Zuckerberg Says No Responsibility for Capitol Riot at House Hearing

Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pichai Do Not Agree

[Asia Economy Reporter Yujin Cho] Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, directly refuted accusations that he is responsible for the January 6th Capitol riot.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

On the 26th (local time), during a virtual hearing held by the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee on the topic of "Extremism, Misinformation, and the Role of Social Media," CEO Zuckerberg stated, "The responsibility lies with those who broke the law and acted," adding, "Including former President Donald Trump and those who spread that content."

He said, "Facebook is doing its best to handle harmful and false content," while acknowledging that "the ad-driven business model amplifies provocative and extreme statements," and responded, "Additional measures will be necessary to prevent this."

On that day, Zuckerberg, along with Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, and Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, appeared as witnesses and answered questions from lawmakers for five hours.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pichai did not agree with Zuckerberg's claims regarding responsibility for the Capitol riot.

Jack Dorsey admitted in response to questions suggesting that the riot occurred because these platforms failed to properly address misinformation, saying, "We make mistakes in priorities and execution," and added, "We will be transparent about this and do our best to improve what we manage."

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said, "Addressing online misinformation is a challenging task."

Republican and Democratic House members argued that social media is responsible for promoting misinformation, hatred, and extremism, which contributed to the Capitol riot and the spread of false COVID-19 content.

Representative Mike Doyle pointed out, "While the crowd was damaging the Capitol, the House chamber, and democratic processes, we had to flee," and said, "The attack that day and the movement that incited it started and grew on your platforms."

The U.S. House announced at the hearing that it plans to introduce new legislation to prevent the spread of harmful misinformation on social media.

The House is exploring ways to limit legal protections (Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act) for platform companies regarding content such as posts and comments uploaded by social media users.

Ahead of the hearing, Zuckerberg proposed in a written response the day before that platforms themselves detect and remove illegal content as an alternative to amending Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Section 230 provides immunity to social media companies from liability related to user-generated content such as comments.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.