Climate Change

Floor Speech

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Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I want to talk just for a few moments about the internet and social media, and I want to make it clear, first, that I believe firmly in free will and responsibility. I believe that no matter what kind of day you are having or what is going on in your life, that you are responsible for your actions.

But I think we all know, as a matter of experience and common sense, that there are things in this world that can influence our actions. Social media, which I consider to be an American invention, has many virtues and many advantages, and we know that. I think it has brought the world closer today. I think it has given many people a voice. I think it is an extraordinary source of knowledge.

But like other innovations in this world, it has a downside. And one of those downsides is the fact that, too often, social media becomes an endless electronic brawl, and rather than bringing us together and exposing us to other points of view and causing us to test our assumptions against the arguments of others, it brings us apart. I think social media is, in part, responsible for that.

We all know that many social media platforms are free. Let's take Facebook, for example. Facebook is a free service. You open an account; you go on Facebook; and you can find out what your high school friends had for dinner Saturday night. Now, we give up a lot from that privilege of watching what our high school friends had for dinner Saturday night. Facebook collects an enormous amount of information about us. And, once again, I am not just picking on Facebook. I am using them as an example because it is such a popular platform that we all know about. Facebook uses that information in a number of ways.

First, Facebook uses it to make money. They know a lot of stuff about us from collecting information about us so they can sell advertisers' ads, and they can tailor those ads to the individuals who are on Facebook according to the information that the social media platform-- in this case, Facebook--has about them. You can even sell more ads if you can keep people who are on Facebook coming back and coming back and coming back.

So this is what happens. Some see this as a virtue, and some see it as a vice. A social media platform like Facebook gathers an enormous amount of information about us, and they learn, in intricate detail, what motivates us and what our interests are. Another way of saying that would be they learn what our hot buttons are. And they continually show us--what is the word I am looking for--advertisements, information, and postings of other people on Facebook that reinforce our beliefs, and, in some cases, they show us very radical bits of information that really push our hot buttons.

Now, why do they do that? Well, No. 1, it will keep us coming back to Facebook, and it will keep us on Facebook longer, which means that advertisers like us better because we are seeing their ads, and it means that Facebook can sell more ads at a higher price. I am not criticizing them. That is just the way the business works.

But the downside of it is that we only see one point of view. Our point of view is reaffirmed. We never see other points of view. We are never encouraged to question our assumptions or to test our assumptions against the arguments of others.

Now, how does Facebook do this? And, again, I don't mean to just pick on Facebook, but it is an example we are all aware of. They use algorithms. I am not going to try to explain algorithms, but that is how they show us information that pushes our hot buttons.

The social media platforms contend that they are not involved in content and that they are just publishers. So when somebody pushes your hot button and you get angry and you say something that you probably shouldn't say--that is why Facebook has turned into an endless electronic brawl--Facebook says: Hey, it is not our fault. We are just a publisher. That is why, under the law, Facebook enjoys what we call section 230 liability.

But as long as these algorithms are used to push our hot buttons, to reaffirm our points of view, to not show us other points of view--one point of view is that Facebook and other social media platforms are not just publishers. They are clearly content providers, and they are having an impact on our behavior.

My bill is very simple. It just says that if you are a social media platform and you use algorithms based on the information you, the social media provider, have collected about us, if you use that information to push our hot buttons by continuously showing us information that just reaffirms our point of view without showing us other points of view, that is fine. That is perfectly legal. That is your business model. But in return, you are no longer going to enjoy section 230 liability.

This would not eliminate section 230 liability in a pervasive manner, but it would say that if you are going to use algorithms to push hot buttons and to keep other points of view away from us and monetize that practice, then you shouldn't enjoy section 230 liability. That is all my bill does.

For that reason, as if in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Commerce be discharged from further consideration of S. 4756, which is my Don't Push My Buttons Act, to which I just referred, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

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