As the hearing’s live stream aired on the House Judiciary’s YouTube channel, comments in the live chat accompanying the stream were so inflammatory that YouTube actually disabled the chat feature mid-hearing.
Unsurprisingly, the hearing struggled to balance its crowded witness list, which included Facebook public policy director Neil Potts and Google public policy lead Alexandria Walden. Potts emphasized that Facebook recently righted its course with regard to white nationalism, though this shift is still in its earliest days.
“Our rules have always been clear that white supremacists are not allowed on our platform under any circumstances.”
As Democrats attempt to grapple with the real-world effects of white supremacist violence, voices on the far right recently amplified by figures in Congress denounce that conversation outright. When political parties can’t even agree on a hearing’s topic, it usually guarantees a performative rather than productive few hours and, in spite of some of its serious witnesses, this hearing was no exception.
Hours after the hearing, anti-Semitic comments continue to pour into the House Judiciary YouTube page, many focused on Rep.
“… Hate speech and violent extremism have no place on YouTube,” YouTube’s Walden said during the hearing.
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