Lawmakers Hit Tech Over Conservative Censorship

GOP lawmakers on Wednesday laid into Twitter and Facebook over allegations the companies routinely censor and undermine right-wing voices at a Senate hearing.

The Hill reports the often-tense hearing before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, chaired by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), revisited claims by Republicans that Silicon Valley's largest companies are biased against conservatives.

Ted Cruz

Cruz said most of the evidence presented was "anecdotal," but said he hopes more transparency from the tech companies will clear up the issue.

"Argument by anecdote is less than satisfying but it is all we are left with as long as big tech remains a black box that simply says 'trust us,'" Cruz said.

Tech pushes back: At the hearing, the companies' representatives repeatedly said they do not make policies or remove content based on any political bias, and at times debunked instances of alleged censorship invoked by GOP lawmakers.

Twitter's director of public policy and philanthropy, Carlos Monje said the company tracked the Twitter accounts of Republicans and Democrats in Congress for five weeks before the hearing. He said they found no "statistically significant difference" in the number of times the tweets by Democrats or Republicans were viewed.

The hearing was attended by only two Democrats, both of whom disputed its premise.

The subcommittee's ranking member, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii), sparred with Cruz over whether anti-conservative bias by tech platforms is a pressing issue.

Hirono said Republicans were using tech companies as a "bogeyman."