It was round two of a doubleheader for Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on Capitol Hill this afternoon.
After providing testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee alongside Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg earlier in the day, Dorsey steeled himself for another hearing — one just for him and Twitter in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The second hearing was a little different than the first — whereas the Senate Intelligence Committee dealt with the very serious issue of foreign interference in U.S. elections and the proliferation of fake news and misinformation on social media, the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing was called to discuss the inaccurate reports that Twitter has an anti-conservative bias and shadowbans Republicans.
Dorsey livetweeted his opening statements, much like he did for the morning’s hearing:
If it’s okay with all of you, I’d like to read you something I personally wrote as I thought about these issues. I’ll also tweet it out now.
— jack (@jack) September 5, 2018
Dorsey makes good points in his prepared statements, especially when compared to other social media platforms: “Our early and strong defense of open and free exchange has enabled Twitter to be THE platform for activists, marginalized communities, whistleblowers, journalists, governments and the most influential people around the world,” he said.
While agreeing with that statement, Republican Representative and chairman of the committee Greg Walden wasted no time in addressing the shadowbanning controversy.
Taking the issue head on, Dorsey explained that the totality of the issue was due to a glitch that kept certain accounts from appearing in auto-complete search results. No content was affected. Dorsey specified that a total of 600,000 accounts were impacted and pointed out that users of those accounts included more than just Republicans.
Unfortunately, that didn’t resolve the issue for most Republican members of the committee, who repeatedly asked Dorsey if Twitter shadowbans conservatives despite his earlier explanation that it was a glitch.
About one hour in, right-wing conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer stood up in the crowd to interrupt the questioning but was herself interrupted by Republican Rep. Billy Long who used his experience as a former auctioneer to drown out her protests.
In an effort to find productivity out of the hearing, a number of Democrats on the committee, such as Diana DeGette of Colorado and Michael Doyle of Pennsylvania, tried to steer the conversation to more substantive issues.
Rep. DeGette brought up misogynistic abuse of women on Twitter and how the responsibility is on them to report malicious users.
“We don’t feel it’s fair that the victims of harassment have to do the work to report it,” Dorsey agreed. He mentioned Twitter's efforts to reduce this sort of behavior on the platform and attempts at mitigation before it escalates.
Dorsey also answered questions about Twitter's verification process, claiming that it's being rebooted; he also explained that Twitter challenges millions of possible bot accounts each week to prove that they’re human.
In a particularly interesting inquiry, Democratic Rep. Doris Matsui of California asked Dorsey about Twitter's interest in the blockchain, to which Dorsey responded that the company hasn’t invested a lot of energy there yet, but admitted they're analyzing its potential implications.
No matter what possible substantive bits can be pulled out of this four-hour-long hearing, the very reason it occurred — as we were reminded of repeatedly by Republicans — was the unsubstantiated and false reports that Twitter had an anti-conservative bias and was specifically shawdowbanning right-wing voices and content.
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