Zuckerberg to Ask that Congress Regulate Social Media: Platforms ‘Should be Required’ to Identify ‘Unlawful Content’

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is planning to advocate for more regulation of social-media platforms, according to his testimony released ahead of a congressional hearing on Thursday.

“Instead of being granted immunity, platforms should be required to demonstrate that they have systems in place for identifying unlawful content and removing it,” Zuckerberg will say, according to the testimony published a day ahead of the hearing by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The proposal would be a shift from precedent set over the last several decades, under which Facebook flourished. A federal statute known as Section 230 has shielded tech companies from liability for the content posted by their users.

Former President Donald Trump notably voiced support for reversing that precedent, and even ordered the Federal Communications Commission to look into it. But the reversal failed to take place before Trump left office.

Facebook has long supported the change, but small companies with fewer resources to police their users — including Etsy and Tripadvisor — have been more reticent about the shift.

“Platforms should not be held liable if a particular piece of content evades its detection — that would be impractical for platforms with billions of posts per day — but they should be required to have adequate systems in place to address unlawful content,” Zuckerberg’s written testimony stated.

Zuckerberg is set to appear virtually at the hearing along with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Google CEO Sundar Pichai to talk about “social media’s role is promoting extremism and misinformation.”