Mark Zuckerberg to Ask Congress to Regulate Social Media Platforms

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Mark Zuckerberg Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, plans to advocate stronger regulation of social media platforms. This is evident from his testimony released ahead of a congressional hearing on Thursday.

“Instead of receiving immunity, platforms should have to prove that they have systems in place that can identify and remove illegal content,” said Zuckerberg. This is evident from the testimony released the day before the hearing of the House’s Energy and Trade Committee.

The proposal would be a departure from the precedents of the last few decades under which Facebook flourished. A federal law called Section 230 has protected tech companies from liability for the content posted by their users.

Former President Donald Trump specifically advocated reversing this precedent and even ordered the Federal Communications Commission to look into it. But the reversal didn’t happen until Trump stepped down.

Facebook has long supported the change, but small businesses with fewer resources to monitor their users – including Etsy and Tripadvisor – have been more reluctant to move.

“Platforms shouldn’t be held liable if certain content escapes detection – that would be impractical for platforms with billions of posts per day – but they should have appropriate systems in place to deal with illegal content,” said Zuckerberg’s written testimony .

Zuckerberg will virtually appear at the hearing along with the CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey and Google CEO Sundar Pichai Talk about the role of social media in promoting extremism and misinformation.

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