Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey will appear before Congressional leaders as early as September 5th confirmed the House Energy and Commerce Committee; likely facing tough questions over the platforms method of “shadow banning” conservative voices.
“CONFIRMED: Twitter CEO @jack Dorsey will testify September 5 before E&C on the company’s algorithms and content monitoring,” wrote the Committee’s official Twitter account.
CONFIRMED: Twitter CEO @jack Dorsey will testify September 5 before E&C on the company’s algorithms and content monitoring.
— Energy and Commerce (@HouseCommerce) August 24, 2018
“Shadow Banning” is the practice of “hiding” content on social media without the author’s knowledge or consent: effectively limiting their reach for millions of followers.
Various social media platforms have come under fire in recent weeks for cracking down on controversial personalities and content that some viewers may find “offensive” or “distasteful.”
SOCIAL MEDIA SPOTLIGHT: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Sits Down with Sean Hannity
Social media platforms stole the spotlight this week after Facebook, Apple, and YouTube banned multiple personalities over their controversial content; raising serious questions over who can regulate information dispersed to millions of Americans.
On Tuesday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey defended his company’s decision to allow controversial political personality Alex Jones to keep his content online; saying he wasn’t suspended because he “hasn’t violated our rules. We’ll enforce if he does. And we’ll continue to promote a healthy conversational environment by ensuring tweets aren’t artificially amplified.”
We didn’t suspend Alex Jones or Infowars yesterday. We know that’s hard for many but the reason is simple: he hasn’t violated our rules. We’ll enforce if he does. And we’ll continue to promote a healthy conversational environment by ensuring tweets aren’t artificially amplified.
— jack (@jack) August 8, 2018
Dorsey stopped by ‘The Sean Hannity Show’ Wednesday to weigh-in on his platform’s policy towards free speech, hate speech, shadow-banning, and a host of issues facing the nation.
Listen to Dorsey on ‘The Sean Hannity Show’ below:
BITTER TWITTER: GOP Leader Demands CEO Testimony Over ‘CENSORING’ Conservatives
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is demanding answers from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey after repeated allegations the social network “hid” or “censored” material from prominent conservatives and Republicans.
McCarthy officially requested a public committee hearing with Dorsey after recent revelations that the platform engaged in “shadow banning,” the practice of hiding or banning tweets without the author’s knowledge.
“Recently we learned that Twitter limited the visibility of certain conservative accounts, so that some of their tweets did not appear in searches and their accounts were more difficult to find through the search feature,” McCarthy wrote. “This ‘shadow ban’ made it harder for users to get information about certain public officials—or even to learn that their social media presence existed.”
“Twitter ultimately implemented a change to stop penalizing conservatives, but serious questions remain about how and why the company filters content on its platform,” McCarthy added.
Read the full report at Fox News.