♪ host: it is the washington journal for february 20 what. the supreme court hears the first of two cases this week on

social media companies and the content they show. it's said his wreck harmful content posted by users and to a degree those tech companies should be held bible. not -- liable. we are considering were oversight of companies. in our first hour, when it comes to the tech company practices, should the reliable -- be liable? let us know if you think that should be the case. (202) 748-8000 if you say no, company should not be held liable. (202) 748-8001. perhaps you are unsure. call us at (202) 748-8002. he went to texas your thoughts this morning, -- text us your thoughts this morning, can text (202) 748-8003. facebook and twitter. those two cases feature and will

center around a clause in the communications the act, section 230. what it does is it says no provider or user of an inraive computer service shall be treated as a publisher or sak of any information provided by another information content provider. that is generally the first part of the section. a story by bloomberg law goes further and how companies deal with section 230 when it comes to content, saying the section was enacted in 1986. it was part of a set of changes to the communications love to provide safe harbor for computer services that host user content. the law was intended to facilitate the growth of the internet by allowing that forms to moderate user provided content without being treated as the publisher, which would open them up to lawsuits over user posts. twitter and facebook cannot be held liable if the posts were

greeted by user. more than two decades, section 230 liability shield has been nearly impenetrable. in 2021, the ninth circuit ruled the staff could be sued. lemon versus snap. it shows how quickly a user is moving. the parents sued, saying the filter contributed to the deaths. when it comes to that content posted by third parties, should the companies themselves that post the content be held liable? that's the subject of the court cases today. tell us what you think of the first hour this morning. if you say yes, the company should be held liable, call us at (202) 748-8000. if you see the companies should not be held liable, (202) 748-8001. perhaps you are unsure, (202) 748-8002. you can text us at (202) 748-8003. two cases that the supreme court

will focus on this topic. joining us to set of the cases and tell what the potential could be depending on how the justices decide, greg store of bloomberg. thank you for giving us retired. could you set up those two cases specifically, and then the ramifications when it comes to third-party content? guest: these are lawsuits by the family of terrorism victims. host: we will try to get greg store back on the phone to set up this cases rest. this cases, one will be today and one will be tomorrow. if you want to follow along and hit with the justices have to say, you can do so by watching c-span. we take in audio from these court cases and we put them out there for you on her website at c-span.org -- our website at c-span.org.

the first case is gonzales versus google, and tomorrow it is twitterverse's tam -- twitter versus tamna. we are asking you if those companies should be held liable. if you say yes, it is (202) 748-8000. if you say no, (202) 748-8001. if you are unsure, it is (202) 748-8002. let's hear from kerry in wisconsin, milwaukee on the no line. caller: thank you and good morning. i am not sure i have completely thought this through but i'm a big proponent of free speech. my initial impression, and it's not going to be popular but they are talking about putting age limits on social media for kids. i'm not a social media fan. i have seen people terribly hurt feelings.

i have come to the opinion there is more negative than positive. people are throwing up the age of 60. i propose something like 18. kids under 18, certainly while they need a phone for safety and to be order to contact their parents and for the parents to contact them, the only other reason they should need a phone, and they might need a smartphone for this versus the flip phones so their parents could follow their locations, be able to locate them. as far as on social media or the internet on a phone under 18, i don't see the need for. host: when it comes to the companies themselves how much liability should they hold? guest: the problem -- caller: the problem is what is damaging to some is not damaging to others. who decides?

it is who decides what is terribly damaging. i'm a big proponent of free speech. i wish they could be held liable. i certainly think -- i was a journalism major decades ago. it's upsetting there doesn't seem to be -- there is almost no impartial -- host: we got your point. keri talks about that. continue calling in. greg store of bloomberg joining us about these cases. gonzales v. google, the first one comes to content and third-party users. guest: it's a lawsuit by the victim from a 2015 terrorist attack. the family had a lot of claims when the case started. it boils down to this. the family says youtube allowed recommendations.

someone who might be interested in terrorist content would see another terrorist video. they say that that is something section 230 does not protect against. they are seeking to sue the company to collect damages for aiding and abetting that terrorist attack. host: tomorrow's case, twitterverse is -- twitter vs. tamna. set that up. guest: this case is about a different terrorist attack. the issue before the supreme court is slightly different. i think it has to do with whether the company, not just twitter but other social media companies removed content. what the family says is there were all sorts of warnings there was this start of -- sort of stuff on the system.

this is an area where social media companies should move more quickly. that case is not, even though it is interconnected, it is not about section 230. this is a case where the question is, can you sue for this sort of thing under the antiterrorism act? the companies basically need to win one of these cases to the claims are going forward. host: what are they being asked to decide? guest: we have basically two different laws at stake. go forward on this law designed to let people go after supporters of terrorism, and the second, is this big shield that protects not just against terrorism claims but all sorts of third-party claims about content on the internet, claims about hate speech, about defamation which you referred to

earlier at the top of the hour, whether those things can go forward. if so, social media companies would no longer have this broad protection they have enjoyed for the past quarter-century. host: i spoke of the companies themselves. if there is any potential changes to 230, not only would impact the content you speak of everyday content a user might just want to enjoy on his own. talk about what they are saying that how it goes into what is being heard today and tomorrow. guest: they are saying we will have to be a lot more conservative about what we allow online. we will have to really stifle some speech. part of the argument is, the claim with the family, this is about targeted recommendations.

it's about the social media company doing something active, not passively letting third-party content appear. the social media and other internet companies are saying all these things are driven by algorithms. the algorithms are similar, whether we are talking about content or the search engine, we are talking about a platform -- all the things are driven by an algorithm. if we are potentially subject to lawsuits, we will have to really restrict how these platforms are used. host: that the current justices heard this type of case before or have they made their impression on the topic known? [video] they have not heard -- guest: they have not heard this kind of case before. section 230 is something a lot of people have wanted them to take up. justice clarence thomas has indicated he is interested in

piercing the shield of section 230. he is a vote we are watching. one justice we are watching for that reason. there is some possibility it will end up as a conservative-liberal issue. by no needs a certainty -- no means a certainty. -- host: when it comes to today's case, it was making the arguments for and against? who is making the arguments? guest: the lawyer for the family, eric snapper. the lawyer for google is lisa black. divide administration will be weighing in on behalf of the family, largely on behalf of the family. they are essentially saying a slice of this lawsuit should be potentially allowed to go forward. they say the family to get another chance to argue about that beforea federal appeals

court. host: the justices have to take a wide approach or narrow path? guest: they can try to take a narrower path. they are arguing there is not a narrow path here for them to take. that you cannot do with the family is saying and separate search engines and say search engines will not be affected because the company say algorithms drive this whole thing. one way to think about this case, and i have been trying to think about it as these two cases act like offerings for one another. if the court that aside -- decide section 232 difficult, google argues by ruling in twitter's favor in that case will undermine the gonzales family lawsuit and the supreme court would never have to decide a section 230 issue in this case. a lot of people think the court needs to decide. until they do it will be up in the air.

that's an option for the court. host: greg store closely watching for bloomberg. you can see more bloomberg.com. thank you for walking us through these cases and the obligations. guest: my pleasure. host: you heard our guest talked about the legal implications when it comes to the general idea of opening, should they be liable for that content? (202) 748-8000 if you say yes. (202) 748-8001 if you say no. (202) 748-8002 if you're not sure. ou want to listen to the cases after this program this morninat 10:00, that is on the first of the two cases. gonzales versus google. tomorrow the same on wednesday. the second part of those cases. you can follow along on c-span, c-span now, and our website, c-span.org. eric from white plains, maryland on the unsure line. thank you for holding on.

go ahead. caller: thank you very much. i'm concerned that the freedom of speech here is going to be affected, because if content is to be moderated, what can be offensive to me is not offensive to another person. we are on a slippery road here. we should just leave that alone. i don't think the supreme court to get involved. host: that is eric. a couple of you posting on your comments on these cases. jim says youtube receives 30,000 hours of content per hour. something will slip through. should the media company be changed? another viewer says the tech company should be held responsible for the content they

allow. that is part of the first amendment we got away from. it is called the corporate mindset. social media is available if you want to post. our twitter feed, and our facebook page if you want to comment. the new york times highlights some of the arguments you may hear from tech companies when it comes to the larger issue of content being posted by third parties. their story says company say it will be devastating if the supreme court undercuts section 230. elaine prado said in december the protections had been "crucial to allowing not just google but the internet to flourish in its infancy and become a major part of the broader u.s. economy." "it's critically important it stands as it is." a spokesman for meta 22 a

blog post that said he could make it harder for online companies like meta to provide the services people enjoy using every day. it adds that twitter did not respond to the request for comment. sue in anderson, indiana on the yes line. thank you for calling. caller: hi. i don't have anything to say. i just think somebody has to be responsible. since they are the ones that -- since they are accepting these people on their site, these particular opinions, they should be responsible for the outcome. ok? host: do you think the average user could be impacted? caller: do i what? host: do you think the average user could be impacted if there are changes made to the content?

caller: i don't think they are going to be affected negatively. host: why is that? caller: they will be affected by having some of the negativity off of there. host: that is sue. you can make your comments as well. several hearings are taking place over the last few years when it comes to tech companies and liability. you can see those on our website at c-span.org. it was at a recent hearing on child internet safety that both republicans and democrats expressed concern about content on the internet and the role congress should play in it. here's a portion from a recent hearing. [video] >> this is one thing that unites most americans. most feel helpless. the american consumer is virtually unprotected from the adverse effects of social media.

that needs to i think will change. how do you protect the consumer? you have a regulatory agency that protects food and health in general. in this space are not. -- none. you have statutory schemes to protect the consumer from abuse. in this space there are none. you can go to court in america if you feel like you have been wrong, except here. the american consumer is virtually unprotected from the abuses of social media. >> after testimony from brave whistleblowers like francis howgen who presented documents and not just personal anecdotes but smoking gun proof that facebook calculated and drove toxic content to draw eyeballs, more clicks, more dollars, more profit. after facebook hid the evidence from parents. even misled us in congress.

it big tobacco's playbook all over again. the evidence of harm is heartbreakingly abundant beyond any reasonable action is imperative now. host: that was on valentine's day. you can find on the website at c-span.org. lots of other hearings, especially when it comes to the role tech companies like in the content they put out. some concerns over harmful content in the liability tech company should hold. that is a topic we are asking as far as what you think tech company should be liable for. if you say the company should be liable for that content, (202) 748-8000. if you say no, (202) 748-8001. (202) 748-8002 if you are unsure. the washington post takes a look at section 230, sankey portions,

only 26 words long, saying they will provide a user of a computer service that will be treated as the publisher or speaker of the information provided by another information content provider. seemingly innocuous law that was part of the 1996 munication act would get little fanfare when first drafted. it has become increasingly controversial as it has been dragged into battles over what should remain on social media. congress has put forth dozens of proposals to either repeal the law or address harmful content such as terrorism or child sex exploitation on the platforms. donald trump and president biden have criticized the provision, congress repealed for different reasons. democrats argue section 230 allows tech companies to duck responsibility for the hate each and other problematic content on their platforms. republicans have sought to

address long-running accusations of political bias in the tech industry. that is some of the arguments in a behind-the-scenes look at when it comes to section 230 itself, to larger issues of content pleased on these platforms -- placed on these platforms. john for virginia on the unsure line. caller: yes. i used to sell woodworking equipment. i made videos for youtube to help sell the equipment. everybody knows it's very dangerous. the reason i'm not sure is because i'm not sure how they would change the algorithms in order to protect somebody like me selling this equipment. that is my position. i would have to look into it to decide for myself. it sounds as though i might be

liable if somebody caught their finger on a saw. that as my position on the whole thing. it's less about free speech and morally people like myself -- for doing a selling job. host: john from virginia. nick in ohio on the yes line. your next. -- you are next. caller: my name is nick. i am calling on the yes line because in general companies should be liable for [laughter] now that i'm here, they should be liable for the content they put out there. if some content is clearly

facetious, they should take it off. there is other content that they don't know if it is or not -- if it is true or not true, i don't think this should be held liable to research it. as a heavy-duty responsibility. if something is clearly facetious, they should take it off and let the person who put it there have his or her say and what goes on. host: who should make the rules as far as what would be facetious in your mind? caller: some content is clearly facetious. i have seen -- i've heard congressman making -- i don't. -- i don't know. congress has gotten so low there is no consequence for. some content is very facetious, like hillary clinton sponsoring some kind of a pedophile

organization. i don't know. how could anyone say something like that? it is clear that some content is clearly facetious. host: let's hear from another person on the yes line, joe from washington, d.c. caller: good morning. i think companies should be held liable. the best analog i can think of is the gun-control conversation. who should be responsible for deaths at the hands of guns? the people, the company? i personally think companies who make these weapons of war should be held responsible. the same way that if there was stricter gun control in our country, everyday kind users, responsible gun users, they would be an impact but it would be worse for the reduction in deaths at the hands of guns.

i think if there were more restrictions on social media content and what people can say, that would be potentially harmful. in this case there's a report saying a company aiding and abetting in a terrorist attack and people died because of that. i think the impact on everyday users, whatever impact that would be would be worth it in the sense that fewer people would die. i don't think that is a terribly controversial opinion, at least i hope it's not. host: joe from washington. this is off our twitter feed. whatever the best decision for corporate interests is what the extremes will rule. the corporation has been will the person and they're not even mentioned in the constitution. their rights are more sacred than chattel. who is deciding harmful content? if you're curating the content, you are responsible for section

230 need to tweak to clarify this, ok. content moderation is a pretty name for censorship and is wrong always. my grocery store should not be held liable for what i say in the grocery aisle. it is not violating a specific law. leave it alone. those are comments you can put on twitter if you wish. facebook.comc-s -- facebook.com.c-span. this is david in north carolina on are unsure line. good morning. caller: not unsure but i have an answer every are only allowed to call once every 30 days. there was an article in u.s. news & world report this morning

quoting eric goldman from santa clara university say the internet simply allows us to talk to each other. it's also a broadcast medium to different than television and radio. it serves two purposes and is too big of an umbrella. if you're talking about private conversations between two individuals, that is one thing. that is like the telephone. the internet serves that purpose . there's also the broadcast function which makes google, etc., facebook no different even though there is some voluntary content. they are not talking to an individual or dedicated group. they are talking to the public. the internet is no different than radio or television in its -- and its content should be

moderated according to those laws. how does skynet differ the dish tv or directv? issues fall under the same laws. host: david in north carolina giving us his case. that is one of the lines you can choose. if you're not too sure where you fall, maybe you are in favor of more liability for the tech companies. calling on the yes line to say that company should not be liable. call on the no line. you can post on social media. some of your texting us this morning. william says tech liability. they should be regulated to protect citizens of the u.s., especially younger individuals at risk. like an extreme content remain on these without scrutiny? we hear from dave. yes, tech company should be liable for lysing conspiracy

that lead -- lies and conspiracy that lead to death that harm. (202) 748-8003 is how you reach us. this is from north carolina. dave, good morning. were you just on? caller: i already spoke. host: let's hear from carol in michigan. caller: hi. i do believe they should be held liable. they can regulate themselves but they haven't. i think we need a hold of liable. some consequence for not regulating themselves. host: the washington post this morning takes a look at the cases that will be heard this week in section 230 we told you about. how the supreme court could throw the internet into chaos. on the other hand the consequences of removing section 230 immunity for algorithms --

algorithmically recommended content. just sanitize their services to avoid carrying anything close to objectionable, creating either a -- disneyland. elevated content relevant to whatever user has interacted with is different and based on subject matter, which is in terms different from elevated content determined to be high quality. all these types of cure should are under threat. imagine youtube where peppa pig videos mingle with monster truck highlight reels and humanitarian disasters. results with no rhyme or reason. james from indiana on the no life. -- line. caller: i don't think they

should be held liable for content as long as they are not breaking the law. host: what does that mean breaking the law and your mind? caller: the law against showing naked people or running up and down the street. they have to be held responsible. i don't see any problem here at all. i see none. host: jim from annapolis, maryland on the yes line. caller: good morning, c-span. i have a statement and a rhetorical question. there seems to be consensus on both sides about the social media tech giants. going by what senator blumenthal said in the clip that from all the years of witness testimony

from the executives, he politely puts it is misleading. what is it would senator blumenthal claims he has smoking gun evidence that they were misleading but really with it did was perjure themselves. i am wondering why looking back over all these testimonies where they swore under oath to tell the truth, why are they not being referred to the doj for criminal charges of perjury? according to everyone, they seem to think they just lied every time they came up to congress had testified these committee hearings. that was kind of my statement, why hasn't something been pursued beyond just having them keep coming up and lying to the vatican people and the committee members? host: you did call in and you

want to place liability on the tech companies. buys that? -- why is that? caller: it is a censorship and a way of freedom of speech. i don't know if there quality -- qualified to be the arbiters of hate speech. information, disinformation. they are making themselves the arbiters. they should be held liable. then they don't really -- for marketing and advertisement purposes. they are trying to play both sides of the fence here. any kind of exemption like this to 30 exemption should be left

-- 230 exemption should be lifted and they should be held accountable for what they have been doing. host: that is jim giving us his thoughts. he brought up section 230. later on we will have guests with varying perspectives looking at the court cases themselves and the larger implications of what could happen in social media depending on what the court decides. you can hear those arguments this week. gonzales versus google today. that will start at 10:00. you can hear live audio on our c-span network if you stay on if you want to follow along on the outcome c-span now, you can do that on a website at c-span.org. tomoowwitter comes into view when it comes to t decisions and questions about social media. 10:00 is when you can see that case. we will follow along on various platforms. it was the topic of twitter that

was the house republicans recent hearing looking at twitter when it comes to practices, when it comes to the hunter biden laptop story. the featured guest was jim baker. not only was he general counsel for twitter but he has been counsel for the fbi. he talked about the claims against him personally and twitter overall. [video] >> i was not aware of and did not engage in any conspiracy or effort to do anything unethical, improper or unlawful while i was at twitter, period. i did not act unlawfully or inappropriately in any manner with respect to hunter biden's laptop. documents that twitter has disclosed publicly reflect i urge caution with respect to the matter and noted we can morph information -- we needed more information to decide what to do. hardly a surprising piece of advice from a corporate lawyer.

i am aware of no unlawful collusion with or direction from any government agency or political campaign on how twitter should have handled the hunter biden laptop situation. even the many disagree with how twitter handled the hunter biden matter, i believe the public record reveals my client acted in a manner that was fully consistent with the first amendment. i think the best reading of the law is that if a private entity, the first amendment protects twitter and the content moderation decisions. i do not believe the facts in the public record indicate twitter became a state actor as the concept is defined under existing precedent such as the first event would have constrained it. second, i believe i executed my duties and response ability to my client twitter lawfully and ethically. at no time was i an agent or operative of the government or any political actor when i worked at twitter. to the contrary, i worked zealously and diligently within the bounds of the law in pursuit

of my client's best interests. host: that was in early february. if you want to see the whole thing as far as not only what you heard from that guesstimate other people invited to testify, go to our website at c-span.org. you can see it for yourself. when it comes to tech companies and their liability, when it comes to harmful content, should they be held responsible? if you say yes, it is (202) 748-8000. if you say no, (202) 748-8001. perhaps you are not sure. (202) 748-8002. post on a platforms as well. one of the next generation of the story comes up in a story on axios talking about chats and chat bots combined with ai tools. new tools like open ai chatgpt and google's bard have stoped a

frenzy and a flood of online misinformation. technologists word slow to address the danger of misinformation on social media and have incomplete policy solutions. experts are sounding the alarm more frequently as a i bought circulate -- ai bots circulate. generated ai programs like chat gpt don't have a sense of the boundaries between fact and fiction, and they try to make things up to satisfy human users. alphabet faces embarrassment and a 100 million dollars hit to its stock price to seo after -- after bart bungled the marketing video touted to show the sophistication of the tool. axios is where you can see that

story. the legal ramifications when it comes to content, some of you posted on facebook and continuing on saying concluding how about holding the individual that post harmful content liable? what a novel idea. guns don't kill people, people kill people. charlotte sang break up corrupt corporate mergers and monopolies. corporate greed is destroying the social and economic fabric of our society. where vulture rich ceo's are determining our future. i say no, at least no more than cable tv and magazines and newspapers are held responsible for how the audit is used. facebook.com/c-span if you want

to post. charles in arkansas. good morning. caller: good morning. i believe when politicians are held responsible for their actions, they don't worry about what tech companies are doing. i suggest a lot of people listen to c-span on january 20 about julian assange situation. i have not heard anything. that is ridiculous what this company has done. host: you highlight legislators. white tech companies? -- why not tech companies? why not hold them responsible? why not hold tech companies responsible specifically? caller: it depends on the

individual item and the individual people. you can't just use tech companies. host: can you elaborate on that? caller: i listened to the julian assange situation on c-span last night, a replay. i'm sick and tired of politicians. they are trying to rule people that they have no understanding. i agree. there are probably tech companies that can look in the mirror and get their act together, but nothing is as bad as the politicians of this country. host: charles in arkansas calling us. for those of you calling, a

reminder. buett or -- mute or turn down the volume on your tv. the conversation keep you going. a recent op-ed of the hill looks at internet regulation when it comes to the supreme court. "should the court rule tech cos can be hd accountable for third-party content operating on su sites could get very expensive to manage. the platforms would be exposed legal hassles at every turn, logistics and expensive content moderation would jump initially there's a concern they would have free expression rights diminishedf th are forced to tighten content restrictions. su overprotection could chill ee-sech atmosphere of the tech giants, causing them to

take out limit constitutionally protected speech. that would chill speech or social media participants as well. more there if you want to read that for yourself. it was in the hill published on the 18th of this month. you can find online. in recent days we had a guest and discussion looking at social media. one person was carl sabo from that choice, and advocacy group. we asked about the implications for section 230 in light of these court cases and what happens on the company's desk to the companies themselves. [video] >> section 230 is one of the best tools for small businesses. there's a reason why large companies may support reforming section 230. it makes lawsuits less expensive. it makes it easier to dismiss a lawsuit for $50,000 rather than

a million dollars. there's a why organizations have been studies showing the cost to small businesses if we eliminate section 230. it protects disparate viewpoints it says if i post something on facebook and somebody does not like it, they sue me, not facebook because they are rarely the host. just like you are the convening of our discussion. so they sue facebook. facebook is not liable. they can actually have disparate views that are not mainstream. you have discussions on lgbtq issues. discussions on reopening schools. something not necessarily mainstream because they don't have to assume liability. do makes it easier for small businesses to enter the market place. net choice has two lawsuits

going before the supreme court about content moderation. we have a lawsuit against the state of california. they are trying to suppress free speech in violation of the first amendment. host: that's on our website at c-span.org. 15 minutes left if you want to comment on tech companies being held liable for harmful content. the three lines you can call on, if you say yes, (202) 748-8000. if you say no, (202) 748-8001. if you're unsure, call us at (202) 748-8002. texting service is (202) 748-8003. that is how you do that. social media there as well. if interested in hearing the cases, 10:00 is when the audio

the supreme court -- we take in cases on a wide variety of levels when it comes to the high court. we have a chance for you to listen unfiltered. that internet case involving google, gonzales versus google. you can follow along at c-span now and our website at c-span.org. if you want to hear tomorrow's case concerng twitter and its practice the same kind of thing yocado after the sho on the network at 10:00 is how you watc it on tevision. you can monitor on the c-span now have. you can also follow along on the website at c-span.org. from a viewer on twitter. when it comes to this idea of harmful content, define harmful content. for some people it's another

person with a different clinical view. for others it is vulgarity. a physical threat to a specific person. aside from a threat, it is subjective and hard to define. this is lisa page from twitter saying the big tech platforms want this regulation because they will have ai tech sensors. it's about eliminating competition. if someone yells fire at a theater, can you see the theater? -- sue the theater? twitter feeds as well. he continues his travels. he was in ukraine yesterday for five hours or so. he will proceed to poland today as part of his trip overseas talking about the issues. you can follow along on that trip as far as what comes in on c-span and at c-span now. on the yes line in ohio, russ,

good morning. caller: how are you doing? i think the tech companies should be responsible. host: plays that? -- why is that? caller: they caused the problem so they should have the responsibility for. host: can you elaborate on? -- on that? caller: do you mean as far as the facebook in all these other companies? host: the major companies behind the platforms generally. caller: when they decided they were going to censor certain speech and not others and not have an equal platform they became responsible. now they are editorially responsible. that is what i believe. host: we will hear from peter in maine on the no line. caller: good morning.

what i don't understand is why no one is even mentioning the interference the fbi, the cia and the other government officials that are imposing their will on us, on the tech companies. that is the people who are really causing the columns. -- the problem. host: what you mean? caller: the twitterfiles. just look at the twitter files. the government has had their finger on this the whole time. that is a problem, as much as with the what the tech companies are doing. it's a lot more. does anybody else feel the same way about that or my the only one? host: you are saying the companies should not be held liable, is that the case? caller: no, they should be monitoring what they are doing to a certain degree. when you have government

officials telling them what to do it is forcing them to do things behind them being willing participants. that is the huge problem that no one is talking about. host: that topic came up at the very first hearing from any republican-led congress on the committee on weaponization. representatives of the fbi asked questions about the so-called twitter files and the content. if you want to see where they had to say the time, go to the website and our app. new york city on the unsure like, this is bill. you are next up. caller: good morning. i am quite amateur -- unsure. you don't want to restrict free speech. you want equal amounts of

opposite points of view. legally, when newspapers or certain publications put out complete nonsense that is total lies, not necessarily detrimental to society but lies, they are usually liable. why can't social media companies fall under that same purview as publications like newspapers or magazines? that i don't understand. host: when you hear the arguments from the company saying if such changes were made it would change their practices that ultimately change how people interact with these various platforms, to what degree would that be a concern to you perhaps? caller: that is where i'm unsure. i don't know where the line lies. the light might move to a point where we are restricting everybody's because we have a

different point of view. the issue is whether or not it is true or not. the other caveat is undesirable -- i would consider it malice. stuff put on life. -- marmite. -- stuff put online. when they talk about holocaust denial or you take the vaccine, you will grow third ear, it is total nonsense but no one is held liable. united people that believe this is astronomical. it is unbelievable amount of people that buy this stuff and do not listen to any other point of view. when they hear another 20, it does not jive with their world point of view and they just dismiss it as fake news. that is the problem.

the whole fake news they as a monitor everything that is said. host: thank you for the call. let's hear from another new yorker, elliott on the yes line. caller: good morning. thanks for c-span. yes. i am on the yes line. i think that -- i believe if a newspaper takes out a full-page advertisement that contains misinformation, the newspaper and whoever wrote of the advertisement, whoever paid for it, could both be subject to whatever legal process that's out there. in this instance, the reason i

put that ways because our twitter, let's say, it gets money for placing ads. it keeps that money. the reason that it can collect a good amount of money per ad is because there are eyes viewing the screen. the more eyes, the higher the ad rate. twitter is also putting on its platform the things people say. the holocaust denial, vaccine rumors, hunter biden's stuff. all they have to do is either

give the money to the people who were victimized over don't carry that speech. host: this is wally in west virginia on the unsure line. below. -- hello. caller: if you had two guests are and they had two different opinions anywhere them was false, you give say what you're saying might not be true. that silly i think online -- that is the way i think online if somebody -- i'll use the laptop deal with hunter biden. it is not true, they should ban the person from twitter. quite output of parentheses underneath what he's saying and say this might not be true? if they have done that, i don't

think we should censor. if i don't want to do that, i think it should be censored i thank you. host: let's hear from brian in kansas city, missouri on the no line. caller: hello. being liable for harmful content is a decentralized tech world. how are we supposed to cause censorship for something that becomes completely decentralized? twitter, youtube, all these were a precursor for independent servers, independent people expressing their own independent right or viewpoint. the liability issue is going to

be delayed and delayed when we don't even really have a firm outlook on what the tech world is going to look like in the next three to four years anyway. host: how difficult if that is the case for the federal law and regulation to keep up with the pace of the change in technology? caller: i think it is terribly difficult for them to do so. that is why it has been stagnated so long. once they get a handle on regulation and rallied around the centralized in these, there will be some other thing for the new innovation that will take another 15 to 20 years to regulate. i think people have lost a lot of confidence in government. when you look into a decentralized world which we are heading into, the governmental collapse. regulation will collapse. like civic control of monetary funds will collapse.

it's all going into independent privatization. host: gina from alexandria, virginia. caller: i was wondering, does harmful content include when the school shooters do a memoir or whatever on facebook or google or twitter? it seems like the faa always goes after their social media -- fbi always goes after their social media after the fact. i don't see why they cannot work together so they can scan all the material for danger situations. i don't blame twitter or the government i think this should work together. a lot of people have expressed i'm going to do this, and they do it. host: and they posting things online before or after the fact kind of thing? caller: right.

it is concerning to me. that is harmful content but everybody needs to know. host: that is gina in alexandria, virginia on the case when it comes to liability. the supreme court cases you can listen to later in the program. two guests will have a discussion. first up, we will hear from todd harrison with metrea strategic insights, their managing director. taking a look at aspects of the federal budget and ultimately how it leads to spending and the physical -- the school state of the u.s. todd garrison is next. later the he serves as their counsel talking about those supreme court cases today, the potential, what it means for companies that host social media

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get political information. but, only at c-span do you get it straight from the source. no matter where you are from more where you stand on the issues, c-span is america's network. unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. if it happens here or here or here or anywhere that matters, america is watching on c-span. powered by cable. ♪ >> "washington journal" continues. host: as lawmakers debate raising the debt limit, also discussing spending reforms. one of the topics that has come up in recent weeks is defense spending and its impact on the federal budget. joining us for that discussion is todd harrison of metrea strategic insights. a little about your organization. what is it? guest: it is basically a

strategy, public policy focused business unit within a larger company. we do pathfinding research, particularly for government sponsors. we want to look farther and see what is coming down the road. host: when it comes to funding government sponsors, is that part of the defense industry? guest: not the defense industry, but the government and different organizations within the department of defense can sponsor us to do research, like think tanks around town. host: when it comes to issues about defense spending, how do you view these things particularly not what is being asked for by the government but how it is spent? guest: it is becoming more of a hot an issue with the new congress and taking a closer look on the overall level of federal spinning. you've got to look at it in different contexts. one is looking at the total amount of defense spending over time, adjusting for inflation. if you look at it in that respect, we are near the highest

we have ever been. even higher than we were at the peak of spending in world war ii when you adjust for inflation. another way of looking at it is, defense spending is a percentage of the economy. it is a percentage of gdp. when you look at it in that respect, we are fairly low. we are down to about 3% of gdp we spend on defense. how can those two be true? how can it be high in inflation-adjusted dollars but low gdp, it is because of the overall economy. it has grown faster than the defense budget. another way of looking at it, defense as a percentage of the overall federal budget. that depends on which part of the budget you are talking about. you are looking at the total federal budget, which is almost $6 trillion this year, defense is a little over 14% of that. if you are just looking at the discretionary part of the federal budget, that is the part congress has to approve every

year. the rest is on autopilot. the discretionary budget is $1.7 trillion. dod is about half of that. host: when it comes to the 2022 figures, what do we see as far as spending and what were the main issues? guest: in 2022, one of the things that was not expected was the beginning of the fiscal year russian invasion of ukraine and all the supplemental appropriation that was enacted to help shore up the ukrainian military and provide them with additional arms so they could offend themselves. but, a lot of other issues going on within the defense budget, dod is ramping up its spending on research and development to invest in new types of technologies and capabilities that will one day lead to new types of weapons systems that could be incorporated into our force to modernize or force. even right now, this department is engaged in a whole host of

modern issues to replace equipment and inventory, much of which is 50 years old or older in some cases. equipment that has to be replaced, that they have had these long-term, recapitalization programs and process. we like to think of that as a modernization wave, something they have been pushing out in front of them like a ship which a wave in front of it. eventually, that bow wave comes crashing down as crashing down and that is happening now throughout the 2020's. dod has a lot of expensive bills to pay to replace critical equipment and inventory. host: when it comes to 2023, we saw the national defense authorization act. remind our viewers what that is. guest: every year, there are two bills we get for defense. one is the authorization bill, the ndaa. the other is an appropriations bill. ideally, you want both.

for the past 60 something years, we have gotten both for dod every year. the ndaa is fundamentally a policy bill. it sets rules, policy, limits, it has reporting requirements and implies a certain level of funding. we in the aa does not provide funding -- the ndaa does not provide funding. only the appropriations bill can provide funding. they say they passed the defense budget, not quite. you still need the appropriations bill. the appropriations bill usually comes second. it specifies how much money the department gets and how it is going to be used, how much money goes for each and every line item in the budget. at the end of the day, you always need an appropriations bill every year. authorization bill -- an authorization will is great, you

could get by without it. other parts of government other than dod frequently will go for several years at a time without getting an authorization bill. host: that implication dollar wise in the ndaa shows research showing $857 billion request out of t le figure, that is up from $0 billion from 2022. what does that mean? guest: what they ended up finally appropriating was -- in total funding for national defense. that is much higher than the biden administration had requested. significant increase. it was about an eight percent increase from the fy 2022 level. if you happen watching inflation, that is about the level of inflation we experienced in the past year. the budget is increasing, but keeping pace with inflation. what congress did with the additional money they put into the budget beyond what the biden

administration requested, and a lot of it went to procurement, research and development programs, buying back ships that d.o.b. had taken out of the procurement plan, buying more airplanes. you name it. they spread the money around buying a lot of different things that were not requested. many of those things were on what they call an unfunded priorities list that senior leaders in the military submit to congress. some of the things were not even on unfunded priorities list, they were on priorities of congress. host: it is a wish list? guest: it is. host: what things end up on that wish list? guest: it tends to be things that did not quite make the cut when they were putting the budget together. if you can imagine you rack and stack your priorities and eventually have to draw the line, these were things just below that line. sometimes it will be military construction projects to overhaul barracks on a particular base, or build a new

runway or something like that. sometimes, it is buying more equipment than they were able to fit into their budget request. it can vary a lot. it is a lot of of small items, usually. host: we are spending a week looking at budget issues and the physical condition of the united states defense budget spending is our topic today with todd harrison. if you want to ask him questions about it, (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for, democrats. (202) 748-8002 for independents. you can text us at (202) 748-8003. top line figure about 45 n the dollars more than requested by the white house. on capitol hill, there is the debt ceiling conversations coming up about where spending cuts should take place. what is the comfort level of congress from these spending cuts to be spent on the defense department? guest: that is where you get a lot of people getting uneasy.

there are probably a handful of people in congress that think the cuts should be spread pretty broadly across the discretionary budget. but, you are hearing about a lot more republicans and democrats coming out and saying, this is not going to make sense, not just the level of cuts that are being talked about but applying those cuts to defense. i talked earlier, the discretionary budget, $1.7 trillion, that is the top. they want to reduce the discretionary part of the budget, half of it being defense and the other half, that non-defense part of the discretionary budget, a good portion is veterans benefits. so, presumably that would be off-limits, as well. it starts to become quickly rather politically painful if you are going to try to exempt events, veterans benefits and concentrate the cuts on a pretty small portion of the discretionary budget that is left over. it is not there how they are

going to thread that needle and try to appease folks that want to see these spending cuts, but also come up with cuts that can get past. host: last month after becoming house speaker, kevin mccarthy was asked about events spending and places for potential cuts. i want to get your comments on it. [video clip] >> does defense getting more than 800 billion dollars, are there areas i think they could be more efficient in? eliminate the money spent on woke-ism. they are worried about the environment to go through. i want our men and women trained to be able to defend themselves, secure, have the best weapons systems possible. yeah, i am sure they can find some places that they could be more efficient. we have some of the best navy seals, some of the best rangers. they come to me every day as they serve in congress and tell me where that waste is in the pentagon and others and want to be more efficient. every single level of government

should be doing that. this is not our money. this is the hard-working taxpayers money. we should start every day, how can we be more efficient? host: woke-ism programs, fuel programs, centering on the actual hardware and weaponry. what do you think about that characterization? guest: he is right that there is waste and inefficiency in the defense budget. it is everywhere in the government, we need to do better at that. the problem is trying to get that waste and inefficiency is difficult. former member of congress, i heard say one time, waste and energy in the congress is not like that on the piece of meat. the fat is marveled into the meat, it is in lots of little places and can be difficult and painful to excise that. he mentioned a few things i will address. woke-ism programs, there is no line in the budget for that. it is a good political talking

point, but that is not a line item in the budget. you are not going to generate savings by that. do they have programs, diversity and inclusion programs, he might want to illuminate? sure, they do. how much will you say from that? it is really staff time that is being spent on that. if the staff was not spending their time on that, they would presumably be spending their time on something else, right? so it is not going to save you money. as a policy matter, if you want to limit those types of programs, that is one thing. do not count on it saving money. there are lots of other things in the budget that we could probably be more efficiently. some of it is going to require changes by congress, the way the dod contracts for things. they spend a lot of money on what they call cost reimbursable contracts. that is where they go to the industry and say, i want you to develop something for me. i will pay whatever it costs you plus some profit that we negotiate. what incentive does that provide

the company to operate efficiently? if you know you are going to make more money, the more you spend, it is cost reimbursable and he will make profit on top of that, as well. we have contracting mechanisms like that that put the risk on the government. they do not share the risk with the contractor. we could do more efficiently, incentivize more efficient behavior. there are a lot of things we can do. part of it is waste and inefficiency in the defense budget is largely political. a lot of that waste is in there because congress wanted it to be in there. dod has been asking for many years for another round of base closures in the u.s. they have too many facilities in the u.s., they do not need them all. if you look at the analysis, it is mainly in the air force and army. they've got well in excess of 20% excess capacity in bases and facilities in the u.s. why won't congress let them

close those? that would mean eliminating facilities and jobs and people's congressional -- in people's congressional districts. they are sensitive about that. if you want to attack waste and inefficiency in the defense budget, it is going to be a political challenge. that is largely all congress. host: todd harrison, our first call comes from california, democrats line. this is tom. good morning. caller: good morning. thank you for taking my call. the question is, first of all, i know you are talking about the budget. i know three areas that they said they do not want to touch or cannot touch is va benefits, social security and medicare. the question i have for you, mr. harrison, the amount of money they are putting out for the ukrainian issue, is this money they are saying budget wise is to replace the equipment that we

are sending over there? that is all going to have to be replaced. is that what they are talking about, the amount of equipment, this stuff we are sending their, this is what it is going to cost us to replace? guest: that is a great question. on ukrainian assistance. since the conflict began -- began about a year ago, congress has approved about $113 billion in total funding for ukraine. within that $113 billion, about half of it, $62 billion, has been dod funding. the other half has been humanitarian and civic aid relief that we have been using to help fund the ukrainian government. they are in a predicament, they cannot exactly tax and there is not that much economic activity going on because of the war. we happen helping to shore up their government. the $62 billion in defense

funding for ukraine, a good portion of that is exactly what the caller mentioned. it is to pay for a replacement of equipment that we are transferring to ukraine. if you go out and say, ukraine needs more mortars, they need more rockets, things like that, if we go and contract with the defense industry, it may be three years before that equipment is manufactured and we can deliver it to ukraine. what we are doing instead is, the president is using what they call drawdown authority and taking equipment inventory out of our own stock, handing that to ukraine because that can be done more quickly. we are going out and contracting with the industry to rebuild replacement equipment to restock our inventory. that is a lot of what the military aid for ukraine is being used for. host: john is next in michigan, independent line. caller: good morning. how are you doing? i think todd is -- has summed it up good.

as far as the budget for the defense goes. i believe obama cut the defense budget somewhere around 25% when he was in. what happened is, the soldiers got punished. there is just not enough oversight in the spending that is done by the defense. i am sure at the end of any cycle, they will hurry up to spend any money that they have left over so they can come back to that or more and they usually get it. whether you want to comment on that, that is just my opinion. thank you very much. i will take my replies off-line. guest: the caller brought up the big reduction we have -- had in the defense budget. a lot of that occurred in 2012 and 2013. it was in the obama

administration. always when it comes to the defense budget, it is both congress and the president have a role in it. the congress has to pass the appropriations bill and the president has to sign in. you can always blame one or the other, but they are all part of it. that was interestingly, that downturn was driven by concerns about the overall level of deficit spending and the overall level of debt. that happened because of this law congress passed in 2011 called the budget control act, that mandated cuts in the defense and nondefense sides of the discretionary budget in order to bring it spending down, bring the deficit down. we are in a similar political environment now, that folks are concerned about the overall level of the deficit. they want to bring down spending and they are talking about how to cut discretionary spending 12 years later. will they repeat what they did in 2011 and past something like putting in place which it cap? -

-budget caps? the caller pointed out that ended up drawing up forces in iraq, bringing the defense budget down by about 25% at that time. do we want to get into that situation again, or is congress going to figure out a better path forward to figure out the stalemate over the deficit and the debt ceiling? host: if you are on twitter asked, does u.s. defense purchase all arms and defense materials from u.s. firms or companies, wind is the government go outside of the country to procure and from which country? guest: there are definite preferences given to u.s. countries when it comes to u.s. acquisitions, as one would expect. we are going to buy from our own companies and suppliers first. there are cases where dod can go out and buy from foreign companies. a lot of times, in order to have at least two bidders on a contract, there may be only one

country in the u.s. that can asked company in the u.s. that can do the work. you have to open up a petition to a foreign firm. in other cases, there may not be a u.s. company that builds what the defense department is trying to buy. i was talking to someone recently that said they are building a satellite for the government, there is a particular component that needs to go on the satellite and there is no u.s. company that builds the component like that. they had to go to a french company. there are cases like that where we do buy from foreign companies, but the vast majority of it does to u.s. companies. host: this is ed in florida, republican line. hi. caller: good morning. i would like to talk to the speaker about what mccarthy was alluding to, was basically time is money. when we talk about time, our time in the national guard is spent towards training. if you are taking away from training time, you are taking action away from the time that soldier would be training to

protect our country. that is money in itself. guest: i hear you, i lived that myself. i was in the air force reserves myself years ago. i remember the annual training we had to do. it was a long list. that is something -- i do not know it necessarily translates into savings. i want people to be cautioned that you can eliminate certain types of training, just do not expect you will generate savings in the budget. you are still going to have that time available and maybe people could use that time for other types of training or activities. it is not going to reduce the top line of the defense budget. host: what is meant by the military term? in strength guest: it is the number of people in the force at the end of the fiscal year. the number of people. host: the federal armed services committee, the army had about

452,000 plus when it comes to into strength. -- end strength. the space force, 8600. how much of the budget yields directly to the needs of those in the end force, aside from the jobs they do? guest: military pay and benefits, typically consumes about 25% to 30% of the overall defense budget, that includes pay, allowances for housing and assistance, all sorts of special pays and bonuses that we need to help recruiting and retention, and health care. health care is a big component of the dod budget. we spent about $50 billion a year on the dod budget for our members on health care. host: in michigan, this is ken, democrats line. caller: thank you, pedro.

hello, todd. i'm going to make two statements, then i've got a question. i do not think we should call it a budget, we never stick to a number. a real budget is a number we bring 3.8 trillion dollars in, we make sure we divide what we took in and spend it going up. and it does not exceed that number unless there are special circumstances. we got more than what we ask for. that is not a budget, then. if you ask for it, this is what you get and you are held accountable. accountable is to ask for it, when are you going to use it, and it is the taxpayers money. i want us to remember all the leaders that we have that are doing this are leading us down a path of responsibility that they are not following. here is the question. because vince spending is constitutional, the number when item we have, my question is this. when we start looking at something in the defense budget, space force versus nasa and the

idea of space force is something we will spend two get munitions sensing, other things up in space, how does that overlap with the nasa budget? is there somebody looking at this trying to say, you guys are doing the same thing? do you get to look at that, or is that some other group we pay for, 80,000 people to go and find out how we are not going to solve the budget? guest: that is a great question, that is something i have looked at in detail. my background is in aerospace -- as in aerospace engineer, i followed the space force debate closely as that came into being. the space force and nasa do different missions. nasa's job is science and exploration. the space force's job is keeping us safe by providing enabling capabilities in space. it is not munitions, we are not there yet.

but, it is mainly sensing communications, things like gps for navigation, timing. that is a job of the space force. does it overlap with nasa, not really. they do coordinate on things like space situational awareness , the space force keeps track of the objects that are orbiting the earth. sometimes, they will recognize that there is going to be a potential collision between a piece of space junk or maybe a dead satellite and something like the international space station. they will provide that warning to nasa. nasa has scientists that helps, with models for how that debris propagates around space. then, will help the space force, giving them new insights. there is collaboration there, is there overlap? i have looked at it closely, there is not. they know to cooperate when they

need to, but they have different missions. with the space force focused on national security, enabling the military, and nasa focused on science and exploration. the netflix tv show, while it may have been humorous about the space force, it really did not help at all, it confused the matter because it kept displaying space force as trying to put astronauts on the moon. space force does not do anything with astronauts. if there is a member of the space force that happens to be an astronaut, they are on leave and assigned to nasa. they are not working for the space or's while they are an astronaut. host: our guest todd harrison with much real strategic -- metrea strategic insights, taking a look at aspects of the defense budget. you talked about modernization earlier, what does that mean for the future of new planes that will be used, new ships, tanks and the like? guest: the modernization part of

the budget includes procurement and research and development, and it is going to designing, testing, building and fielding new equipment. in some cases, it might be upgrades to existing equipment. there are major modernization programs going on right now. folks are probably familiar with the f-35 chewing strike fighter being procured by the air force, navy and marine corps. you've got things like the kc 46, and ariel revealing tanker. procured by the air force. there is a new air force one that is in the works that was started in the last administration. it will be getting ready in a few years. even beyond those programs, there are the next generation of programs coming after that. the f-35 we are buying now, but there is a sixth generation fighter that is coming along after f-35 that is already in the budget being worked on. host: a viewer asked about how

our new and old defense department planes being used? guest: new and old? host: both that are phased out, how are they used? guest: oftentimes, planes are phased out. they are completely used up, they have little life in them. we fly them for a long time before we let go of them. some of the planes in our inventory now are 60 years old. they will go to a boneyard and sit there, maybe be stripped for parts. and use those parts to keep some of the other planes still running in the inventory. we cannibalized aircraft like that all the time. there are some cases where we may -- we may have excess equipment that has useful life in it, that can be transferred to other government agencies or maybe allies and partners. that does happen from time to time, especially for things like cargo planes, trucks. host: the china balloon

situation, they were using the war hawk -- the warthog. guest: the a-10 warthog was still being used. i thought it was interesting with the first chinese balloon, the way they ended up shooting it down was flying to stealthy f-22 fighter jets alongside it and firing a missile at it. i do not know if you necessarily need a stealthy fighter jet to sneak up on a slow moving balloon, but that is what we have available. host: let's hear from john in pennsylvania, democrats line for todd harrison. caller: thank you, c-span. mr. harrison, i wonder why every 10 years we are at war. the equipment they are using is already considered obsolete, like in ukraine, like in iraq, like in afghanistan and all that other stuff. it seems like every time we are

replacing bigger and better machines to a point we are still 50 years behind times with our nuclear arsenal, or something else. yet, we are never catching up. how far do you go before -- you can blow the world up 10 times over and you are still not satisfied? how powerful do you have to get? in world war ii, our soldiers were practicing with paper rifles. host: watch for the language. mr. harrison, go ahead. guest: oftentimes we look at inventory of equipment we have today, and it is not the latest generation of equipment. there is always a push of, we should try and get the latest technology in the hands of our troops. most americans would agree when we send our troops to fight, we want them to have the best

equipment of any military in the world. the challenge is, our defense acquisition system is not set up to do that easily. like i mentioned, the f-35 program was in the early 2000's. we started building those planes around early20-teens. we are likely the current plan, we will keep building those planes through the 20 40's. it takes very long timelines in the way we normally acquire defense equipment. that is why at any given time, you can look and say, what we are buying today does not have the latest generation technology on it because it took 10 years to develop it and get it to this point where we could procure it. that is something the dod has been focused on, a central part of defense strategy. not just the most recent defense strategy, but the one before. how do we speed up the timeline when it comes to defense

acquisitions so we can compete more effectively and get technology out to war fighters sooner? that is an ongoing challenge for the department. host: we have about a half-hour more for our guest. if you want to ask questions, you can do so by calling us at (202) 748-8001 for republicans. (202) 748-8000 for democrats. (202) 748-8002 for independents. if you want to text us your comments, you can do so at (202) 748-8003. many of you posting on our twitter feed, that is available to you @cspanwj. facebook is available to you, as well. i do not know if i am going to ask this right, but when the defense department makes its decisions, how much does china come into the making of those decisions? guest: china for a wild now has been the number one priority for the department, preparing for china getting more aggressive, being able to deter china and in

turn being able to defend our allies and partners in that region of the world. it has been the pacing thread, what the dod calls it. without a doubt, that has been a priority going on almost a decade now. russia has been a priority, but it is a secondary priority because russia, if you look at the trajectory of the russian military even before the conflict in ukraine, they look like they are on a long, slow to climb. russia still has a powerful arsenal of nuclear weapons we have to be concerned about. their economy, their demographic and military force looks like it is in a long-term decline. the conflict in ukraine has accelerated that for russia. china has been the priority for the department of defense. host: is that showing itself in weapons being developed or manpower? how does it show itself specifically? guest: it shows itself in

acquisition decisions, what type of equipment we are buying. we tend to buy higher in weapons systems that would be most useful in going up against the near peer competitor like china. it shows up in our force structure, in the number of people, the number of units we are maintaining. you have seen that with a shift in emphasis more towards the air force and the navy, which those services will play a greater role in a conflict in the pacific. may be emphasis towards the army, because it would presumably play less of a role. you see it even down with each of the military services, you see them refocusing their training, their basing, what they are trying to prepare for in terms of the next big war. they are really focused more and more on a china type contingency. host: here is mark in california, republican line. go ahead. caller: yes, sir.

i wonder why we are not looking at the senate, the house, the president, the vice president cutting the pay, we are so desperate for money, using it for social security -- why don't we take that money and they take a pay cut and get it all caught up? to get china paid off, we do not have to worry about being in debt to china. then, turn around and people need to realize something. a lot of the military equipment is given to the states. the states take it to the volunteer fire department. they need to figure that out too so they have equipped to fight the fire. guest: the truth is, if you completely eliminated all the pay for every member of congress, for the president and the vice president, it does not make a dent at all in the overall federal budget and

federal spending. it makes no difference, it is so small compared to the other spending we have. you have to ask yourself, do you want a government run by people that do not need a salary? that have, either they come to office and are able to take the job because they are independently wealthy, maybe they've got other sources of income. if that is the kind of government you want, or would you actually pay the members of congress so an average middle-class person could take a job in congress and afford to do that? host: rick is in boston, democrats line. caller: i want to say two things. first, space force is a joke. space clowns than anything else. second, i want to know how come the president with the equipment and stuff we are sending ukraine, why we wait for russia to keep coming to ukraine, why are they not going to russia? unless boot plans on lowering up his own country.

you tell me what makes sense. that does not make sense. they are right next-door, we could go into russia when these ukraine people could go into russia. guest: the first part of your question, the space force, people have different opinions on whether it was needed or not. the one thing to point out i think has been missed, we have had space forces in our military since the beginning of the space age, the late 1950's. most of the space forces in our military were already in the air force. it was a part of the air force called air force space command. there were bits and pieces of space operators and the other military services, as well. what the space force did is, it did not create something new. what it did was combined all of those existing personnel, organizations and missions together into one coherent organization. that is largely what the enactment of the space force did. it elevated those space

personnel to be on par with the other military services. so, it has been a mission, a job in the military for quite a long time. it has risen in prominence recently. in terms of what is going on in ukraine and fighting russia, the situation we are in now is one of our top two adversaries in the world is getting rapidly diminished and is rapidly depleting its own military. it is not involving risk to any u.s. lives at all. it is horrible what is happening in ukraine, but that was russia's choice to invade. the ukrainians are absolutely going to fight back. i think it is moral responsibility to help them fight back, so we are doing that. also, we are degrading our number two adversary in the world just by shipping arms and weapons and putting no american lives at risk. russia, my opinion, is going to come out of this a much weaker

power in terms of their conventional military forces. and, will pose much less of a threat to the united states and the rest of europe for a long time to come. i think we are making the best of what is a bad situation in the way that it is being handled. host: we hear on this program when it comes to the defense department, why can't it undergo a proper audit. what would your answer be? guest: the dod was not set up, its financial systems were not set up to be auditable by modern-day standards of an audit. it is a long and tedious process to upgrade all of dod's financial systems and software so you can trace some things. you can say, money was appropriated for this, i want to trace that money through the system down and see the receipts of how that money was spent. it does not mean there is fraud involved there when you cannot trace it down.

it just means the system at the bottom end that tracks the receipts and exactly how money is being doled out, it does not flow that detailed information back up to the top level systems. that is what they happen working on for years. it is a bit discouraging that it has taken so long. i think that in different administrations, the coming audit -- becoming audit ready has been high-priority, and in some administrations, it has been a low priority. i think that explains why it has taken longer over time to a certain extent, but also it costs money. just to get dod audit ready, we are spending close to $1 billion a year just to try to upgrade these financial systems so that dod one day in the future will be able to pass an audit. you have to ask yourself, how much is it worth in order to be able to audit a defense budget?

personally, i think it is worth it because of the transparency and accountability that it provides for the american people. several people have said, it is the people's money. i think that is right. the department has got to get its financial software in shape so it can show how it is spending other people's money, and it is traceable and being spent wisely. host: from ed in connecticut, republican line. you are on with our guest, todd harrison. caller: i was wondering, is defense of united states airspace a low priority? going back to 9/11 when norad was flummoxed and or recently with the chinese balloons, etc., is it unfunded or not a high priority, not a desirable command? guest: i do not want to say it is not a priority. we have one of our combatant commands, u.s. northern command focused exactly on this mission of protecting the homeland. i will say, it probably has not

gotten as much funding and attention as it should have over the years. priorities have been overseas. yeah, i think there is probably more we can do to shore up our air defenses over the continental united states. i think with the balloon, what it exposed is the radars had been tuned to filter out slow-moving objects at high altitudes. if it is an airplane at a high altitude, you have to be moving several hundred miles per hour. if you are getting a were flexion of a radar signal that shows it is moving much slower than that, you can filter that out because it is probably noise, probably just a blip on the radar. as it turns out in this case, within those blips, they were getting filtered out, there were actual objects like the chinese balloon. all they have to do is change the settings on the radar so they do not alter out rings that are lower speed.

now, they are discovering there are lots of things. there are amateur hobbyists that fly high altitude weather balloons. there may be other chinese balloons that may be transmitting our airspace, as well. they are looking for that. in the future, we are going to hear more about these objects. host: we have heard from senator rand paul on the balloon, quoted as saying every emergency is an excuse for mont --orore money. do you think we can spend $900 billion and we can get the balloon? guest: [laughter] i think this is an example where it is not a matter of money, it is a matter of how we operate and the priorities we are putting in for the military. now, they have been told or the slow-moving objects at high altitudes and they are looking for it. but, do we have a force that is optimized for intercepting balloons? absolutely not. we probably do not need to invest in that force optimized for balloons, because it is not

going to be good at other things that are high priorities for the military. but that means, if we need to intercept the balloon and if we need to shoot it down, we are likely to use platforms and weapons that are more expensive than they need to be. that is like firing a heat seeking i-9 x missile at a balloon. each of those missiles cost over $400,000 each. if it takes two tries to hit it, you are talking $800,000 and we are fighting stealthy fighter jets. you do not need to be stealthy if you are flying over u.s. airspace. those planes are more expensive per flying hour. that is what we have available, that is what the military is going to use. you do not necessarily want to invest in a force that is optimized for something that is not going to be used that often in the future. host: in cocoa beach florida, this is anthony. caller: happy fat tuesday. i would like to know how ready are we for a conflict with china

or russia or both, and how ready are we technically for conflict -- is the space x included in your budget, and my wife wanted to know how much a tank cost to be sent to ukraine. guest: a lot of questions there. how ready are we, that is a perennial question. part of that is subjective, part is objective. the readiness assessments of the u.s. military are classified. they will sometimes release classified -- unclassified summaries of that. generally, most senior military leaders would say we are in a decent state of readiness. we could do better. in terms of our technical readiness, do we have the equipment and technology we need to prevail in a fight against china if it is over taiwan or something else? i think the answer is, not yet. .

we are working on that modernization of equipment and capabilities, but it will be several more years before we are at the point where we have the technology we think we need in order to prevail in a fight with china. at the same time, china is trying to advance its military quickly. there is a race there in terms of modernization, but i think that has -- that is a lot of behind what is motivating a lot of the acquisition funding in the defense budget. your question about spacex, spacex is a private company. they have contracts with dod, nasa, lots of other private entities. the money that dod spends with spacex for lunch, that is part of the defense budget, part of the space forces budget in procuring launches. spacex itself as an entity is not part of the federal budget. host: you mentioned bases earlier on. how many overseas bases do we

have, and do we need those? guest: we have many. i do not know the exact number. probably hundreds, depending on how you count it, all over the world. i think there has been in the past 20 years or so, there has been a lot of downsizing of overseas military bases. part of that was coming out of the cold war in the 1990's, we downsized our military and saw the threat level around the world decreased dramatically with the fall of the soviet union. there was a big push to downside overseas, that continued into the 2000s especially in europe with u.s. downsizing some of its bases there. in recent years, the has been more about increasing the basing and infrastructure in the indo pacific region because of the threat posed by china and to help reassure our allies in that region. now, the talk is about increasing some of those overseas races in key locations

in the pacific rather than downsizing. host: this is from brian in iowa, democrat line. caller: hi, i am enjoying the conversation. you seem to know your stuff forwards and backwards. i am learning a lot. pardon my ignorance, but what exactly are you? are you a government contractor, are you a government agency? who ismetr strategic insightsea? guest: we are a private organization, a llc. i do not work for the government. my job is to basically be an analyst, a space security analyst is part of what i have done with my career. what i try to do is provide objective, insightful analysis of defense issues. how are we funded? metreas strategic insights is part of a larger company called

metrea, does lots of different things in defense. its primary business is delivering effects as a service for defense customers, but our funding, we go to government sponsors who will hire us to do a study on areas that are particular interest to them. host: from texas, republican line, tim. hello. caller: good morning. my question is two parts. one, can you tell me what the future lies ahead for the a-10 and how much longer it will be in our active inventory? has there been any requests for the a-10 four support to help ukraine against russia? guest: the a-10 is a real veteran of our air force inventory of attack aircraft. that is a plane the air force has tried to retire in the past. it has been blocked repeatedly by congress. but, they have been allowed to

retire some of the a-10's. i think within this decade, we are likely to retire all of the a-10's one way or the other. that is going to come out of our inventory. there have been suggestions floated about, is this an aircraft that we can provide to our partners in ukraine? there are challenges in doing that. the main challenge is training their pilots in order to be able to fly this aircraft. have not seen any movement on that yet, but it is an idea we may be coming back to. host: we talked about the ndaa when it comes to the total figure, about $817 billion for the defense budget. $30 billion going to the department. what is done with that money? guest: that is considered part of our national defense budget. part of it goes, that $30 billion or so to the department of energy is for our nuclear weapons infrastructure. these are labs and facilities

that store, that tests, that maintain our arsenal of nuclear weapons. here, we are talking specifically about the nuclear bombs and warheads that go one missiles and their upgrade programs for those warheads that are in process now. that is something that comes out of history. when we first developed nuclear forces, i believe it was president eisenhower that said we should keep the nuclear weapons infrastructure separate from the military, keep it under a civilian control agency. it made most sense to do it with the department of energy, they look at peaceful uses of nuclear power or electrical energy, things like that. that is part of our national defense budget, even though it is outside the department of defense. host: this is kenneth in florida, independent line. caller: good morning, mr. harrison. i respect your opinion as far as when you said that sending

equipment and all that stuff to one of our top three adversaries, not sending american lives in ukraine. at the end of the day, it does not matter. i understand why americans are so naive when it comes to defense and all that. it does not matter, we deplete every russian soldier, every chinese soldier, as long as there is one russian there who can push that button for a nuclear weapon, that nuclear weapon is the equalizer. that is why we as americans will go and jump on every country except for countries like iran, china, russia because of that nuclear weapon as the equalizer, no matter what. please explain that. thank you. guest: what the caller is talking about is nuclear deterrence. in countries like the united

states that have and maintain a nuclear arsenal, they do that primarily for deterrence value. i think that should be destabilizing factor in the conflict with russia. russia knows that if it resorts to using a nuclear weapon against the united states, we have the ability to respond and deliver a devastating counterattack, even if they launch all their nuclear weapons at us all at once. we still have nuclear weapons that are survivable, mainly in our nuclear submarines, that will launch a counterattack that will destroy them. you have what is called mutually assured destruction, that has proven the past 70 years or so to be a stabilizing factor. no country, not even vladimir putin, once to be suicidal. he knows if he resorts to nuclear weapons directly against the united states or our allies and partners, he is likely to lose his life and country in the process of doing that.

that is a stabilizing factor here. it is interesting we have a conflict between the nuclear armed power and a non-nuclear armed power, even though ukraine used to have nuclear weapons. they gave them up at the end of the cold war. it has stayed conventional because russia knows if it crosses that line, the consequences are not going to be worth it. host: this is angela in florida, independent line. caller: hi there. first, i should say my family is hugely military. my son is retired air force. my daughter is retired navy. my dad was navy. even though my daughter is no longer active duty, she is deployed as what is called drc on a major ship. i care a lot about military members and their lives. my question is, when it comes to recruiting, which i know is a problem because i talked to the

folks at our local recruiting stations here, do you feel for example the military salaries are sufficiently competitive? my understanding is, my daughter's ship, sailors are charged so to speak for food, which i thought was part of the deal. i am interested in your thoughts on military salaries, other aspects of military life or americans view of military as a career and what changes you would make, if you could, to get more american young people into the service, which has been a wonderful career for my children. thank you, sir. guest: this is a very important issue. the military recently has been having real recruiting challenges. the army in particular has not been able to meet its recruiting goals in 2022, probably not going to meet them in 2023, as

well. we get de facto downsizing of the army because of that. is it due to pay or other factors? i will let you be the judge. military compensation right now, if you look at basic pay and allowances for housing and subsistent, food, your real military compensation is around the 90th percentile as compared to equivalent civilian workers in the u.s. economy. and, you get free health care for you and your family. you get subsidized daycare, things like that. compensation i think is objectively in a pretty good level right now for the military. why are people leaving, why are we having trouble recruiting people? it may be because there are other factors involved, they've got better opportunities elsewhere in the economy. even though we have high inflation and people are worried about the status of the economy, inflation is at the lowest level it has been since 1969.

3.4%. there is a lot of jobs out there for people, a lot of alternatives. and, the military still operates in a career model that we have got a two class system with enlisted officers, where if you start as enlisted, you may work your way up in the ranks. if you want to jump over to be an officer, you have to start over at being the bottom ranks of an officer, things we don't see in the private sector anymore. there are a lot of challenges, i think, especially in the military. the career model has been that you were going to move every couple of years, if not more frequently. you are going to move quite often. that is difficult, as you have more people coming into the workforce, where you have two income households, two working households. and in many cases, two career households, where the spouse's career may not be portable. you may not be able to move your spouse around every couple of

years. that could be leading people to get out as well. i think there are a lot of factors that need to be looked at. it is something the military is concerned about. they are studying this and trying to figure out how they create the all volunteer force of the future, how they need to change personnel practices and policies now, to be more attractive in the future. host: you can find our guest's website online. continuing our look at topics on the budget. we thank you for your time. guest: thank you. good to be here. host: in just about an hour, the supreme court will take a look at one of two cases. we are going to have two on these cases in the hour to come up. first up, we are going to hear from andrew nichols, from the center for growth & opportunity.

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elery. it is $29.95 plus shipping and handling. every purchase helps support our nonprofit organ station at c-spanshop.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: two cases of the supreme court taking a look at social media. give one perspective is andrew nichols, of center for american progress. good morning to you. guest: good morning. host: a little about you. guest: first of all, thank you for having me. it's great to be here. the center for american progress is based --center for growth & opportunity is based at utah university. they do economic policy research. they look at some of the hardest questions we are facing and ask what will create the most growth and opportunity. their view is that one thing that has created more growth and opportunity than most anything else is the internet. they bring to these cases a

perspective of "beware the law of unintended consequences." so, let's make sure we don't mess up something that is working pretty well. we know there is controversy about that. we can talk about that. we filed a brief in the supreme court on this. the brief represents a number of organizations beyond the center for growth & opportunity, 12 in total. host: the center itself, is it funded by the university, social media, how does that work? guest: the center is funded by a number of organizations. foundations, institutions, individuals. but the research is directed entirely by scholars. host: an do the tech companies help you it all? guest: there have been donations from tech companies. but if you were to look at the organization's research and positions, you would not be able to tell what side they are on in

any given case. or who they favor, because sometimes they come out in favor of the tech company, sometimes they don't. host: two cases being heard at the supreme court, when dealing with google, one with twitter. what is important for people to know about these cases and what might it do to content on the internet? guest: the cases have the potential to be really big. i think it is import for folks to understand, sometimes a lot of our news is amplified. we think maybe it is overdone. these do have the potential to be really important cases. some people have called this law the magna carta of the internet. but the case that the court is going to hear tomorrow is equally important. today is the internet case. tomorrow is a case that could make the court not have to reach the internet case. keep an i on that second case.

but focusing on what i just called the internet case, that is really important because the question it asks is very simple. who is responsible for content on the internet? and by content, i mean content that is posted on the internet. is it the host or or the poster? for 30 years, the law has been very clear. lower courts agreed, which makes it surprising that the supreme court took this place -- this case. they agree it is the poster, the creator of the content, not the host or. so, by host or, i am referring to platforms. but not just big tech or platforms, but all websites. all websites use the technology that the court is considering today, which a fancy word for it is just algorithms. it just means a sorting program, a ranking program, to elevate contents he can find it. host: in your mind, that is not

curating, and that is one of the questions being asked about certain content being curated and guest: pushed to people. guest:it is absolutely curating content and that is protected by the law. what this debate has missed is that the laws actually quite clear on this point. this is the first point of our brief. we have a textual argument and a policy argument. the textual argument has been made by google and other groups in support. congress, in 1996, drafted a very careful statute. it is actually quite sophisticated. what the statute says is that it is not just third-party content that is protected, but the tools that allow you to find that content. the statute calls them enabling tools. if i may, i would like to just quote a few lines from the statute. host: is this section 230? guest: it is.

host: wactually have a graphic. guest: that's what you have. if you scroll down, and anyone can pull this up, 47 usc 230. go down to subsection f. you are quoting from c. i'm going to read from f four. enabling tools that filter, screen, allow, or disallow content. pick, choose, analyze, or digest content. transmit, receive, display, forward, search, subset, organize -- i'm almost done -- reorganize, or translate content. that is an algorithm. that is the argument. this is not complicated. we know that there are other

textural -- contextual issues, although the courts have been pretty consistent about it. we can talk about some of the past cases, where they said, no, you were actually involved in creating that content. it's not that platforms and websites cannot create content. of course they can. they do it even in part, then they are liable. in this case, we have just heard from congress, the law, that says if what you're doing is using an enabling tool that is helping people find content, sorting it, organizing it, filtering it, that is not content itself. host: our guest is with us until 9:30. we will discuss more about this case at the supreme court. you can ask some questions on that. (202) 748-8001 for republicans, (202) 748-8000 for democrats, independents (202) 748-8002. you can text us questions or comments at (202) 748-8003. that law written in the early

stages of the internet. does it need changing or updating considering the issues of content we see today, whether it be violent or questionable, or whatever? does it need a change? guest: we don't let out. it's not that we think the situation is perfect. we were well aware that there have been problems with content moderation. and the center for growth & opportunity and 11 other groups on the brief are fully concerned about it. in fact, our brief says that it may be the government and congress need to investigate some of these things. but we don't want to burn down the house to roast the pig. the law is quite effective at providing a diverse amount of information on the internet. for those of your viewers who are conservative, one of the things our brief talks about is

the conservative speech on the internet. npr did a study a couple of years ago, a database study on facebook, and the conclusion was that ben shapiro ruled facebook. there is a lot of conservative speech. it is not just shapiro. you will see tucker carlsen, fox news. it is not just facebook. look at spotify. joe rogan rules the roost at spotify at 190 million downloads a month. and that was several years ago. you look at dave rubin, jordan peterson on youtube, over 500 million views. we want to keep the problem in perspective, not to my things need to be changed, but remember who is competent to do the change and make the change. here is, personally, one of my big concerns about this. the supreme court is not institutionally equipped to set ai policy. the supreme court is looking, in

this case, at youtube's technology in 2015, frozen in time, eight years ago. the court is looking backward. that is what they do, they look backward. it is congress who looks forward. they look backward and try to resolve policy, cases, controversy. that is what the constitution says they should do. we think the law, if it needs to be changed and tweaked, as congress has a number of times in the last 10 years or 20 years, that should come from congress. host: what if lower courts decided, because you had mentioned you were surprised the high court took it up after the lower courts? guest: they applied the statute as written. i am well aware that senator cruz and holly and others disagree. let me take an example, a couple of examples for your viewers, so you can see how this works. there was a website called

roommates. that website, the way they set it up was that they invited you to tell them who you wanted as your roommate. the criteria they included was things like sex and sexual orientation, which are illegal to ask. the website was inviting illegal questions. then, as your profile, it was letting you put up illegal criteria. what the ninth circuit said, a large court on the west coast, they said, judge kaczynski, a conservative judge, he wrote for the court and said they crossed the line. they are helping create this illegal content. another case, we all know about the company that makes snap chat. they had something called a speed filter. you could take a picture and it would tell you how fast you are going. for years, a lot of teens thought it was cool to go as fast as they could in their car and take a picture and post it.

sadly, a number of teens were injured or died doing this. eventually, snape discontinued that product. but what snape did when i got sued was said, we are not liable, because section 230 protects us. the courts said no. there was no third-party speaking here. this law is designed to protect other people's content, poster's content. the only parties involved are you and those teens. you, snape, are on the hook. i think that is a good example. i think there's some good examples of how this works in real life. we need to be careful that that clear line does not get blurred. what is at stake in this case is not just youtube videos, which is what prompted the case. it is search engines, because search engines also ranked content. they use algorithms. host: we have a call for you,

actually. this is jeff in massachusetts, independent line. jeff, go ahead. guest: hey, andrew, how are you doing? this is jeff. i have been enjoying your show here. i was curious. in years past, with the evolution of tv and cable and all that stuff, the fcc for the most part kind of controlled the content or moderated it. i don't hear anything about the fcc controlling the content of these internet providers. can you comment on why the fcc isn't involved in that or whether they should be or not? thank you. guest: that's a great question. that is true, the sec's to be involved in administering the fairness doctrine, trying to balance out what we heard on our news. the fairness doctrine was set

aside. we now have a much more generous law that allows the market to decide what we will see and what we will read on the internet. it is widely agreed that the fairness doctrine was not effective. it is also contrary to the first amendment. what the first amendment says is that congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. it's not american, if you will, to have the government telling private organizations what they can and cannot say. we wear that badge proudly. there are a lot of countries, canada for example, who doesn't have this. europe doesn't have this. we have this wonderful thing called the first amendment that allows us to start a website and basically say what we want within a pretty broad range. the fairness doctrine kind of messed with that, messed with news organizations. host: primarily over the

airwaves, broadcast. guest: right. we realized that was a mistake and should not be replicated. the center for growth & opportunity thinks that what we have right now is pretty good. it may be able to be improved, but in order to have diverse speech, what we don't want is the government stepping in. right now, the government is trying to step in all over the place. your viewers may wonder who is weighing in on against this. this all sounds very clear. a lot of people would like more moderation. i am sure a wide number of your viewers are on that side of things. but they should know that just last week, and obama appointed judge struck down new york's law requiring websites to define hateful conduct as new york does. you have heard a lot, if you're following this in the news, about texas and floored it. but it is not just them. a lot of states would like to get into the act of regulating speech. they filed a brief.

a cornucopia filed a brief against google, looking for more moderation. we think that is the fairness doctrine reincarnated and it's not a good idea. host: those are arguments of google versus gonzalez at 10:00 today, right after this program. follow along on our network or the app c-span now, and c-span.org. in texas, democrats line, we will hear from matt. caller: pedro, good morning. and good morning mr. nichols. i am not disputing free speech. i love the first amendment. i love the ability to say what my views are, whether that be digitally, in person, whatever. the issue is not free speech, it is consequence of free speech. that is why section 230 needs to be reformed. it is said that it is taking a case to the supreme court.

if congress had done their job on this issue, we would not be here. when somebody in new zealand can livestream them massacring people with an assault rifle, facebook, i think, should have been held accountable for that. there are other examples of horrific videos and things that have been livestreamed on facebook or other social media, where they are not held responsible. there is no civil liability. that is the issue. wouldn't you agree that these platforms, just like on broadcast media, if something is put up there for the world to see, those networks and broadcasters are held liable? why shouldn't twitter and facebook and snapchat, and all the others, also be held civilly liable when horrific speech violates the decency? that is what the communications decency act says. host: got the point, matt. thank you so much. mr. nichols?

guest: the caller is absolutely right. terrible things are shown on the internet. he is talking, i think, about livestreaming material. what we are talking about mostly today is material that has been received and curated. youtube gets 500 hours of you -- of material every minute. it's hard to keep up with that. but what the caller is talking about is horrific evidence of cases of violence being shown on the internet. that is totally unacceptable. the statute does not protect that. it has a carve out for criminal behavior and activity. so, that is not protected. i think what the caller is asking about is civil liability. congress can look at that. congress is well aware of these issues. it created the criminal liability. if there is to be civil liability, that is a policy question. it's a good question.

it is not something the court, in this case, can write into the law. maybe that should be considered. again, it is congress that should be doing that. if your viewers are interested to know what congress is considering, one good place to go is the supreme court's website. it's an excellent website, really easy to use. scroll down, look at the appendix. in the appendix of the brief, you will see bill after bill after bill to amend section 230. that is democracy at work. that is what we need. that is how the law should be changed, if it is to be changed. the problem with the supreme court turn to do this sort of thing is they look at an artificial situation. they look, as i said, at something that happened eight years ago, and it is frozen in time. they are not even looking at the technology of today. congress can look forward and say, what we need to do in the future?

the supreme court has no idea what that is. but that is the next thing around the bend. we know google and microsoft are battling it out over cap right now. congress can do that. congress can hold hearings. they can take testimony. they have witnesses come in. they can bring in documents. the caller is right, that we should continue to pay close attention to what is happening on the internet. in some ways, it is a mirror, and it is very sad. sometimes, what we see on the internet, we don't like because it is showing us ourselves. congress has the ability to fix that or at least try to address that. host: this is jim in tennessee, independent line. caller: good morning, pedro. good morning, mr. nichols. thank you for taking my call. i want to ask i guess a philosophical question. isn't the issue more that these platforms have become the town square in which the discourse happens?

and if these controls are being given content of only i -- one ideological persuasion to emerge , it is the freedom of speech, not freedom of reach, so doesn't that create a dilemma for us as a country, given that we need robust debate for competition of ideas to take place and the best to win out? additionally, it doesn't come look at things if you have things like the twitter files, where the government weaponizes these tools to filter out stories or content they don't like, and it is a matter of timing. it has a large impact on elections and whatnot. thank you. guest: i think her two questions. one was regarding freedom of reach and one was government involvement. let's take the freedom of reach point. i am not totally sure i

understand that argument, because these platforms just have the reach. they are private organizations and they entitle you, if you want to, to reach around the globe. read it filed a brief in which they said they have 50 million views a day on reddit. it is not considered a goliath platform. facebook has 3 billion users. i am not sure what it means to say you cannot have freedom of reach, because these are our publishing organs today. they are quite powerful and effective. in many ways, that's a good thing. i can find something, my family can find something on the internet to buy things to nc and its algorithms. we can go on and on. i can hail a car using uber and it knows all the cars nearby. i'm not totally sure about the freedom of reach argument. as for the government argument,

my clients are in favor of what the caller said and are in favor of that. they're following the twitter story and what is unearthing that happened. and for the two americans who don't know what happened there, the allegation of the new owner is that a lot of speech was suppressed on twitter that shouldn't have been. and that there was not just twitter acting unilaterally, but in close concert with the government. that's the real concern. as i said before, i don't think it is too strong to say that is un-american. the government has no business telling private actors what they can and cannot say. i do think that it is appropriate, we think is appropriate, to consider whether or not there should be investigations of those sorts of things. it's not something that anyone on television should be saying

we should brush under the rug. the question is, what do we do with the statute that seems to be working fairly well, and do we want the supreme court, nine unelected people, changing it dramatically? host: you have argued in court for you? guest: i have been at the table i have not argued. i think justice thomas has been beating the drum that these cases need to be heard. he felt a couple years ago in a case for malwarebytes. he laid out a very long analysis of why he thinks this area is problematic. i'm going to be really interested to see what he does, especially with this f 4 argument. that is a contextual argument. justice thomas is a textural list. justice kagan said we are all textual lists now. she, too is going to be focused

on the text of this statute. i think if the court reaches this internet issue in a case tomorrow that doesn't sneak in and make it unnecessary to decide this case, that textual argument would be interesting. i would note the plaintiffs have not addressed it. that is a telling sign. if the other side doesn't have an answer, that is a problem. host: is there way for the justices to come about on a narrow decision to satisfy the specific concerns? without impacting what happens to section 230 overall? guest: there are two ways they could do that. they could not reach a decision at all. it could be a different terrorist attack. this was allegedly fueled -- perpetrated by isis, and the

victim's family blames youtube for supporting isis, letting their videos stay up. they especially blame the algorithm for putting those videos up. but the problem there is what we in the law call causation. how do you get from generalized support for isis to a substantial knowing assistance for terrorist attack? there is a big disconnect there. we think the case tomorrow is something that may not need to reach the ultimate decision if they decide there is no claim here to begin with. justice roberts in particular, the chief, loves to say, if it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide more. that is the first offering. the other one is certain once

great liability and certain stone. -- and certain ones don't. we think it will be surprising if the court could pull that off. host: see geo.org -- cgo.org. andrew nichols, thank you for your time. host: we will hear about the same cases from adam connor. he is from center for americ progress. we will hear from him in just a few moments on "washington journal." ♪ >> american history tv, saturdays on c-span2. exploring the people and events that tell the american story. at 6:30 p.m. eastern, a look at

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there is something for every c-span fan, and every purchase helps support our nonprofit operation. shop now or anytime at c-spanshop.org. ♪ >> there are a lot of places to get political information, but only at c-span do you get it straight from the source. no matter where you are from or where you stand on the issues, c-span is america's network. unfiltered, unbiased, word for word. if it happens here or here or here, or anywhere that matters, america is watching on c-span. powered by cable. >> "washington journal" continues. host: as we look at the supreme court cases that are going to be held concerning the internet and social media, joining us for his perspective, adam connor, with the center for american progress . he serves as their technology

vice president paired welcome to the program. a little about the organization in the position your organization takes when it comes to these issues being heard today at court. adam connor -- guest: center for american progress is a nonprofit progressive think tank that advocates for policy and action. on the technology policy team, we advocate for responsible technology regulation, which is often more than we have today. and while i am not a lawyer and we did not file a brief in this case, it is something we are paying attention to, not just in the legal argument, but also depending on if congress ever takes action on these issues. host: the issue at play, as far platforms are concerned, should they be held for -- held liable for certain content, where are you on that? guest: i think one is to understand that today's argument is only about a portion of liability on content.

it is about this algorithm question. what i like to highlight is what i call the "is this as good as it gets" issue. the state of the internet today comes from the state of play. that is section 230, as your previous guest called it, and elegantly balanced law that allows for free speech and moderation. every time people talk about potential modification, whether it is through congress or the courts, we hear a lot of negativity about the consequences, whether intended or unintended. it is also inherently making an argument that today, the argument -- the internet is as good as it gets. all this content, all this harm, as well as the great content, this is the best we will ever have. if we try to change section 230, it will only make it worse. i think what we're trying to

parse through here is, what are the ways we can try to preserve some parts and hopefully take action on the others, or at least have a conversation to say there are trade-offs with the system that we have created. we absorb the cost from all that harm. the question is to reaffirm that that is a trade-off we are all comfortable with. that is something congress is obviously best positioned to do. in absence of an eye congress, the courts are in play. host: what scenario could come out of the court in these cases? how will it change what we look at as content on the internet? guest: justices are starting to thing about it. justice thomas has been fairly outspoken. that is not the argument before the court today. this is the first time the court has looked at section 230 and its interpretation. it's important to note that the law was put before the supreme

court in 1997, as part of the broader broadcast decency act. it is constitutional in that context, it just hasn't been revisited since then. one of the things we are going to see both in today's case about algorithms, which play an increasingly important role in society, is that idea of the cost of liability. but it is also going to preview for us something that is coming next year, and that is the texas and florida social media censorship laws. the states of texas and florida passed laws after the 2020 election, in particular after trump was deplatformed after the events of january 6 come -- january 6, from social media sites. it would make social media sites to deplatform politicians, but also take actual content that may be political. that is a big section 230

question, because it not only immunizes content providers from providing third-party content, but it gives them the ability to moderate without liability. it is also a first amendment question on the internet, which they haven't looked at. because so much of the courts views on this, aside from justice thomas, are kind of an unknown, today is a real preview to what is a much larger case coming down the pipeline next year that really is a little more about the issues people think about when they think about speech online. host: our guest with us until 10:00. we will be keeping on until the court comes in with the case at 10:00. if you want to ask about the case is -- the case at hand, (202) 748-8001 for republicans, (202) 748-8000 free democrats, (202) 748-8002 for independents. you can text us at (202) 748-8003. used to work at the washington office. how has that shaped your views?

what has changed? caller: -- guest: i started at facebook in 2007. we spent a lot of time at capitol hill trying to explain what social meal was good to their credit, politicians instinctively understood early on that a tool to connect directly with their constituents could be a very powerful tool. one of the things that happened in that time is that it became something people can't opt out of any more, paying attention to the internet and social media in particular paired i think one of the biggest eggs that has changed is that i spent the early part of my career trying to get politicians to use social media them selves. if you told me five or six years ago that every day, the president of the united states would wake up and tweet multiple times a day himself, i would think that sounds cool, what could possibly go wrong? but as we all know in life, there could be things that we don't expect. i think that is fundamentally what we see with section 230. the internet today is a

wonderful thing, but it has also had unintended consequences that we have not really grappled with. in particular, section 230 prevents the courts from grappling with it. it doesn't mean it is an argument that has to be frozen in time. host: i suppose you've heard the arguments that because it is a platform, it should be treated like a publisher, because the content involved, and who posts it, and whether it offends you or not. what do you think of that? guest: i think there are two pieces to that. a lot of times, people are arguing about content that is legal under the first amendment. the question that platforms should be responsible for, it is always clear that means. are you going to see them and take something down that is constitutionally allowed it? that is more than a section 230 question. when section 230 became a law in

1996, there were elements we knew would be a problem in the future and section 230 tried to address them. there was the idea that people might prescreen to prevent liability. i think it has created this proliferation of billions of voices and trillions of pieces of content. we have never asked ourselves fundamentally, are we ok with platforms that don't have the ability to moderate that content? i think the fun a mental question, at some point, section 230 blesses or does not bless. host: if there are changes to 230 as a result of the court decisions or other decisions, do we have the manpower to adapt to those changes? guest: what i really want people to understand, because i know it is a lot of legal argument, but if the court makes some decisions today or in the future , how would it affect your life? today, the argument is about

algorithms. like if youtube too, in this case, the algorithms they use to say, hey, you watched this video that you selected, so you should watch this, or we think you will like this next. the argument has been around whether or not that act of youtube doing that should be treated separately than just resenting you third-party information. if the court finds they could be liable for that, algorithms do underpin a lot of the internet. but when people come on or make the arguments that this could suppress speech, i think it gives a false impression, that the court will make a ruling at certain kinds of speech will be legal and not legal. what would actually happen is that if the court ruled that platforms in general could be liable in general, they could be sued for all sorts of reasons. that is a risk a lot of industries have. in the internet today, because

of section 230, those lawsuits get dismissed relatively early. there is lower-cost and lower mitigation risk. with that, the cost kind of rises. there is a question of what people do with that litigation risk. the argument that has been made by the tech companies, and a lot of people on the freedom discretion side, is that in order to deal with that litigation risk, companies would do one of three things. they would prescreen content and not allow us much to go up, so instead of pressing the button and your tweet going on the road, they would review it to make sure they couldn't get sued. it would me -- they would be more aggressive in taking down content. if you put up something controversial, they would take it down. and fundamentally, algorithms are used to find content when you search for it. we made dumb down some of the sophisticated algorithms we have today. you would not be able to find content as easily. for a lot of users, that content , unless it is taken down, would

not be as visible to you. you don't know the whole world that is out there when type something into a search engine and look for a tweet. i think it's a little bit difficult, because it could have this effect, but it would not necessarily be clear to you as the user that that is happening. it's a really intricate argument and also full of unknowns. because the courts have never had to develop common law, because they have never had have cases that have been dismissed, it would be a chaotic few years. then, it would stabilize. whether that is good or bad, i think that is a good question. host: a good -- a couple of calls for you. your first up with adam connor from the center for american progress. caller: yes, i see that we are talking about progress. we have to ask ourselves, is technology human progress? and we have to come to the conclusion that it is not.

human progress is human beings becoming more human, caring and loving for each other. technology does not mean progress for the human beings. america, we are looking and talking about american progress. america cannot progress unless america truly pays for the crimes that it has committed. one of those crimes is the enslavement of africans and the descendants of those slaves should be paid reparations for the crimes that were committed against them. host: i will stop you there because that is a little farther than what we are talking about. anything for that? guest: i think there is a fun medal question will have to

wrestle with. how humans play into technology. i think one of the reasons the courts are able to step into the void is that elected officials, particularly in congress, have not taken interest. we have not seen real laws related to the technology sector since then. i think progress requires us to have attention. -- my hope is that our elected officials will pay more attention. host: republican line from florida, theodore, go ahead. caller: as far as big tech liability, think they should be held liable. could he explain exactly what -- don't add in the first to, just liability for big tech, and exactly what are the

explanations of algorithms and what are they? guest: great question. to the last part, algorithms are a lot of different things. the easiest way to think about them in this context is that they are automated tools that companies use to sort, process, and present information automatically. it is not on a newspaper, where the human being celexa 10 stories on the front page before it goes to print. a lot of this content is automatically generated by websites. to the liability question, and in particular what is before the court today with gonzales versus google, the liability that youtube would have for actions it takes around those algorithms. what that is, is if you have ever watched a youtube video, so let's say you want to go watch " charlie bit my finger," a very famous youtube video. if you watch it, youtube will say, hey, you watch this, so up

next is a video we think you'll like based on that. that active recommending is done by an algorithm that takes lots of input in from previous viewers, from your own viewing habits, and other things. but it is not something you necessarily have control over. then, it will either recommend you watch that, or what even just auto play it after a few seconds. the argument that the plaintiffs are making before the court today is that because google is writing the code to create that recommendation, absent from interaction from a user who may be requested it, is that something google is doing on its own and it should be liable for its actions, as opposed to something that you may be searching for? that is the question for today. what is an algorithm? that is going to be a very difficult question for the court to come with today. i think parsing that line between an algorithm, what is

allowed and not, i think that is going to be a challenge. that doesn't mean the court won't make a bad ruling, a complicated ruling. there is plenty of history for supreme court rulings that don't necessarily make sense. host: but the court doesn't necessarily have this background light comes to technological issues. guest: that's true, but i think in this case it is a little less relevant. there was one in 2021 where they made a fairly reasonable argument. but this is a legal argument. it is a legal protection, a legal argument. i don't think it takes a lot of sophistication to understand some of those challenges in writing that definition. i will also say this court is younger than any court we have seen in quite a long time. i think that plays an important role as well. host: we had a fuser asked about the user experience side of it. there's options for tolerance and what they see at the end. guest: yes and no.

often, there are certain things you have some control over, but that isn't true of other things. tiktok, i think, is a very good example of what a super algorithm really does. on your facebook newsfeed, it took into account your friends, what you interacted with. but tiktok uses artificial intelligence to just watch you for five seconds and guess about the kind of things that may be of interest to you, then track them from there. a lot of that is not conscious, it's not something you have necessarily done or declared. it really is this kind of black box that you don't necessarily have. personally identifiable information. your name, address, that sort of thing. host: when it comes to companies themselves, we have seen them here on capitol hill. time and again, they make the already met we can police ourselves. you work for a company like

facebook, who has been before capitol hill. what is their ability to police themselves when it comes to content? guest: i think fundamentally, there is a limit, and we have well reached that limit. but i think people tend to look at this from an economic lens and say, they're spinning so much money. facebook has 40,000 employees. but 40,000 employees relative to 2 billion users, with the money they have, they could certainly afford to spend more. even if they spend more and they should, what is the relevance they have? can they get truly better and is it possible to moderate something this big? is that ok? is that the trade-off we have decided on? i think tech companies don't want to admit the former. it may be impossible. that is the reality we live in today. host: we go to that case just a few minutes for now. (202) 748-8001 for republicans, democrats (202) 748-8000, and

independents (202) 748-8002. if you want to ask questions for our guest adam connor. we've also heard an argument that if you make changes to internet policy, particularly because of its uniqueness, you will chill the industry and that will have an effect on it. what do you think of that argument and does it apply to what might come out of these cases we are hearing this week? guest: i certainly think that is stronger for the court case this week than the texas and florida social media laws, which is really removing the ability to moderate, which will certainly have an impact on the environment you have. it is a complicated question. what we see is that the consolidation of the tech industry has resulted in just a few big tech players. a lot of innovation is already chilled by the concentration of power, by their ability to foreclose or acquire companies. the competition there is a necessarily what once was. that being said, algorithms and

liability, which may have been a play startups could have innovative, having that taken into effect may impact them. because they won't have the same ability to litigate that may be a large tech company will. or a big tech company could litigate against them. that being said, at a certain point, if the law is changed, there will be turmoil, but then case law, precedents, and maybe congress will step in. maybe there will be a new normal. the question is just, what would it impact to get there? did we lose certain companies and others grow? i think that is a little less clear-cut. host: is congress open to the idea of making changes to section 230 and other policies to account for the modern-day internet? guest: i think the current congress would be thrilled to modify section 230, if they didn't have to come to agreement on what those medications are. i think we have seen pretty dramatically the left and the

right having problems with the law, but simultaneously having very different interpretations of how to handle it. host: we had a viewer asked about artificial intelligence. they asked if it produces slanderous content, who is liable? but talk about where ai goes when it comes to content. guest: i think that's a great question. one, if ai produces content, that is a great unknown question and one that will almost certainly be before the courts in some form or another in the near future. whether or not these are services, they can be held liable, or will be able to claim some sort of service. what it will do, i think, is more interesting. a lot of artificial intelligence uses machine intelligence. the explosion of chet gpt and

other generative ai, it comes to you in text and soon will come in videos. instead of computers processing that information, then interpreting it, it is humans interpreting. that is going to, i think, strain even further some of the things we are already seeing being challenged on the internet. it is already relatively easy to overwhelm online. this will make it easier. the question is, do we have the capacity to adapt to that? i don't know the answer. host: from new york city, democrats line, lori -- rory,, you are on. caller: what response abilities do the individuals have to control content coming in? for example, the acceptance of cookies, and should there be

some burden on the users for controlling the content and access by websites to use information? guest: a great question. one is small that i think gets lost, which is that the original poster of said content, so if c-span were to upload a video to youtube, they could always be sued and held liable. it just prevents youtube from being liable. the question about what responsibility individuals should have, i think there are two kinds here. one is, what is the reasonableness in which a person can understand what they are consenting to and have the ability to track it? when you read a terms of service agreement and click agree, you read what you are agreeing to. that isn't actually how it works in the real world. if there were controls people

might have access to but don't know about, there's another question about how much they can use. i think a lot of things facebook, for instance, has gone in trouble with over the years, is their expectation. while the ability to change that made technically exist, it is not something that gets used, as borne out by their data. to kill only on posting sharing content that cannot be ignored, one of the things there is that when people take action to further content out into the world, there needs to be some interventions on the product side and responsibility, but a lot of this is something you have control over. this is a black box being presented to you, sometimes without the ability to give feedback on what is being presented. host: for adam connor, we will hear from dave in florida, republican line. we are just a few and it's from the different court coming in. go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i would just like to ask you a

question. in light of the green energy issue, i would like to talk about where were metals. we buy them all from china. about 90%, and here we are talking about balloons and all of that stuff. here we are, openly giving our security to china. we don't make our own rare earth metals. host: a little beyond the conversation where having today. john and flora, democrats line. -- john in a, democrats line. caller: there definitely subsets of algorithms that i'm not hearing about. money talks. it can dictate what video they recommend. it has subsets of what is recommended. money talks and we know what

walks. everything you see is driven by money. the next thing you see is also driven by money. host: john in florida, thank you. guest: he makes a very reasonable point. without liability or consequence, tech companies decide to build their algorithms on what matters most of them. that is money. that comes in two different forms. the goal would be to keep more people on the site, so they can monitor and show them advertisements to have them purchasing. or for engagement, so wanting to click more, post more, other things. we know controversial content in particular, that is true. i think the caller makes a good point. what they should be optimizing for, companies optimize for the bottom line. how the e.u. has dealt with these issues. go further than that, if you

can. host: the e.u. has dealt with this in a couple of ways. the first is, particularly the large tech companies these days are primarily u.s.-based. so section 230 being u.s. law is primarily what governs that. the e.u. does have a form of what's called intermediary liability which is similar to section 230. it's not quite as broad. but, again, given so much of this is driven by u.s. companies, it matters a little bit less in that context. the e.u. is doing something very different than the united states in that they have passed laws to regulate their technology sector to take into account these new technologies. these two laws called the digital services act and the digital markets act, going into effect this year, and will fundamentally require tech companies to have new commitments, new transparency, and new requirement that they don't have here in the united states. so as of i think last month or maybe this month, citizens online in the european union have much more protections

online from american companies than american citizens do. host: hope in california. independent line. jump right in. caller: i just want to say the big tech has proven they can be compromised, so how is it we can get the free press to be free and not be compromised whether it's democrat, republican, independent, it should be exactly a free press, how does that -- how can we get to that point again? guest: i think that's a great question. i think one of the things we know about the press today is that the economic models have been fundamentally changed by the internet and some of the ways that journalists -- journalism tried to survive was by really closely tying itself to products like facebook and facebook video and facebook news and other companies. and we haven't seen that pay out because of the advertising due only that -- duopoly that google and facebook have but also just because these services are at

their whims so that when facebook, for instance, famously pivoted away from video, all these journalistic endeavors that are really focused on short-form social media video died. very famously. and so i think what is critical to a free press surviving is economic models that allow them to survive and those cannot both be tied to large tech companies but also need to take into account and understand where those tech companies are preventing them from being economically viable. host: we heard president biden address several technological issues, particularly when it comes to social media. what do you think about the inclusion of those in the speech and what is the biden administration ready to do about it? guest: you know, the biden administration -- president biden's state of the union was the second time in the state of the union he had actually echoed calls for social safety, antitrust, the first time that had been uttered in a state of the union speech in quite

sometime. the biden administration opened the year with an op-ed in "the wall street journal" calling for congress to take action on these three things, on antitrust, on privacy, particularly children's privacy, as well as looking at section 230 and algorithms. but they really stated that they needed congress to act because the tools to regulate tech from the executive branch side were more limited. now i think there are some levers that can and will be pulling to make sure this is something addressed by them. but they are constrained to some extent by the limits by what the law allows. i really do think this is an interesting moment and this goes to the final point i wanted to make about these cases which the politics around tech has shifted dramatically in the last few years. you know, it's hard to remember this now but people didn't used to know what section 230 was and president trump spenting the closing months of the 2020 election campaigning against section 230. it's been a really dramatic shift. it's been a real focal point

during the culture wars. and one of the things that will be illuminating today how the justices feel about this. have their politics shifted as well? one of the things we know about court is they are small conservative. they kind of trail public opinion. they have their own ideology. we've seen a lot of ground work laid to that in other decisions over time. the dobbs decision which prescribed for many years out. the politics have changed so dramatically in such a short amount of time. we don't know where the court will be on this. i think -- aside from justice thomas. i think today's questions will give a really strong preview how the court is thinking about these issues generally and the decisions they make won't necessarily predict what they will do in the future but will give us a window into how we think about it. host: adam connor has been talking it from the center for american progress. thank you nor the time. we'll -- thank you for the time. we'll take you to the supreme