TAKE A LOOK UNDER THE HOOD
Two Republican senators are asking federal regulators to conduct an inquiry into how the social media industry curates content.
Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Monday asking the agency to use its investigative authority to look into the opaque content decisionmaking practices at companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter.
“Companies that are this big and that have the potential to threaten democracy this much should not be allowed to curate content entirely without any transparency,” they wrote. “These companies can greatly influence democratic outcomes, yet they have no accountability to voters. They are not even accountable to their own customers because nobody knows how these companies curate content.”
The senators have both been harshly critical of Silicon Valley, accusing tech companies of censoring conservative viewpoints.
The letter comes a day before Cruz is set to hold a hearing on Google’s alleged censorship in which a top executive from the company will testify.
The internet search giant, along with the rest of Silicon Valley, has denied making any content decisions based on politics. And Democratic lawmakers who have pushed for greater scrutiny of the tech platforms have rolled their eyes at claims of anti-conservative bias.