San Francisco, Nov 30, : .To discuss potential legislative changes to tech’s controversial legal liability shield — Section 233, the US House Democrats announced that Frances Haugen, a Facebook whistleblower, will testify before Congress for the second time on Wednesday. According to The Verge, the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee for communications and technology will hold the hearing to discuss what Democrats call “targeted reforms” of Section 230.
Numerous committee members have already introduced bills to create carve-outs that would make large tech companies like Google and Facebook legally liable for any algorithms that amplify violence offline.
According to House Democrats, Haugen will testify alongside Colour of Change president Rashad Robins on Monday.
Republicans are expected to be witnesses at the hearing.
Additional expert witnesses from organizations like Cyber Civil Rights Initiative and Free Press Action will be part of a second panel.
In October, Haugen testified before Senate Commerce Committee shortly after she leaked a cache internal Facebook reports to Wall Street Journal.
While the reports showed several serious policy and moderation shortcomings at Facebook, lawmakers have primarily focused on documents regarding Instagram’s mental health effects on young users.
These reports led to the committee holding additional hearings with representatives of other social platforms such as Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube.
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