The Senate Commerce Committee has subpoenaed three prominent tech company CEOs to compel them to appear before the committee after none of the tech CEOs agreed to appear before the committee voluntarily. The tech-heads will face questioning regarding content moderation practices and will likely face a split committee whose questioning is divided among partisan lines.
The Senate Commerce Committee subpoenaed three major faces in the tech sector to appear virtually before the committee in the coming weeks. Sundar Pichai of Alphabet
Hauling tech CEOs before congress is a regular occurrence, with Mark Zuckerberg being a frequent congressional scrutiny target. The upcoming meeting will likely concern content moderation, as a provision that grants CEOs legal immunity in content moderation on their sites was called into question.
"On the eve of a momentous and highly charged election, it is imperative that this committee of jurisdiction and the American people receive a full accounting from the heads of these companies about their content moderation practices," said Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS), the chairman of the committee.
Despite bipartisan support for the subpoenas, the questioning will more than likely be heavily partisan. While both parties place tech companies under major scrutiny, they do so for entirely different reasons: House Democrats are looking into actions that could include breaking up the companies' online platforms, while Senate Republicans look to target legislation against big tech's ad businesses and their platforms' legal immunity for third party content.
On Friday, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, and Jack Dorsey publicly agreed to testify virtually before the Senate Commerce Committee on Oct. 28. The hearing it set to focus on the tech companies' liability protections of Section 230, data privacy, and media consolidation.
