Advocates for free speech caution against giving university and government researchers sole authority over data on social media. Legislators expect to shortly consider a proposal that would force Big Tech to reveal new information.
Bipartisan legislation would allow the National Science Foundation authority to select university researchers for data collection from social media firms pertaining to data management. Sens. The legislation will be introduced by Rob Portman, Amy Klobuchar (D–OH) and Chris Coonss (D–DE).
The data to be disclosed would include content that violates platforms’ standards, the processes driving algorithms’ elevation of such content, info about user accounts “responsible” for such content, and aggregated user demographic or geographic data, according to the proposal’s text.
This proposal was made as Democrats called for increased censorship while Republicans fought for less.
Klobuchar herself in October said Facebook should ban so-called “vaccine misinformation” similar to YouTube’s restrictive ban. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D.CT) was among many lawmakers to call for President Joe Biden’s pro-censorship support in tech reform.
One of the many pieces of tech legislation Congress is considering is the yet to be introduced data transparency proposal. The bills address a broad range of issues, including data transparency and Section 230 reform.
To discourage the government and university researchers from cloistering control of companies’ and users’ data, it’s key for the Portman/Klobuchar bill to have enforceable requirements for tech companies to make public disclosures, said Heritage Foundation Research Fellow in Technology Policy Kara Frederick.
According to the current proposal, government-selected universities researchers would need to collect data on Big Tech companies from both internal and external sources. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) would have ultimate oversight of the disclosure process, and would have to “endeavor” to make required information “public,” according to the discussion draft. But it would be up to the FTC’s discretion about whether to force companies to make their disclosures fully public.
Other hedging language says companies must make data about users’ violating content public only if the FTC deems such public disclosures to be “appropriate” in its regulatory authority.
“There must be a public availability component to any of these measures, or else the moves towards transparency are all in vain,” Frederick said.
Jon Schweppe, American Principles Project Director for Policy and Government Affairs, was skeptical of legislative provisions that allow the government to have too much control over tech data.
He said that Congress will often write legislation using vague terms and not specific language. This way, “the administrative state can write all the rules and [politicians] don’t have to take the blame for anything,” he noted.
Schweppe, whose organization is also a member of the Free Speech Alliance, said in a phone interview that lawmakers should avoid establishing the FTC as a “government middleman” for oversight of Big Tech data transparency.
“There’s a lot to be said for individuals having ownership over their own data. This bill wouldn’t do that,” he said during the phone interview. “The bureaucratic involvement here might provide conservatives with a little heartburn.”
Ethics & Public Policy Center (EPPC) policy analyst Clare Morell said she is pessimistic about the data proposal’s ability to respond to conservatives’ concerns about Big Tech transparency. Involved government agencies would likely give research projects to “liberal academic researchers who likely wouldn’t be trying to study the censorship of conservatives,” she noted in an email. EPPC forms part of the MRC’s Free Speech Alliance.
Congressional Republicans’ views vary on how broad a role the government should have in implementing key transparency regulations, according to conservative aides who spoke with MRC.
Though the proposal doesn’t explicitly call for the government to collect company and user data, some language would give the FTC ultimate oversight of the “form and frequency” of disclosures, including potential company “dashboards” to house company and user data.
Some congressional staffers said that giving university researchers and the government exclusive visibility into Big Tech’s content management practices would inject politics into the research and oversight processes.
“If we give big government control of our data, they can then search people that they don’t like and start censoring and targeting them with the government agencies like the IRS,” one congressional aide told the MRC.
But another Senate aide who supports the legislation said they are “very confident” the draft, as written, would not limit free speech, and simply would clarify the internal workings of social media companies.
The proposal is expected to be introduced in the next weeks. It would prohibit social media companies’ internal decision-making process that drives content moderation.
“We’re not trying to wade into these debates about what kind of content should be left up or taken down,” the aide said. “We want this access to companies. They can continue to be doing the things that they’re doing, but we want to know about it.’”
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