Senate Commerce Plans 2 Social Media Algorithm Hearings; More Experts Rap CDA S. 230 Bills
The Senate Commerce Committee plans hearings next week on social media platforms’ impact on children and legislation aimed at addressing those companies’ use of algorithms to manipulate user experiences. Instagram head Adam Mosseri will testify at a Dec. 8 Consumer…
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Protection Subcommittee panel on social media impacts on kids. The hearing will “address what Instagram knows about its impacts on young users, its commitments to reform, and potential legislative solutions,” Commerce said Wednesday. It will begin at 2:30 p.m. in 253 Russell. Free Press co-CEO Jessica Gonzalez is among those set to testify at a Dec. 9 Communications Subcommittee hearing on “legislative solutions that address the dangers of online platforms’ use of technology to manipulate user experiences,” the committee said Thursday. Massachusetts Institute of Technology associate professor of marketing Dean Eckles, Atlantic Council Democracy & Tech Initiative Director Rose Jackson and Claremont Institute American Mind Executive Editor James Poulos will also testify at the hearing beginning at 10 a.m., also in 253 Russell. American Enterprise Institute Non-Resident Senior Fellow Daniel Lyons and University of California-Los Angeles law professor Eugene Volokh echoed other witnesses during a Wednesday night continuation of a House Communications Subcommittee hearing, raising misgivings about legislation to revamp Communications Decency Act Section 230 (see 2112010058). The hearing examined four Section 230-focused bills: the Protecting Americans from Dangerous Algorithms Act (HR-2154), Civil Rights Modernization Act (HR-3184), Safeguarding Against Fraud, Exploitation, Threats, Extremism, and Consumer Harms Act (HR-3421) and Justice Against Malicious Algorithms Act (HR-5596). “We tinker with this regime at our peril,” Lyons said. “Section 230 is woven into the fabric of online society, making it difficult to predict how a change to the statute would ripple throughout the internet ecosystem.” Volokh criticized HR-5596, which would remove Section 230 immunity when a platform “knowingly or recklessly uses an algorithm or other technology to recommend content that materially contributes to physical or severe emotional injury.” The measure “strikes me as a bad idea” because it would benefit professionally produced content that already has external marketing at the expense of user-generated submissions, he said.