who use our services,” concluded Dorsey. “For Twitter, that means addressing transparency, fairness of approach, algorithmic choice, and privacy.”