'Who the hell are you?': US lawmakers ask Twitter, Facebook, Google CEOs

Agencies
October 29, 2020

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Washington, Oct 29: "Baloney!", "sham!" and "who the hell are you" scoldings dominated a Senate hearing on Wednesday where the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook and Google took heat in a talking match with US lawmakers over the idea of free speech and alleged anti-conservative bias on the companies' mighty platforms.

The Congressional grilling quickly shifted into the realm of political circus around the social media content moderation dumpster fire.

With less than a week to go for the US election, Republican lawmakers got an earful from critics for the timing of the "sham" hearing.

At the heart of the heated arguments were 26 words tucked away in a 1996 US law - Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act.

Section 230 states that "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider".

Under American law, Internet firms are typically exempt from liability for content that users post on platforms. President Donald Trump has challenged this via executive order which threatens to strip those protections if online platforms wade into "editorial decisions".

For 3 hours and 42 minutes, the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook and Google were at the receiving end of a firehose version of bipartisan alarm over their phenomenal power to influence behaviour at scale.

The Republicans' drumbeat centered on Facebook's and Twitter's decision earlier this month to slam the brakes on an unverified political story from the conservative-leaning New York Post about Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. The story cited unverified emails from Biden's son Hunter.

Trump acolytes jumped on the chance to prove their loyalty. One of them called Twitter's action on the newspaper "a pattern of censorship and silencing Americans with whom Twitter disagrees".

For their part, Twitter, Facebook and Google have struggled to frame exactly how they would intervene and in how many scenarios. And what about content that doesn't fall into their precast rubric or categories of bad stuff? The answers have been less than clear.

Of the three companies, Facebook's sway over behavioural targeting has raised a string of red flags in the context of the US 2020 election.

Multiple lawmakers pushed back against the idea of "unelected San Francisco elites" deciding if content makes the grade or not.

In opening statements, Dorsey, Zuckerberg and Pichai spoke to the proposals for changes to Section 230. Zuckerberg said Congress "should update the law to make sure it's working as intended."

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that if Google was "acting as a publisher", he would be okay with the company being liable for content published on its platform.

Wednesday's hearing comes barely a week after the US Justice Department's landmark antitrust lawsuit against Google which argues that both advertisers and regular people are harmed by the tech giant's position as "the unchallenged gateway to the Internet for billions of users worldwide."

Warnings abound of the coming restrictions and for the "free pass" to end, maybe on the other side of the election results.

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News Network
March 28,2024

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Russia says it is "extremely hard to believe" that Daesh could have staged the recent hugely deadly attack on a Moscow concert hall that the country's intelligence and security officials have blamed on Ukraine and its Western backers.

Four gunmen burst into the Russian capital's Crocus City Hall on Friday and began shooting at the people, who were attending an event. The Takfiri terrorist group has allegedly claimed responsibility for the massacre that killed at least 143.

Speaking on Wednesday, however, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova cast that claim into serious doubt.

"In order to ward off suspicions from the collective West, they urgently needed to come up with something, so they resorted to ISIS (Daesh), pulled an ace out of their sleeve, and literally a few hours after the terrorist attack, the Anglo-Saxon media began disseminating precisely these versions," she said.

The chief of the Russian internal intelligence (FSB), Alexander Bortnikov has suggested that not only Ukraine, but also the United States and Britain might have been behind the shooting.

The Russian Federal Security Service has also said the gunmen planned to travel to Ukraine, where they were to be welcomed as "heroes." The FSB said Western intelligence services aided the attackers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has also suggested that Ukraine stood to derive benefit from the attack and that Kiev might have played a role.

He has said that someone on the Ukrainian side had prepared a "window" for the gunmen to escape across the border before they were captured in western Russia on Friday night.

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News Network
March 19,2024

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New Delhi, Mar 19: The Supreme Court today came down heavily on Patanjali Ayurved for failing to respond to a contempt notice for issuing misleading advertisements and ordered yoga guru Ramdev to appear before it.

A bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah also summoned Patanjali managing director Acharya Balkrishna.

The Supreme Court last month pulled up Patanjali for prima facie violation of its assurances about its products and statements claiming their medicinal efficacy. The court had issued a notice to Patanjali and Balkrishna, asking why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against them.

It noted today that Patanjali did not file a response even though it had held a press conference after its previous order. "Why haven't you filed your response yet? We will ask the managing director to appear in the court during the next hearing," the court said.

The order states both Ramdev and Balakrishna were prima facie in violation of Sections 3 and 4 of the Drugs and Remedies Act, which deal with misleading ads of medicines.

The court also issued a contempt notice to Ramdev, co-founder of Patanjali, and asked him to explain why he should not face action for contempt of court.

Senior lawyer Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Patanjali Ayurved, opposed the move and sought to know, "How Ramdev comes into the picture?"

"You are appearing. We will see on the next date. Enough," the court replied.

"We had our hands tied earlier but not now. As an officer of the court, you (Mr Rohatgi) should know your position," said Justice Amanullah.

The court was hearing a petition by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) alleging a smear campaign by Ramdev against the vaccination drive and modern medicines.

On February 27, it had issued a contempt notice to Patanjali and cautioned them against from making any statements against any system of medicine in the media. It had also pulled up the centre for not taking action and said they were sitting with their eyes closed.

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News Network
March 17,2024

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Beltangady, Mar 17: A three-year-old boy was crushed to death under the wheels of an auto-rickshaw in front of his house at Panakaje Mundadi in Belthangady taluk of Dakshina Kannada. 

The gut-wrenching tragedy took place on Saturday, March 16 morning when the boy ran out of home to the road. 

The victim has been identified as Kaushik, the son of Chandrashekhar and Usha couple. Their home is situated adjacent to the main road at Panakaje.

It is learnt that the auto-rickshaw failed to notice the boy who suddenly darted towards the road and hit him. 

Even though the injured boy was rushed to a private hospital in Ujire and later to Mangaluru, he breathed his last. 

The Beltangady traffic police have registered a case in connection with the incident.

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