Whistleblower Group Urges Congress to Hold Facebook Accountable for Harmful Activity on Platform
Yesterday, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a hearing titled, “Does Section 230’s Sweeping Immunity Enable Big Tech Bad Behavior?.” During the hearing, the Committee examined whether certain laws still held value during today’s fast-paced digital age.
Social media giants Facebook and Twitter were at the center of the conversation, with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as witnesses at the hearing.
Earlier this week, the National Whistleblower Center (NWC) sent a letter to Senators Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) that strongly encouraged the Committee to investigate the harmful activities occurring on Facebook.
In the letter, NWC references Facebook’s mishandling of three major problems occurring on their website: illegal wildlife trafficking, antiquities trafficking, and terror and hate content.
“Despite the fact that Facebook has known for years that there is widespread trafficking of illegal wildlife and antiquities and extensive networking and recruiting by hate and terror groups on its website, it has offered nothing more than vague and misleading assurances that it is implementing solutions.”
“Tech companies like Facebook and Twitter are allowing for the free-flow of illegal activities to occur on their platforms,” whistleblower attorney Stephen M. Kohn, partner at Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto said. “Congress must hold these companies accountable for what is happening and listen to the whistleblowers who are trying to help solve this crisis.”
Kohn, who also serves as the Chairman of the NWC, represents confidential whistleblowers who have filed petitions against Facebook with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). These petitions allege that Facebook has violated federal securities laws by issuing misleading statements and omitting material information about its handling of illegal trafficking in endangered wildlife and antiquities as well as white supremacist and terror content.
NWC Executive Director John Kostyack released the following statement about the hearing, “Zuckerberg expressed pride yesterday about the transparency reports that Facebook releases to the public each quarter. But these reports consistently paint a rosy picture, never acknowledging that the company’s algorithms and auto-generation features are assisting white supremacists and other extremist groups with networking and recruiting. Until Facebook comes clean about these critical facts, Congress and the SEC have every reason to look skeptically on its claims of transparency.”
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