Tony Cardenas Laments 'Rampant Mis- And Disinformation' On Major Social Media Platforms

8 months ago

During a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-CA) questioned witnesses about disinformation online, and threats to US society.

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Transcript

00:00 for five minutes for questions.

00:03 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

00:04 I appreciate the opportunity for us to come together like this

00:06 and have this very, very important hearing.

00:08 It's affecting millions and millions

00:11 of Americans every single day.

00:13 And we hear the horror stories of the negative effects

00:16 of what's happening, especially when it comes to little children

00:19 and communities across America.

00:21 We're standing at a very unique point in American history

00:24 where a number of technologies are converging

00:26 to create a digital landscape that could prove

00:29 to be unfriendly to democracy and the public.

00:33 Advances in generative artificial intelligence,

00:35 as well as the rolling back of social media content moderation

00:38 policies, are opening the door to a boom in mis-

00:41 and disinformation in our information ecosystem.

00:45 Americans who are invested in the least by social media

00:50 platforms will invariably bear the brunt of this.

00:54 We've seen this play out in the past two decades and cycles

00:57 of our elections, where Americans

00:59 whose primary language is Spanish and other languages

01:02 were exposed to higher levels of false information online.

01:06 That includes inaccurate information

01:08 about access to reproductive health, vaccine safety,

01:12 and election integrity.

01:14 Rampant mis- and disinformation serves to weaken democracy

01:18 and embolden our adversaries abroad,

01:20 as well as radical elements here in our own country.

01:23 It has a real-world effect on public health.

01:26 With a major U.S. election looming this fall,

01:30 we need to be paying attention.

01:32 There needs to be accountability from the platforms

01:35 that we trust to connect Americans

01:37 with each other and the world --

01:40 with the world around them to ensure that information

01:42 is designed to harm them, not allowed to spread wildly

01:46 in the name of driving engagement

01:48 and record-breaking profits.

01:50 That accountability also needs to lead to equitable investments

01:56 in fighting mis- and disinformation

01:58 in languages beyond English.

02:01 Dr. Franks, in your testimony,

02:02 you talk about how the protections the tech industry

02:05 currently enjoys because of Section 230

02:08 have resulted in a warped incentive structure

02:11 that can create profit at the expense

02:14 of tremendous harm to people.

02:16 I've sent multiple letters to online platforms

02:18 with my colleagues highlighting these platforms'

02:21 lack of investment in Spanish-language

02:23 content moderation.

02:25 And while the responses we get are sometimes

02:28 receptive to the problem, we don't see a follow-through

02:31 of an investment on acting on it.

02:33 As things currently stand, do social-media platforms

02:37 have any incentive to seriously invest

02:39 in Spanish-language content moderation

02:42 outside of a fear of public shaming?

02:45 -I would say that, unfortunately,

02:46 the answer is probably not much.

02:48 Public shaming can do a little bit,

02:50 but we've already seen that in some of the documents

02:53 and the conversations that have been revealed

02:55 by whistleblowers and others,

02:57 that tech officials often openly talk amongst themselves

03:00 about how, "Oh, there's a new scandal.

03:02 We're probably going to get called before Congress.

03:04 We're going to be asked some embarrassing questions,

03:06 and then everybody's going to move on.

03:08 We'll go back to making money."

03:09 So I think, given the way that Section 230

03:12 has clearly been read and interpreted for these companies

03:16 as essentially guaranteeing them,

03:18 you won't have to face the consequences of your actions.

03:21 You end up with a perfectly rational but terrible situation

03:24 where profit-seeking companies

03:26 think they can expand their enterprises,

03:29 they can offer all of these services

03:31 without offering any of these protections,

03:33 as you're pointing out.

03:35 -What would an incentive structure look like

03:37 that would produce a reasonable investment

03:39 in non-English-language content moderation

03:41 on social-media platforms?

03:43 -I think, at a minimum, you would have to really restrain

03:46 the definition and the interpretation of C1, right?

03:49 The provision that's essentially saying

03:51 you are not responsible, you, Facebook,

03:53 or whoever the company is,

03:54 you're not responsible for these issues.

03:56 That is, as I've mentioned before,

03:58 being used to defend against any number of claims

04:01 that are really far beyond anything contemplated

04:03 by Section 230, I think, in 1996.

04:07 And really, what you would need to show

04:08 is that if you are causing harm by pushing out a product

04:12 that you have not established appropriate safeguards for --

04:15 for instance, it should be clear that if you are targeting

04:18 and making your product accessible to people

04:21 who do not speak English,

04:23 or that you are offering it outside

04:25 of your company's own chosen language,

04:27 you need to have protections in place

04:29 and linguistic competence in place

04:31 and cultural competence in place

04:33 in order to make that a safe product.

04:35 But if Section 230 is interpreted as saying

04:37 you can simply throw up your hands and say,

04:39 "We just offered a great service,

04:41 and maybe we didn't do it very well,

04:43 and maybe it's not that safe," it's not our responsibility.

04:46 I think that particular interpretation of C-1

04:48 definitely has to be restricted.

04:52 -We don't treat bank robbers like that.

04:54 If somebody drives somebody to a bank robbery,

04:56 we don't say, "Oh, you just drove the car.

04:58 You didn't run in and rob the bank.

05:00 The others did."

05:01 You're still held accountable.

05:02 You're involved in that situation.

05:04 You are an integral part of how and what took place.

05:08 And we don't have that for these organizations.

05:10 And if you'll indulge me, I'd just like to ask you

05:13 to give us your written interpretation

05:16 of what a cyber-civil-rights bill should look like

05:19 or some of the elements thereof.

05:21 Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

05:22 I apologize. I went over my time.

Tony Cardenas Laments 'Rampant Mis- And Disinformation' On Major Social Media Platforms

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