Facebook, Twitter, YouTube Pressed on ‘Poisonous’ Algorithms
- Internet platforms faced questions about how content is shared
- Companies said there’s no incentive to promote extreme content
Twitter’s Lauren Culbertson speaks remotely during the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on April 27.
Photographer: Al Drago/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Executives from Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube were pressed by lawmakers Tuesday on how user content is shared and highlighted on their platforms through algorithms that one senator said can be misused, “driving us into poisonous echo chambers.”
Senator Ben Sasse, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee’s panel on Privacy, Technology and the Law, made the comment as members examined algorithms -- the lines of software code that determine how user-generated information is displayed and who gets to see it.