Will Biden Crack Down on Facebook as Misinformation Spreads?

(TNS) — As  President Trump  and his supporters continue to spread false information about the results of the election, officials from the incoming Biden administration are ramping up criticism of tech companies, in particular Facebook.

In a move that may telegraph a more muscular approach to fighting online misinformation, one of Biden's senior aides unleashed a broadside against the social networking giant in a series of tweets.

"If you thought disinformation on Facebook was a problem during our election, just wait until you see how it is shredding the fabric of our democracy in the days after,"  Bill Russo , a Biden deputy press secretary, wrote Monday on Twitter.

Russo lambasted the Menlo Park company for allowing what he said were appeals for violence to remain on its core network for hours, even days, before being taken down. He also called the company out for carrying a live stream of a Trump campaign news conference that conservative-leaning Fox News cut away from because it advanced unsubstantiated claims about voter fraud during the election.

"We knew this would happen. We pleaded with Facebook for over a year to be serious about these problems. They have not," Russo wrote. "Our democracy is on the line. We need answers."

Russo's fiery posts were not the first anti- Facebook rhetoric to come from the Biden camp.

"I've never been a big (Mark)  Zuckerberg  fan," nor of Facebook, then-candidate Biden said late last year, referring to the company CEO during a December interview with the New York Times editorial board.

Facebook defended its performance in combating misinformation.

"In the lead-up to this election, we announced new products and policies to reduce the spread of misinformation and the potential for confusion or civil unrest," spokesman  Daniel Roberts  said in a statement.

"We built the largest third-party fact-checking network of any platform and they remain actively focused on claims about the election, including conspiracy theories," Roberts added. "We changed our products to ensure fewer people see false information and are made aware of it when they do."

Facebook also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, both of which have been vectors for political misinformation in elections around the world.

The president-elect's approach to regulating social media remains uncertain. He supports revoking Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields tech companies from liability from user posts. He has said that the law lets tech companies spread falsehoods without any consequences, but any change to it depends on an act of Congress, where the balance of power remains unclear.

A Biden spokesman didn't respond to questions about the president-elect's tech policy priorities.

Earlier this year, Trump sought to weaken the same section through an executive order, but was motivated by what he said was tech company censorship. Republicans have complained that social media companies are biased against conservatives.

Experts say that revoking Section 230 would have a much greater effect beyond social media companies.

"This is the foundational law that has enabled the development of the internet as we use it today," said  Michael Petricone , senior vice president of government affairs and regulation at the Consumer Technology Association, a tech trade group.

"The potential impact here is huge," Petricone said. "We often talk about Section 230 in the context of a few big companies," but any consumer review service like Yelp, digital marketplace, or other websites like Wikipedia or Reddit could face litigation for posts on their sites without the protection.

Supporters of Section 230 are calling for measured reforms. Zuckerberg himself has called for updates to ensure it is working as intended through collaboration between businesses and lawmakers.

"Section 230 is a foundational principle for protecting users' voices online. It allows platforms to host a wide array of public speech without worrying they'll be sued for every comment posted on their service — and, critically, it allows them to respond to things like hate speech and misinformation," said  Alexandra Givens , CEO of the Center for Democracy & Technology, an advocacy group partially backed by the tech industry.

She said any reforms should recognize "the important balance attained by Section 230," which specifically allows tech companies to moderate user posts without losing their protection from liability, and respect the First Amendment. The group sued to block Trump's order on Section 230.

Biden has said Zuckerberg and his company should face civil penalties for what he said was knowingly allowing misinformation and intentional disinformation to spread on their sites.

The New York Times "can't write something you know to be false and be exempt from being sued. But he can," Biden said in December.

Tech groups still see prospects for an improved relationship with the White House after its occupant changes in January.

"Considering the fraught relationship the industry had with  President Trump  over issues of content moderation, trade, immigration and net neutrality, this is a welcome shift for the tech community. Biden is a centrist and is more pragmatic than his predecessor," said  Jennifer Stojkovic , executive director of SF.citi, an advocacy group for San Francisco tech companies.

As watchful as tech companies might be over their relationship with Washington, they are equally if not more concerned with the perception of their efforts to manage fake news and polarization inside their ranks.

Since Trump's election in 2016, concern over misinformation has roiled management, hurt morale and even hindered recruiting at some big  Bay Area  tech companies. But workers expressed some satisfaction with how their companies handled the election through an informal poll run for The Chronicle by Blind, an app that lets workers talk about their companies anonymously and verifies they work at a particular company through their work email.

More than three-quarters of the 25 Facebook employees who responded to one survey question said their company had handled the election results as best as it could. About 70% of the 42 Google respondents said the same of their company.

Responding to a different survey question, the vast majority of nearly 60 tech employees felt that their company had handled the election better than other tech giants. On yet another question, most of the more than 50 tech workers who responded — some from Facebook and Google — did not believe their companies had unfairly affected the results. Most said they would not consider changing jobs because of how the election results were handled on their sites.

More urgent crises, including an ongoing pandemic and a flailing economy, could impede the Biden administration from prioritizing tech policies.

"There's no shortage of crises of the moment that we need to address," including the worsening coronavirus pandemic, said  Cori Zarek , a professor at Georgetown University and former U.S. deputy chief technology officer during the Obama administration.

"At the same time, we can't turn away from the increase in the reach of online speech and where it's headed," Zarek said.

Elected officials will still have huge influence through social media which they can use, as Trump has, to drown out media sources.

"The challenge is getting people elected who are going to reduce their own media power in the best interest of the country," said  Jennifer Grygiel , a professor at Syracuse University and an expert in social media.

Grygiel said while Biden is likely to use sites like Twitter and Facebook without spreading falsehoods, the potential for governments to abuse social media will remain long after Trump.

"Just because another administration might be more respectful of the norms, it doesn't make the risk go away," Grygiel said.

(c)2020 the San Francisco Chronicle. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.