#Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg face Senate over censorship concerns

The Big Tech titans faced another grilling over accusations of censorship and undue influence during a Senate hearing Tuesday.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook honcho Mark Zuckerberg testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee with their companies under a firestorm of criticism for blocking The Post’s exposé on Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine and China.

The hearing, titled “Breaking the News: Censorship, Suppression, and the 2020 Election,” comes as former Vice President Joe Biden was declared the winner of the presidential election but President Trump has refused to concede and his campaign has filed numerous lawsuits to contest the results.

One member of the committee, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), tweeted ahead of the meeting, “I’ve heard from @Facebook whistleblower who revealed @Facebook and @Google and @Twitter coordinate to censor. Facebook has an internal platform to manage it. I’ll be asking Mark Zuckerberg and @jack about this at tomorrow’s hearing.”

Dorsey got out ahead of the line of questioning by addressing in his opening statement Twitter’s decision to lock out The Post for two weeks over its series on Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings.

“We made a quick interpretation, using no other evidence, that the materials in the article were obtained through hacking and, according to our policy, we blocked them from being spread,” said Dorsey, explaining the initial decision to tamp down the stories.

Twitter used its hacked materials policy to justify the move, even though The Post’s reporting clearly spelled out that the material was sourced from an abandoned laptop that formerly belonged to Hunter Biden.

“Upon further consideration, we admitted this action was wrong and corrected it within 24 hours,” Dorsey said.

But Twitter refused to reinstate The Post’s account unless the original tweets on the first Hunter Biden story were deleted, before finally relenting after a two-week stalemate.
“We did not have a practice around retroactively overturning private enforcements … so we created one we believe is fair and appropriate,” Dorsey said. “I hope this illustrates the rationale behind our actions and demonstrates our ability to take feedback, admit mistakes and make changes, all transparently to the public.

“We acknowledge there’s still concerns around how we moderate content.”

Last month during a Commerce Committee hearing, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) slammed Dorsey for blocking The Post’s Hunter Biden coverage.

“Mr. Dorsey, 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 told the social media mogul. “Why do you persist in behaving as a Democratic super PAC, silencing views to the contrary of your political beliefs?”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham in Tuesday’s hearing said Twitter made itself editor of The Post when it censored articles that implicated President-elect Biden in his son’s business deals in China and Ukraine.

A central issue in the hearing is whether a federal law — Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields internet companies from liability for content on their platforms — should be changed or eliminated.

Trump has called for a repeal of Section 230, and issued an executive order asking the FCC to review the law.

Conservatives and liberals both have concerns about how social media platforms operate, for opposite reasons.

The political left has called for more aggressive policing to curb the spread of “misinformation,” while those on the right have accused the platforms of censorship.

Republican Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn told the duo that lawmakers are far from the only ones fed-up with their companies.

“There’s great frustration with Americans and with this committee with the way you act invincible, the way your employees act as if you’re the invincible gods of Silicon Valley,” she said. “Facebook and Twitter don’t get to be the last word in what counts as real news in this country, even though you’re beginning to conduct yourselves as news publishers and distributors.”

Blackburn accused the companies of exploiting Section 230 to grow from start-ups to juggernauts too big to control.

“What you are doing with your power that you have derived because federal law gave you the ability to stand up and grow without being hit by lawsuits, you have used this power to run amok,” she said. “You have used it to silence conservatives. You have used it to build your list. You have used this power to act like you hold all the power.

“You have driven this cancel culture because you have not called to account your moderators,” she continued. “You have refused to take responsibility for your employees and their actions, so thereby, reining you in … is up to us, because you have proven you do not have the will, the strength, the ability, and you will not accept the responsibility to do it for yourselves.”

In his opening remarks, Zuckerberg said he believed “we are well overdue” for an overhaul of the internet’s rules of the road.

“For any system to work, I believe there needs to be a transparent process that people feel they can trust,” he said. “This will be difficult, especially since our country is so divided, but I believe it’s the only way to address these issues for the long term.

“The challenges that we face are deeper than any one platform,” he continued. “They’re about how we want to balance basic social equities that we all care about, like free expression, public safety and privacy. This is why I believe we would benefit from clearer guidance from elected officials.”