Tech giants to testify at hearing on ‘censorship’ claims

Tech giants Facebook, Twitter and Google are sending company representatives to testify at a Senate hearing next week about big tech’s alleged “censorship” of conservative voices.

Facebook said public policy director Neil Potts will provide testimony at a Wednesday hearing titled “Stifling Free Speech: Technological Censorship and the Public Discourse,” held by the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution.

A source familiar with the matter told that Twitter and Google are also sending representatives to the hearing and said there will be a second panel.

The subcommittee is chaired by tech critic Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who has alleged that Silicon Valley’s largest companies — Google and Facebook — are biased against conservatives and routinely censor right-wing voices.

Both companies have pushed back against those accusations, arguing there is little evidence to back up those charges.

But conservatives, including President Trump, in recent weeks have ramped up their criticisms of social media companies. Trump in a tweet last month accused Facebook, Google and Twitter of being “on the side of the Radical Left Democrats.”

Potts and a representative from Google are also scheduled to testify at a House Judiciary Committee on white nationalism on Tuesday.