Republicans used a Senate hearing to criticize tech CEOs for fact-checking Trump's posts before the election

• Senate Republicans berated the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, and Google on Wednesday, claiming that the tech companies discriminated against conservatives with policies against misinformation related to COVID-19 and mail-in voting.
• The CEOs were subpoenaed to appear at the four-hour hearing, which was nominally focused on rewriting Section 230, a foundational law of the internet that could reshape or destroy the tech companies' businesses if repealed.
• But Section 230 itself was rarely discussed during the hearing. Instead, it focused on the tech companies' steps to fact-check false claims posted by President Donald Trump, which Republicans said amounted to censorship.
• Meanwhile, Democrats voiced concerns that tech companies would be too willing to bend to Republicans' wishes in the week leading up to the election.

The CEOs of Facebook, Google, and Twitter were subpoenaed to testify before Congress on Wednesday about Section 230, a foundational law of the internet that both Democrats and Republicans are angling to rewrite.

But Section 230 itself barely came up at the hearing.

Instead, GOP members of the Republican-led Senate Commerce Committee used their time to grill the CEOs about their treatment of President Donald Trump's posts, and how those decisions could impact the results of the general election next week.

The hearing amounted to a political fight in which Republicans broadly accused tech companies of favoring liberal causes — which the CEOs vehemently denied — while Democrats voiced concerns that Republicans were "working the refs" to pressure the companies not to take action against potential false claims made by Trump about the results of the election.

Republican senators needled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey about their decisions to apply fact-checking labels to Trump's posts that include false claims about COVID-19 or mail-in voting, arguing that the labels amount to censorship.

"I don't like the idea of unelected elites in San Francisco or Silicon Valley deciding whether my speech is permissible on their platform," Sen. Cory Gardner, a Colorado Republican, said.

Republicans also accused the tech companies of systemically censoring or quashing conservative accounts, pointing to anecdotal instances of content moderation despite the fact that data shows conservative outlets regularly generate more engagement on social media. They further claimed that tech companies are primarily staffed by liberal-leaning employees — an assertion that Dorsey and Pichai denied but Zuckerberg said may be true.

And they raised concerns about Twitter's decision to restrict the spread of a recent New York Post article about Hunter Biden for violating its policy against sharing hacked materials. (Twitter reversed the policy within 24 hours of the story's publication and has since allowed the story to be shared.)

"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?" Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, said during the hearing.

In response to Republicans' questions, Dorsey, Zuckerberg, and Pichai said that their companies each rely on algorithms and tens of thousands of human content moderators to determine which posts violate their rules, maintaining that their companies do not favor one political party over another. Dorsey went a step further, arguing that he does not believe Twitter — which is used by roughly 22% of US adults — has the capacity to influence the outcome of a US election.

"We are just one part of a spectrum of distribution channels that people have at their disposal," Dorsey said, adding that Twitter should become "much more transparent about our process" for content moderation.

Democrats at the hearing slammed Republicans for their lines of questioning, accusing them of politicizing the hearing to pressure tech companies not to take action against Trump's posts.

"I have never seen a hearing so close to an election on any topic let alone something that is so obviously a violation of our obligation under the law," Sen. Brian Schatz, a Hawaii Democrat, said. "There is a good reason we don't call people here to yell at them for not doing our bidding during an election. Its a misuse of tax payer dollars. It is a scar on this committee."

There were occasional glimmers of agreement between Democrats and Republicans during the hearing, especially when the topic turned to Section 230 itself. Senators from both parties argued that the law affords tech companies too much legal immunity, and that new standards should be put in place for transparency in content moderation decisions.

"What can we do is focus on transparency," said Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat."We need to establish the kind of oversight that we all want to continue to have a diversity of voices."