Partisan dunks eclipse Section 230 in Senate hearing on social media giants

In a hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee on Friday, the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and Google's parent company, Alphabet, faced a veritable firing squad in what has become bipartisan hatred based on partisan reasons.

Today's hearing, theoretically, set out to focus on Section 230, a component of the Communications Decency Act that has historically served to protect online content hosts from the responsibilities that publishers take on.

Given the continued circulation of conspiracy theories and far-right recruitment on the platform, Democrats have put new pressure on Facebook to do more content moderation.

President Trump and the Department of Justice have attacked Section 230 as a means for these platforms to remain unaccountable for how they perform content moderation.

These platforms don't make any of the algorithms running their suggestions public and have very limited information available about their new content moderation practices.

"The moderation practices used to suppress or amplify content remain a black box to the public," said Senator John Thune.

"Due to exceptional secrecy with which platforms protect their content moderation practices it's been impossible to prove one way or another whether political bias actually exists."

Thune is a co-sponsor alongside Schatz on a bill that aims to add accountability to social media content practices while operating within the boundaries of Section 230.

Other bills are floating around with more aggressive provisions against partisan removal of content.

At least one leader in blockchain-based social media noted that proprietary controls over the algorithms running searches and content suggestions have no accountability because nobody ever sees them.