Whistleblower revealed Facebook’s biggest fear at Senate hearing: CNN legal analyst

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen revealed what she described as the company's biggest fear during a Senate hearing on Tuesday -- and CNN legal analyst Elie Honig encouraged Congress to look into it.

"The big ticket item here is what we've heard referred to as Section 230," explained Honig. "What Section 230 is is a law passed by Congress back in 1996 that essentially protects social media companies like Facebook from being sued over their content.

The CNN legal analyst noted that Haugen said that the amending of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act was Facebook's top concern.

"I encourage reforming Section 230 to exempt decisions about algorithms," Haugen told senators. "Modifying 230 around content -- it is very complicated because user generated content is something companies have less control over. They have 100% control over their algorithms. Facebook should not get a free pass on choices it makes to prioritize growth, virality, and reactiveness over public safety. They should not get a free pass on that."

Honig added that "she didn't say take [Section 230] away, because there would be First Amendment issues there, but she said make Facebook liable for its algorithms. Make them legally responsible for their algorithms. I think that's a really interesting idea and something that Congress needs to look at doing."

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