Twitter has been ground zero in the culture wars that have been raging on social media. Now its CEO Jack Dorsey will testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Sept. 5, the panel said.
The Energy and Commerce Committee made the announcement—where else?—on Twitter Friday.
“Twitter is on incredibly powerful platform that can change the national conversation in the time it takes a tweet to go viral,” committee chair Greg Walden said in a statement on Twitter. “When decisions about data and content are made using opaque processes the American people are right to raise concerns.”
Walton said that the Energy and Commerce Committee “intends to ask tough questions about how Twitter monitors and polices content, and we look forward to Mr. Dorsey being forthright and transparent regarding the complex processes behind the company’s algorithms and content judgment calls.”
Chairman @repgregwalden’s full statement >> https://t.co/mfpN8Oaipmpic.twitter.com/w9924u0mWV
— Energy and Commerce Committee (@HouseCommerce) August 24, 2018
Dorsey has found himself facing the brunt of criticism from the political left and the political right because of Twitter’s evolving, and sometimes vague, policies regarding what content is and is not allowed on the social network.
Last week, Twitter suspended the accounts of far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and his media site Infowars after Jones posted a tweet that violated the company’s rules against inciting violence. That followed a controversial decision by Dorsey not to fully ban Jones from Twitter, even though Apple, YouTube, Facebook, and Spotify had done so on their platforms.
Dorsey also said in an interview with CNN last weekend that, while the company’s employees may have a “left-leaning” bias, “we do not look at content with regards to political viewpoint or ideology.” But many right-wing media companies focused on his remark about a left-leaning bias.
"We do not look at content with regards to political viewpoint or ideology," @Jack told me. But he knows some people do not believe him. "I think we need to constantly show that we are not adding our own bias, which I fully admit is left, is more left-leaning," he says… pic.twitter.com/1i8jJunhfz
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) August 18, 2018
Also on Friday, President Trump went on Twitter to call out social media companies like Twitter for silencing “millions of people.”
Social Media Giants are silencing millions of people. Can’t do this even if it means we must continue to hear Fake News like CNN, whose ratings have suffered gravely. People have to figure out what is real, and what is not, without censorship!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 24, 2018
September’s hearing will not be the first time that Dorsey has been invited to testify before Congress. The Twitter co-founder was previously invited to share information with lawmakers in 2017, but declined to participate, according to Recode.