https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20211005/16295147708/if-your-takeaway-facebooks-whistleblower-is-that-section-230-needs-reform-you-just-got-played-facebook.shtml

Here we go again. Yesterday, the Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen, testified before the Senate Commerce Committee. Frankly, she came across as pretty credible and thoughtful, even if I completely disagree with some of her suggestions. I think she's correct about some of the problems she witnessed, and the misalignment of incentives facing Facebook's senior management. However, her understanding of the possible approaches to deal with it is, unfortunately, a mixed bag.

Of course, for the Senators in the hearing, it became the expected exercise in confirmation bias, in which they each insisted that their plan to fix the internet would solve the problems Haugen detailed. And, not surprisingly, many of them insisted that Section 230 was the issue, and that if you magically changed 230 and made companies more liable, they'd somehow be better. Leaving aside that there is zero evidence to support this (and plenty of evidence to suggest the opposite is true), the most telling bit in all of this is that if you think changing Section 230 is the answer Facebook agrees with you. It's exactly what Facebook wants. See the smarmy, tone-deaf, self-serving statement the company put out in response to the hearing: