Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey face Senate grilling over moderation practices

By Brian Fung, Kaya Yurieff and Rishi Iyengar CNN Business

Updated 7:48 a.m. ET, November 18, 2020
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8:59 a.m. ET, November 17, 2020

Facebook and Twitter CEOs to testify about content moderation and the 2020 election

From CNN Business' Brian Fung

Here we go again

On Tuesday, the CEOs of Facebook and Twitter will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, in what will be the first congressional hearing involving Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey since Election Day.  

In the weeks following the election, social media companies have faced a wave of misinformation on their platforms as President Donald Trump and his allies have sown doubt about the integrity of the race, a notion that state and federal election officials — and increasingly, the courts — have rejected.  

What to expect

Much of the questioning from lawmakers will probably focus on Facebook and Twitter’s handling of election-related content. The committee has titled the hearing “Breaking the News: Censorship, Suppression, and the 2020 Election.” 

It will be the second congressional hearing in less than a month zeroing in on Big Tech and its handling of speech. As before, Republicans on the committee are widely expected to air allegations of anti-conservative censorship. Tech companies have strongly denied that their technology is biased against conservatives, and conservative content ranks among the most engaging on their platforms. But that hasn’t stopped Republicans such as Sens. Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley from going after companies for enforcing their platform policies against misleading claims about the coronavirus or about the democratic process. 

Last month, the Judiciary Committee authorized subpoenas to compel testimony from Dorsey and Zuckerberg, though the two executives ultimately volunteered to testify. In calling for the subpoenas, Hawley and Cruz accused social media platforms of engaging in “election interference” over their decision to limit the spread of a New York Post article containing discredited allegations about Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.

As we’ve seen in other hearings, Tuesday’s session may lead to a great deal of heat and light but little progress on policy. While Democrats and Republicans have both taken aim at Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934, a signature federal law that grants websites legal immunity for curating the content on their platforms, the two parties take radically different views about what’s wrong with the law — and about what needs to be changed. 

For their part, the CEOs may squirm uncomfortably in the hot seat for several hours but will likely stick to their talking points emphasizing the progress they’ve made in curbing problematic content while adhering to their free-speech principles.  

What time does the hearing start?

The proceedings are slated to begin at 10 am ET, and CNN Business will have complete coverage right here.