Hearing Is Under Way. Here's What to Expect.

By John D. McKinnon

The hearing with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter's Jack Dorsey and Alphabet's Sundar Pichai is under way with opening statements.

The hearing is sure to spotlight Democratic lawmakers' outrage over the storming of the Capitol by supporters of former President Trump on Jan. 6, and the role of social media. But it's also likely to highlight the difficulties of taking legislative action.

Exhibit A: Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.), a key subcommittee chair at today's hearing, has been working for more than a year on measures to reform the federal law that protects online platforms--a law that many lawmakers blame for the proliferation of hate speech and misinformation.

The law, known as Section 230, gives the platforms sweeping legal protection for the words and actions of their users. It also gives the platforms wide latitude to police their sites--or not police them. The companies say the law, passed in the 1990s at the dawn of the internet age, is crucial to the online ecosystem's smooth operation. Smaller companies say it's especially important to them, and to competition. They've generally fought hard to limit or block changes to the law.

Beyond that, there's the First Amendment to worry about. Forcing companies to take any specific actions to restrict hate speech on their platforms could run into big constitutional barriers.

This item is part of a Wall Street Journal live coverage event. The full stream can be found by searching P/WSJL (WSJ Live Coverage).

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 25, 2021 12:20 ET (16:20 GMT)

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