San Francisco (AFP)

The bosses of Facebook, Twitter and Google are summoned Thursday by a US parliamentary committee for a hearing on disinformation on the networks, after a tense election, riots on Capitol Hill and the coming to power of a government apparently determined to do battle. with Big Tech.

We take the same ones and start over: this will be the fourth interposed camera audition for Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Jack Dorsey (Twitter) since last July in the United States, and the third for Sundar Pichai (Google).

Large technology companies are in the crosshairs of elected Republicans and Democrats because of their immense power, both economic and political.

Thursday, the questions must relate to their role in the propagation of false rumors about the vaccines against the Covid-19, for example, or the false assertions which circulated on alleged electoral fraud, before and after the ballot of November 2020.

"Self-regulation of industry has failed," notes the House of Representatives commission for energy and trade in its convocation.

Observers expect another theatrical session, where the questions often resemble accusations without calling for real answers and resulting in no concrete change.

But this hearing will have a special flavor, while the representatives have experienced riots that seemed unthinkable, and whose roots are found in the scourge of disinformation.

- Porcelain store -

On January 6, extremist supporters of Donald Trump, convinced that the election was "stolen" from their hero, invaded the seat of the United States Congress, interrupting the ceremony of certification of the victory of Joe Biden.

These attacks left five dead and shocked the country.

The former US president and his allies had been cultivating the myth of massive electoral fraud for months, especially on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube (Google).

He was consequently excluded from these platforms, a subject that will not fail to be addressed by right-wing elected officials, often quick to accuse social networks of anti-Republican bias.

Democrats would like Silicon Valley companies to take more responsibility.

The three leaders will defend the unprecedented arsenal of measures taken to curb disinformation, calls for violence and attempts to discredit the democratic process.

But "if I have to hire seven people to sweep in a porcelain store after a herd of elephants has passed, I'm not going to get a good point if I was the one who brought them in!" analyst Carolina Milanesi of Creative Strategies.

At the heart of this debate is "Section 230", the 1996 law that protects internet hosts from lawsuits related to content posted by third parties, the cornerstone of social networks.

Without it, "the platforms would filter too much content or would not be able to filter at all," Sundar Pichai will insist in his preliminary remarks, according to the text published Wednesday on the commission's website.

- End of immunity -

Many parliamentarians want to reform it, such as Senators Mark Warner, Mazie Hirono and Amy Klobuchar, who defend a "Safe Tech Act" to facilitate legal action against the platforms.

Mark Zuckerberg will for his part propose that instead of immunity, platforms are "obliged to set up a system to identify illegal content and remove it", without being held responsible for any post that passes between mesh of the net.

These systems would be "proportional to the size of the platform" and "determined by a third party", so that the large players do not have an advantage over start-ups.

Jack Dorsey insists on the need to restore trust with users, in particular by giving them more control over more transparent algorithms.

Thursday's session could be all about heated trading and good intentions, but the pressure is not going to ease.

Joe Biden sent clear signals to the Gafa (Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple) by surrounding himself with personalities known for their harsh approach.

Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia University and advocate for tougher antitrust laws, has joined the prestigious White House National Economic Council.

And the new president confirmed this week his intention to appoint lawyer Lina Khan, another Columbia professor hostile to the monopolies of tech giants, as head of the US competition agency (FTC).

Facebook and Google are already facing lawsuits from the authorities on the competition law front.

© 2021 AFP