Representative Buddy Carter (R-GA), ahead of Thursday’s congressional hearing involving big tech companies, pushed for “transparency” from the likes of Facebook, Google, and Twitter.
Carter emphasized the need on FNC’s “Fox & Friends” to know how the social media giants are implementing their censorship policies on their platforms.
“This will be the first time we’ve heard from Google. We have had Facebook and Twitter before us in this committee, and we talked to them before, and I have to tell you I’m deeply disappointed because I made it clear at the last hearing — a number of us did — that what we don’t want to have to regulate you guys. I don’t want to stifle innovation, but if you don’t clear this up, we are going to have to. And it seems to go in one ear and out the other because they haven’t cleared it up,” Carter outlined. “I think we’re going to have questions about censorship, I think we’re going to have questions about illicit use of these platforms, there will be questions about mental health. I have a special interest in that because I think there’s a big problem with particularly our students in the realm of mental health right now.”
He added, “You know, we want to know, particularly in the way of censorship, what their policies are and how they are being implemented and how the different policies are being implemented among the different platforms. We need some consistency here. There’s no question about it. But more so, we need transparency.”
Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent
