September 14, 2022
Senator Lindsay Graham, a Republican critic of Meta’s Facebook and Twitter, has said he wants to develop a strategy to regulate and possibly license social media companies.
Graham said he is working with his colleagues in the House, including Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, on a bill, but did not specify what it would look like.
Graham wants social media platforms to be licensed in the same way that drivers and real estate developers are licensed and can be sued if they violate the license terms.
His plan could also include provisions that not only restrict speech removal, but also require social media companies to crack down on criminal use of networks and foreign interference and establish an appeal process for removed content.
Graham also noted at a Congressional hearing discussing Twitter’s security flaws that social media companies have been empowered to become internationally powerful with few restrictions, and he was concerned that the Federal Trade Commission appears to have few regulatory tools to address them.
Graham’s comments came during a hearing with Peiter Zatko, Twitter’s former chief security officer. On September 13, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing to discuss Zatko’s whistleblower allegations against Twitter, which came amid Elon Musk’s refusal to close the $44 billion Twitter deal, citing Twitter’s refusal to provide him with the total number of bots and fake accounts on Twitter.
The sources for this piece include an article in Reuters.
