Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to testify before House panel

Top public policy officials from Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet’s YouTube division are set to testify before Congress on Tuesday to determine whether the companies were politically motivated in filtering content on their platforms.

GOP lawmakers have taken aim at the social media giants for what they have charged are politically biased practices in the content each site chooses to remove. The companies have denied such claims. 

The companies will send their top public policy officials to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, including Facebook’s head of global policy, Monika Bickert; YouTube’s head of global public policy and government relations, Juniper Downs; and Twitter’s senior public policy strategist Nick Pickles, according to the committee.

Google spokeswoman Charlotte Smith and a spokesperson from Facebook both confirmed to The Hill that they would send representatives to the hearing. Twitter did not offer comment.

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A committee aide said the hearing would also focus on the lack of transparency in the company’s content moderation practices as well as “examine the role of competition law in addressing these concerns.”

The hearing comes as a follow-up to another one held by the Judiciary Committee in April, which the companies declined to attend.

The hearing, which devolved into a bitter shouting match at times, focused on Republican charges of bias against conservatives on technology platforms.

Facebook and Twitter have been working to address criticism from conservatives.

Facebook announced in May that it would conduct political bias reviews to address conservative concerns. In June, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey met with conservatives in D.C. to discuss their issues with his platform.