CEOs of Twitter, Facebook defend content moderation practices

Republican senators on Tuesday attacked the chief executives of Facebook and Twitter for what they called censorship of President Trump and his allies during the US election while Democrats bemoaned the spread of misinformation on social media.

Jack Dorsey of Twitter and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook defended their content moderation practices at a congressional hearing scheduled after the platforms decided to block stories from The New York Post that made claims about the son of then Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Republican lawmakers have consistently accused the companies of anti-conservative bias.

In his opening remarks, judiciary committee chairman Lindsey Graham asked, “What I want to try to find out is if you’re not a newspaper at Twitter or Facebook, then why do you have editorial control over The New York Post?” He said he did not think articles on Hunter Biden, refuted by the Biden campaign, needed to be flagged or excluded from distribution.

Democrats focused on the spread of misinformation by Trump, a Republican, and his supporters. They pushed the companies to limit the spread of false and misleading content ahead of Georgia elections, where two Republican incumbent senators are facing run-offs against well-funded Democratic opponents - contests that will likely determine which party controls the US Senate.