Very practical terms. Were in the middle of another election. This election in georgia could determine, in fact, which Party Controls the United States senate. Im concerned that both of your companies are in fact backsliding or retrenching, that you are failing to take action against dangerous disinformation, exactly the same kind of Voter Suppression tactics that existed in the last election and that you are in fact reducing content modification. The fighting words and hate speech in the last election could inflame violence and send poll workers into hiding, discourage people from coming to the polls. We have to expect the same kinds of maligned tactics, in fact they are already visible and im going to ask, mr. Chairman, that these posts and tweets be entered in the record. If theres no objection. That are aimed at delegitimizing the election in january. My question to you is, will you commit to the same kind of robust, content modification playbook in this coming election, including
These are the thingss thatpla h been at the forefront of americans minds in the leadup n to the election, as well as the weeks since our 2020 general election. And, you know, the people that , hear from, of course, believe that conservatives were onser wrongfully being silenced while those on the left were given basically free rein of your platforms. Give of y and one of the points. Oft contention that is often brought up is that you do recruit up heavily from california which he leads to your Employee Base leas skewing quite heavily to the b left. So, my first question is for f both of you. Do you have concerns about yours ability to monitor disinformation on both sides of the political aisle, equally, t given that the majority of your employees typically do lean towards the more Progressive Side . And, again, to both of you, how have you taken any steps then at all to make your Employee Base e more representative of the country as a whole, when it comes to political affiliation . And
I request as a member of this committee that you generate such a list and provide it to me. Witc thank you very much, mr. Chairman. H, thank you, mr. Chairman. Man. Facebook and twitter and google have massive power. Y on i will say its dismaying listening to the questions from my democrat colleagues, becauseo they wantr them to sensor more to silence voices that Senate Democrats disagree with more. That is dangerous if we want to maintain free and fair democracy and fair speech. D d there was a time when democrats. Defended free speech and there was a time when democrats defended the principles of a free press. The yet theres an absolute silences from democrats speaking up for the press outlet censored by big tech. Theres a a silence from democrs speaking out for the scitizens silenced by big tech. At the same time that big tech exercises massive power, it also enjoys massive corporate welfare, through the effect of section 230, a special immunitys from liability that nobody elsey get
Take a hit. The covid consumer, walmart, home depot and kohls among retailers reporting earnings today. Walmart says ecommerce sales up 79 . And elon musks billions, tesla getting a spot in the s p 500. It is among the highest valued companies to ever enter the benchmark index and musk is on top to become number three, that is the third richest person in the world. Indeed, guys. Well start with the retail picture this morning, jim, youve been vocal as to the investor response on home depot and walmart. I guess thats related to the news out of amazon. Look, by the way, those stocks do tend to run up in the quarter and sell off thats nothing new a more aggressive amazon is always something we have to Pay Attention to i remember when amazon bought pill packs, the drug stores got killed i also point out that walmarts online david, thats not going to go away you can argue someone is going to argue thats the peak i would argue that amazon and walmart have taken so much share in this country,
Other, whose platform and has done more to protect the 2020 president ial election. Mark zuckerberg is going all in on the claim that facebooks moves have been historic. They have done more than any other country in history to make sure bad, fake information about this election is staying off of their platform. I will paraphrase something he said. They introduced new policies to combat Voter Suppression and misinformation and we worked with local Election Officials to remove hundreds of thousands of false claims about polling conditions. That he worried could have led to Voter Suppression. There is one thing so far in this hearing everyone agrees on, that is which posts stay up on these platforms, which come down and which get slapped with warning labels should definitely not be up to the u. S. Government. Take a listen. When it comes time to flag content as being reliable or not reliable do either one of you believe that the government should do that . I dont believe so. I think that