Executives from four of the biggest social media companies testified before the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
This time, Congress brought in a relatively fresh set of product-focused executives, including TikTok COO Vanessa Pappas, who testified for the first time before lawmakers. The hearing explored the impact of social media on national security in a wide range of topics.
Gary Peters pressed each company to reveal the number of employees they have working full-time on trust and safety and each company refused to answer, even though they received the question before the hearing. Jay Sullivan, the general manager of consumer and revenue, said that the company has 2,200 people working on trust and safety, though it wasn't clear if they also did other kinds of work.
These companies refuse to invest more deeply in the teams that protect people on their platforms due to the fact that social media moderation is patchy. Peters said that they had been trying to get the information. This is what makes us so frustrated.
Meta Chief Product Officer Chris Cox was questioned by Senator Alex Padilla about the safety efforts outside of the English language.
Over 40,000 people work on trust and safety issues, according to your testimony. How many of those people focus on non English language content and how many of them do not? "Do you know what I am asking?" Padilla asked.
Cox and the other companies didn't give an answer when asked the same question The executives pointed to the total number of workers who touch trust and safety, but they didn't make a distinction between those who work full time on those issues and those who work part time.
The issue of inadequate content moderation in other languages is an issue that gets insufficient attention due to a bias towards English language concerns, both at the companies themselves and at U.S. focused media outlets.
According to Peiter "Mudge" Zatko, half of the content flagged for review is in a language the company doesn't support. Even though only 9% of the platform's users speak English, the company devotes 85% of its misinformation spending to English language moderation.
Jay Sullivan refused to deny accusations that the company misrepresented information to the FTC. Sullivan said that he could tell you that there was a dispute between the company and the person who testified on Tuesday.
In her first appearance before Congress with TikTok, Pappas fell into step with her peers, evading straightforward questions, offering partial answers and even refusing at one point to admit TikTok's well- documented connections to China. She dodged the question by saying the company is distributed and doesn't have a headquarters. The employees of China-based ByteDance did not access private data on U.S. TikTok users according to the reports.
Portman wanted the company to stop the flow of user data to employees in China. She did not weigh in on behalf of TikTok's parent company but insisted that user data wouldn't be given to the Chinese government.
The Chinese government had a relationship with TikTok. There are members of the Chinese Communist Party employed by TikTok or ByteDance. "Haven't you asked?"
No one at the company has ties to the Chinese government, according to the answer given by Pappas.
The Congress was stonewalled by some of the world's largest, most powerful and culturally influential companies. As chair, Peters was realistic about the situation and said that regulatory changes to the incentives that drive social media companies would not change.
All of you who have a prominent seat at the table when these business decisions are made were not more prepared to speak to specifics about your product development process. Your companies don't want to give us important information.
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