Today U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) submitted questions to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey for the Senate Committee on the Judiciary record following their hearing last week. In his questions, Senator Hawley continues to press both CEOs on their companies practices of coordinated censorship and tracking of users all across the web.

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Mr. Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook)

  1. How many entries in Facebook’s Tasks tool pertain to content moderation and reference contacts at Google?
     
  2. How many entries in Facebook’s Tasks tool pertain to content moderation and reference contacts at Twitter?
     
  3. How many entries in Facebook’s Tasks tool pertain to content moderation and reference contacts or information from the Southern Poverty Law Center?
     
  4. Please provide a list of all hashtags, URLs, and real-world individuals that Facebook has banned across its platform, along with notations of whether the impetus for the ban stemmed from contacts with employees at Twitter, Google, or the Southern Poverty Law Center.
     
  5. How many accounts in the United States has Facebook surveilled or shut down using the Centra tool?
     
  6. When a Facebook employee accesses a Facebook user’s private messages, that access is allegedly tracked and audited. How many such audits were conducted by Facebook during fiscal year 2019?
     
  7. A November 23 article in the Financial Times, entitled “Facebook plans charm offensive for Joe Biden” reported that “[c]ompany executives are planning a major push to encourage users to take a coronavirus vaccine, as well as incentivising people to share content related to the Paris climate agreement, which Joe Biden has promised to rejoin, in the hopes of winning favour in Washington.” Please describe all steps Facebook intends to take to encourage users to share content related to the Paris climate agreement.
     
  8. Please explain how any advocacy by Facebook for rejoining the Paris climate agreement would be consistent with Facebook’s self-description as a “platform” and not a “publisher."
     

Mr. Jack Dorsey (Twitter)

  1. Does Twitter have a policy prohibiting its employees from coordinating content moderation decisions with outside companies such as Facebook or Google, where such moderation is not strictly required by law?
     
  2. Please provide a list of all hashtags, URLs, and real-world individuals that Twitter has banned across its platform.
     
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