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At a recent Energy and Commerce Committee hearing focused on social media’s role in promoting extremism and misinformation, Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher (TX-07) pressed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai on their commitment to transparency related to the January 6th attack on the United States Capitol. 

“We've seen that the real-world costs of this unchecked spread of disinformation is in lives, and like my colleagues, I worry that the structure of many social media companies, including those we have before us today, prioritize engagement—including engagement with provocative or extremist content—over responsible corporate citizenship,” Fletcher noted during the hearing. 

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She continued: “One of my greatest concerns regarding how extremist content and disinformation is allowed to spread on your platforms is the lack of data transparency when it comes to independent analysis.  Everyone has claimed they have an internal system… but we have no way to verify how effective those systems are, and that's a huge part of the challenge before us…  We all would agree that we need data and information to make good policy, and to write good legislation, which will be coming out of this committee.” 

Congresswoman Fletcher specifically asked all three CEOs the following questions: 

All three of your platforms chose to remove content that was posted regarding the Capitol insurrection on January 6, and I think we can all understand some of the reasons for that, but as a result it’s unavailable to researchers and to Congress. Will you commit to sharing the removed content with Congress to inform our investigation of the events of January 6th?

By all accounts, your platforms do a better job of combating posts and information from foreign terrorist organizations, or FTOs, like ISIS or Al Qaeda, and others where the posts are automatically removed depending on key words and phrases.  FTOs are designated by the State Department through rigorous criteria to identify groups that wish to cause harm to Americans. Currently there's no legal mechanism or definition for doing the same for domestic terror and hate groups. Would a federal standard for defining a domestic terror organization, similar to FTOs, help your platforms better track and remove harmful content from your sites?

Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Communications and Technology Subcommittee.  She was in the gallery of the House floor during the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol.  

You can watch Fletcher’s questions and the responses during today’s hearing HERE.