Lawmakers warn Big Tech CEOs over 'censorship and suppression of conservative voices'

Republicans Wednesday warned the heads of Facebook, Twitter and Google they could lose federal lawsuit liability protections following apparent censorship of conservative content on their social media platforms.

The online hearing, however, was slowed down by a big tech glitch: Twitter CEO Mark Zuckerberg was unable to connect to the hearing, forcing a recess.

The hearing initially began with Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker citing Twitter’s and Facebook’s decision to block a story by the New York Post, about about potentially incriminating contents of three laptops believed to have been owned by Hunter Biden, the son of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

“These recent incidents are only the latest trail of censorship and suppression of conservative voices on the internet,” the Mississippi Republican said. “Reasonable observers are left to wonder whether big tech firms are obstructing the flow of information to benefit one political ideology. My concern is that these platforms have become powerful arbiters of what is true and what content users can access the American public gets a little insight into the decision making process content is ideal.”

Wicker and other lawmakers want changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to reduce or alter liability protections.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who along with the other witnesses and lawmakers testified by video, warned eliminating social media’s lawsuit liability protections, “will remove free speech from the internet.”