Platform Accountability
A View from the Field: Testifying in Congress
A View from the Field is an ongoing feature that highlights the efforts of Free Press’ team of organizers and advocates.
Once a month, we provide updates from the field as staffers work alongside our amazing allies and activists to create a more just and equitable media system.
- Vice President of Policy and General Counsel Matt Wood testified during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on “Holding Big Tech Accountable.” The hearing considered reforms to Section 230, a law that shields websites from legal liability for the material users post. Section 230 also enables sites to moderate content that violates their community standards. "Without [Section 230] protections, we’d risk losing moderation and risk chilling expression too,” Wood told the committee. “That risk is especially high for Black and Brown folks, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, religious minorities, dissidents, and all ideas targeted for suppression by powerful people willing and able to sue just to silence statements they don’t like."
- In a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on “Disrupting Dangerous Algorithms,” Co-CEO Jessica J. González urged lawmakers to regulate companies like Facebook that have allowed hate and disinformation to proliferate on their platforms. “Tech firms are unwilling and unfit to effectively self-govern,” González testified. “They’ve amplified lies about COVID and vaccines, served up housing and employment ads in discriminatory ways, amplified voter-suppression campaigns launched by foreign state actors and discouraged participation in the U.S. Census. They’ve targeted abuse at people of color, and have done a particularly poor job of addressing these problems in languages other than English.”
- Senior Counsel and Director, Digital Justice and Civil Rights Nora Benavidez spoke at Harvard Law’s Initiative for a Representative First Amendment for a session on careers in First Amendment law.
- Nora also took part in a panel discussion at the Center for Democracy & Technology’s Future of Speech Online conference. During the conversation, she discussed Free Press’ work as part of the Disinfo Defense League, which is calling on U.S. lawmakers to combat the spread of online disinformation targeting Black and Brown communities.
- News Voices Program Manager Alisha Wang Savson co-facilitated an event at North Carolina public-radio station WUNC about transforming coverage of education.
- News Voices Director Vanessa Maria Graber took part in “Flipping the Script on Traditional News Media: Meet the Changemakers,” a panel discussion celebrating people who are paving the way for community-powered media in New Jersey and Philadelphia.
