Senator Hassan Calls for a Crack Down on Online Extremism During Senate Hearing
WASHINGTON – At a U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing today, U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan pressed technology experts on how social media platforms can crack down on extremist content and prevent “revenge porn” from spreading online.
To watch Senator Hassan’s questioning, click here.
Senator Hassan questioned Dr. Cathy O’Neil, Chief Executive Officer at O’Neil Risk Consulting & Algorithmic Auditing, about what steps social media platforms can take to curtail extremists’ efforts.
“I am concerned that extremist groups, including ISIS, continue to develop and refine online radicalization techniques that make it easier and quicker to radicalize people,” said Senator Hassan. “At this Committee’s annual threats hearing in September, leaders from the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, and the intelligence community expressed similar concerns. Extremists take advantage of the speed of social media platforms, but also their algorithms, which often facilitate the quick spread of extreme content.”
Dr. O’Neil discussed how social media networks struggle with maintaining appropriate filters against propagandists disseminating false information. Dr. O’Neil added that “The simple truth is that the propagandists are winning that war. To the extent that social media companies can combat it more, it would require much more expensive work and they simply do not want to do it.”
Senator Hassan also asked Dr. Mary Anne Franks, Professor of Law and Michael R. Klein Distinguished Chair at the University of Miami School of Law, about addressing the issue of non-consensual intimate imagery on the internet.
“The proliferation of non-consensual intimate imagery – sometimes called ‘revenge porn’ – is a pervasive problem on the internet. There are a number of truly despicable sites dedicated to hosting that material, but often users also share these private images and videos on large social media platforms – with devastating consequences for those whose images are shared without their consent. Congress and the states have taken notice of the tremendous harms from these situations, and there is some work going on to address the problem. But what more should social media companies be doing…?”
Dr. Klein responded that many social media companies do have a designated team working on this issue, but also that “Those kinds of measure are essentially putting victims at the mercy of these companies. They may choose to make this a priority, they may choose to impose some sort of policies, but there isn’t any necessary reason to continue doing so, and tomorrow they could simply stop. So I think it really is important for the work that is being done by the state legislatures and by Congress.”
Senator Hassan is working to crack down on extremist or other harmful content online. In 2018, Senator Hassan pressed Mark Zuckerberg about the business’s incentive model, and she discussed the same issue later that year during a Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee hearing. In addition, last year Senator Hassan led a bipartisan, bicameral group of her colleagues in sending a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) urging a review of the federal government’s efforts to crack down on child sexual abuse materials available online.
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