[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 171 (Thursday, October 1, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6015-S6016]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 4756

  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

[[Page S6016]]

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. I further ask unanimous consent that the bill be 
considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to 
reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table, all in the vein 
of, we have talked now for years about section 230 liability, and I 
think we ought to actually try to do something about it.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. WYDEN. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, this bill is, on its surface, a privacy 
bill. It appears to have been introduced 2 days ago, and the sponsor 
has arrived on the floor of the Senate and says that this bill ought to 
be passed immediately and without debate.
  My guess is that a small circle of beltway insiders have seen the 
text, but I just want the Senator to know that passing this bill this 
way would just make a mockery of the proposition that we ought to have 
open, public debate on significant laws. We are dealing with a rush job 
here.
  I will just tell you that based on what we have picked up, the 
legislation certainly leaves more questions than answers.
  First, who does the Senator from Louisiana intend to target with the 
bill? On a first reading, it could apply to anybody, from Glassdoor, to 
Spotify, to Cloudflare, to my neighbor's blog, to local media outlets.
  At a higher level, if my colleague wants to protect Americans' data 
from collection and abuse, this bill certainly doesn't do that. On the 
contrary, his legislation would push the platforms to simply force 
users to consent to their data being collected and used as a condition 
of using their service. That is already being done now, and this bill 
wouldn't change a thing for Americans' privacy.
  Very significantly, our reading is that the Kennedy bill only 
requires consent if user data is both collected and used by the same 
company, and it has a massive loophole for data brokers and other shady 
middlemen who are already compiling dossiers of Americans' sensitive 
data and selling it to just about anybody with a credit card.
  For the last several years, I have been blowing the whistle on these 
data brokers and these shady middlemen. We have investigated sector 
after sector where we are seeing these people who really adhere to some 
of the sleaziest business practices engaging in these tactics where 
they can get their hands on Americans' sensitive data and basically 
just sell it to anybody with a credit card.
  I guarantee you, there is not a Senator in this body who is going to 
go home this weekend and tell their constituents: Gee, I want those 
data brokers and those middlemen to be able to sell my sensitive data 
to hither and yon, whatever nefarious purposes somebody might want to 
buy it for.
  The Facebooks, the Googles, and the Twitters of the world have all 
the resources to pay these guys to outsource their data collection and 
be A-OK. Yet again, as I have said for some time, it is the startups 
and the little guys who are going to be left behind.
  I have been working on these issues since I came to the Senate, and 
the only person here, really, who knew how to use the computer was the 
wonderful Senator from Vermont, Senator Leahy. So as we began to write 
these formative laws, I said that my interest is the startup and the 
little guy because the big guys always do great.
  That is why, when we were on the floor talking about the change to 
230 before, who sold out the little guys? Facebook. And all that 
happened was the bad guys went off to the dark web.
  So this is another bill where the Facebooks and the Googles all have 
the resources to pay the guys to outsource data collection, as I have 
been talking about, and the little guy is going to be left behind.
  This bill does not require consent to collect your data. It doesn't 
require consent to use it and follow you around the internet. It 
wouldn't stop Chinese companies from harvesting American data and 
selling it to the Chinese Government.
  If the Senator from Louisiana wants to protect Americans' sensitive 
data, I have a bill for doing that. I have comprehensive privacy 
legislation. It is called the Mind Your Own Business Act. We have been 
soliciting input on it literally for years. It is the toughest bill in 
terms of holding the executives actually accountable, for example, if 
they lie about their privacy policy, if an executive of one of the 
major companies, generating billions in revenue, lies about their 
privacy policy.
  The Mind Your Own Business Act is the bill that is the toughest in 
terms of protecting the consumer. It sets tough privacy and cyber 
security standards for companies that collect Americans' private data, 
gives the Federal Trade Commission more authority to issue serious 
fines, and it is backed up with the strongest enforcement provisions on 
offer if a CEO lies to the government.
  It is not as if you can't write tough privacy proposals. It certainly 
can be done, and others have ideas on how to do it. But based on 
everything I have read, and particularly this provision that is going 
to be a holiday for data brokers and shady middlemen to be able to get 
people's sensitive data, for all of those reasons and, frankly, others 
that are too numerous to mention, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The objection is heard.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.