> “Who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear,”<p>Pretty sure that is the opposite of what we (generally) allow our elected officials to do.
Jack Dorsey seems to have lied to Cruz. He said that it was now possible to tweet the NY Post story (at 4:41):<p><a href="https://youtu.be/EsE3mnzgpQM?t=281" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/EsE3mnzgpQM?t=281</a><p>But it apparently is not:<p><a href="https://twitter.com/abigailmarone/status/1321476036211757056?s=20" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/abigailmarone/status/1321476036211757056...</a>
> “Who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American people are allowed to hear,” Cruz said.<p>That's such a ridiculous thing to say. Twitter has the unanimous consent of everyone who is subject to their rules. Every Twitter user became a Twitter user by choice and no-one is going to use violence against them for no longer using Twitter or for creating an alternative. That couldn't be further from the situation with the government.<p>Cruz and other politicians impose their rules on people who never had a choice. The US government did not create the land it claims as its territory, it took control of it by force killing thousands of people. The government is both willing and able to use extreme violence to prevent people from avoiding it or creating alternatives to it.<p>A Twitter user who is angry about Twitter's censorship only has to spend a few minutes to delete their account and create an account with another service (Gab, mastodon, etc.). A US citizen who is angry about the US government's censorship have to abandon their home and be accepted by another government. Even then, the US government may still demand their money and loyalty.
I watched Jack's testimony in part to try to take a lesson in handling the heat. He did very well and stayed cool.<p>Myself, I don't think I handle the heat very well. In executive reviews, I never quite understand what VPs are asking, because the way they phrase questions is always kind of flawed and it makes me think of 5 ways to answer based on 5 possible interpretations of their question, and invariably (<i>every time!</i>) I start answering and then am asked to stop because that's not what they asked. I also get pretty stressed/nervous before big exec reviews (it just always feels like an exposition of any personal failure), and my brain has seized once or twice. I supposed I'm not cut out for being in the line of fire. So much for my dreams of being CEO of a mega- tech company! :-)<p>Maybe goes without saying that I'm envious of my peers who can waltz into the fiercest review and not flinch while they state their case.<p>I'd love to hear from others on this.
> Senator Ted Cruz went after Twitter’s Jack Dorsey after the CEO said Twitter has no influence over elections.<p>Is the answer to Senator Cruz's question (from the headline) "The board of directors of Twitter"?
Might be worth pointing out that the title is clickbait -- This sentence was spoken to Jack Dorsey, not a senator.<p>(Not blaming this on OP at all, it is the original title.)
Some of the stuff Mike Lee is talking about is very troubling. He is saying the mere act of "labeling: content is censorship. This would classify things like spam filters (or hell, email with an important flag set) as mechanisms for censorship.
What should social media do with directed propaganda campaigns?<p>If one side of an argument poisons the discourse, what then?<p>Should both sides poison the well?
I am not taking sides, right or left. I think it is fair to say it’s a mess.<p>I fail to see why the US constitution’s protection of the press would apply to organizations indistinguishable from political action groups engaging in the dissemination and promotion of lies with the intent to shape narratives and manipulate the audience.<p>What the media has devolved into should be outside of constitutional protection. This protection should be reserved for the truth. A high bar, yes, yet the only metric that can assure the delivery of information rather than political indoctrination through lies and careful manipulation.<p>Too difficult? Well, if what is being said can’t be determined to be truthful, don’t say it or print it. It’s that simple. Go look for a story backed by facts.<p>That’s the other point: The constitution should be about protecting quality, not quantity.<p>These enterprises are doing unmeasurable damage to society.<p>Again, all sides are guilty.
Media and the public sector needs to disentangle itself from these spaces. I would suggest writing to your congress-critters asking for an exploration of the ActivityPub ecosystem.
Senate hearings have become a circus. It is only a matter of time before one of the CEOs will deliver a Henry Reardon (Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged) styled speech which will leave these smarty pant Senators with an egg on face. It wont come from Sundar, Jack or Zuck but it will come from someone. Perhaps someone like Musk.<p>Instead of using these hearings to genuinely uncover information we don't have, Senators are using this to ask rhetorical questions that can give sensational headlines for the partisan websites e.g. "Who elected you ? Angry Cruz flays far left tech company Twitter's CEO". I have seen ordinary journalists asking more relevant and better questions to Jack and others than these Senators.<p>These hearings were once about people holding other powerful individuals accountable. Now they are about clever soundbytes ironically optimized for platforms like Twitter.
Either social media is a Platform and respects the First Ammendment and the right to free speech) OR it is a Publisher that can choose what to publish or censor and is thus subject to litigation. Blatant falsehoods about Trump have been published in social media for the past 3 years but verified documents showing Biden family colusion and pay to access to the office of the Vice President is deemed "misinformation"? A blatant double standard that is completely untenable in a free society.
A lot of people, especially on HN, like to characterize this as a Republican witch hunt. Before we devolve into that kind of thinking, remember this line from the article:<p>"Biden has expressed support for revoking the law"<p>Even though there are Democrats on the committee who think this is all nonsense, it is a bipartisan issue, going back years. A number of HN-favorite Democrats also supported what was going on back when they were still running for their party's nomination.
Surely any Senate hearing is a political tussle by definition. This seems like the usual unproductive showboating and I'm not sure any of this will matter two weeks from now.
Scarey note that Biden has said he may support repeal. As every CEO noted, censorship would have to (radically) increase if platforms were no longer had protection from the speech they happen to host.<p>So weird how Cruz &c keep making this sound like there's some mandate that these platforms be nuetral. Definitely in large part to score sympathy, but what if he & his sect realize (how can they not?) & do want to errode the Safe Harbor provisions, make it unsafe to host content online? Or are they confident this is only a PR stunt, & that it will go nowhere?
I'm genuinely curious what the republicans want here. I get that they're mad because they think big tech is out to get them. And I don't even expect a policy proposal or bill at this stage. But is there even a paper from a think tank, or a right-wing law professor, who has put forward a coherent framework for how to regulate social media?<p>My understand is that if you repeal section 230, social media sites would either have to be completely unmoderated (like 4chan) or really heavily moderated (as they'd be liable for everything people post). Is that their goal here? Or if they want to replace 230, what would they replace it with?