The committee of the United States House of Representatives has cited those responsible for the social networks Twitter and Reddit and the parent companies of Youtube and Facebook, for “inadequate responses” to a request on the management of these companies to curb extremism on the Internet during the assault on the Capitol.
The committee chaired by Bennie Thompson, which is investigating the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and is now seeking information related to extremism on social networks, has cited these companies for not “having enough information.”
“Two key questions are how the spread of misinformation and violent extremism contributed to the attack and what measures, if any, were taken by social media companies to prevent their platforms from becoming a breeding ground for the radicalization of people.” Thompson said in a statement, according to the US network CNN.
In this sense, Thompson has highlighted that Alphabet could have “significant information” that it has not yet revealed and that could be fundamental to its investigation: “(Alphabet) has not demonstrated a commitment to voluntarily and expeditiously produce (the documents)” .
For example, the committee seeks to know how was the process and decision-making carried out by the YouTube platform to eliminate the account of former President Donald Trump from his servers and if they carried out other measures before the assault on the Capitol.
Regarding Meta, he reproaches him for an explanation about the dissolution of the Civic Integrity team after the 2020 elections and claims that he has not responded to specific requests for information.
These communications have been sent to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, and Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal.
In addition, the chairman of the committee has set January 27 as the deadline for the production of the requested material, according to Bloomberg.
In the summer, the committee requested a large number of technology companies, about 15, including those mentioned, to voluntarily give up their analyzes and records on the days the riots broke out, according to several US media.
