Rigged? Lawmakers' panel on social media influence focuses on election manipulation

An Arizona legislative committee created to investigate how government officials try to influence social media companies, and how social media and tech companies influence others, spent the majority of its four-hour first meeting airing concerns about election manipulation.

No conclusions were reached Tuesday about what the role of the Arizona government should be in regulating or curbing the growing reach of technology and social media. More hearings of the Ad Hoc Committee on Oversight, Accountability, and Big Tech are expected before the end of the year.

The debut meeting further illustrated the allegiance of some Arizona Republicans to a desire to cast doubt on elections. Former gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake spoke to the committee, again alleging her defeat was the result of fraud although she has been unable to back up her claims.

The lone Democrat on the three-member committee said that focus on elections clouded discussion when it came to looking at issues involving tech companies and the powerful influence of the internet.

"I literally went in thinking it was going to be, like, a legit committee," said Rep. Cesar Aguilar, D-Phoenix. "For me, there are concerns when it comes to privacy issues and tech companies. But we didn't really even go into detail on that at least, and everything kind of just led back to how the election was rigged for Republicans. So that was disappointing."

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Aguilar said he hoped the committee would address how to keep citizens' information private from social media companies, pointing to a data privacy law in California as one example.

The committee heard testimony from two witnesses, neither of whom made conclusive findings but raised possible issues the committee will consider.

Committee chair, Rep. Alex Kolodin, R-Scottsdale, said the panel's goal was to address “disturbing parallels” to the dystopian novel "1984" by George Orwell, in which government surveillance and propaganda create a society that doesn't value freedom of expression.

Koldin told a reporter he did not believe a heavy focus on elections would deter from the focus of the committee or its work.

"No, free speech doesn't hurt the cause of free speech," he said. "I want all the speech. I was disappointed that there weren't Democrats here in the audience to testify. I would love to hear what they have to say.

"And I think it's incumbent upon all Americans to show up and let their voices be heard that this is unacceptable from any sort of public official, right? Democrat, Republican, libertarian, Green Party, whatever. It shouldn't be happening."

The first witness was Robert Epstein, a Harvard-trained psychologist who has studied Google search results to monitor bias. He concluded in a 2017 white paper, after reviewing 13,000 search results shown to 95 people, that the results were biased in favor of Hillary Clinton ahead of her 2016 loss to Donald Trump.

Epstein has written numerous opinion pieces and testified to Congress about his work. He told the Arizona committee on Tuesday that Google's algorithm could have influenced millions of votes, calling it "the biggest, most powerful mind control machine that's ever been invented."

He said Lake's loss to Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs was so close, it was "guaranteed Google decided that election."

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He alleged intentional interference by Google and told a reporter that was apparent through the later testimony of whistleblowers who left the company. Independent fact checkers have disputed Epstein's findings and conclusions, which were taken up by Trump in an effort to explain why he fell short to Clinton in the popular vote, noting they are not conclusive evidence that millions of votes were changed.

Epstein affirmed to a reporter that his work showed a possibility, and he encouraged the committee to consider regulating social media or funding programs — like one he is running — to monitor and track search results. Epstein said he raised $3 million for his work but soon may have to lay staffers off because that funding is running out.

A second witness, James Kerwin of the Mountain States Legal Foundation in Colorado, offered a primer on First Amendment law and when government reporting of misinformation can cross a line from persuasion to coercion. Kerwin is senior counsel for the foundation, a nonprofit law firm that defends Constitutional rights.

Its website says governments are "relentless in their efforts to squash the Second Amendment rights of peaceable gun owners," and the organization warns that rights to speech are threatened by government retaliation.

Kerwin addressed a recent report from a website called Arizona Capitol Oversight that claimed Hobbs tried to censor Republican social media posts when she was secretary of state between 2018 and 2022.

He said repeatedly that two of Hobbs' requests fell into a gray area of law, and though context for each of the requests was missing, they "walk pretty close to the line between what the courts would say is seeking to persuade a social media company to take action against speech, versus being coercive about it," he said.

In one message, a Hobbs staffer sought guidance for how to address widespread misinformation about using Sharpies on ballots, noting "we can't stamp them out one at a time." In another, a staffer reported a critical video shared by the Arizona Republican Party as misinformation, citing state law as proof. (Maricopa County election officials have repeatedly said Sharpies are allowed because their ink dries more quickly, and that ballot tabulators don't read markings that would bleed through.)

Lake, who lost the governor's race to Hobbs by 17,117 votes, was one of four members of the public to speak to the committee Tuesday. She urged the ad hoc committee to do something to stop the nation's "fast track toward globalism and, frankly, Marxism."

"And I think everybody in this room knows that that election of 2022 was a fraud, a fraudulent election, and it was sabotaged by some of the people who are running our election," Lake said.

Lake has had two trials in her election challenge, which has been appealed to the Arizona Supreme Court, and has not shown evidence that fraud determined the outcome of the race. Rather, analyses have shown that her brand of Republican politics — alienating more traditional GOP views and claiming fraud — cost her the race.

Lake was warmly welcomed by the committee.

"Well, boys, we have to have the last word after Kari Lake," Kolodin told the committee members as he moved to close the hearing. "I don't know how we're going to do this, but we'll have to give it a whirl."

After brief closing statements, Kolodin and committee member Rep. Neal Carter, R-San Tan Valley, posed for pictures and selfies with Lake and Sen. Wendy Rogers, R-Flagstaff, a Trump ally who has furthered unfounded claims of election fraud. Rogers is not part of the ad hoc committee but attended the hearing and leads the Senate's elections committee.

Within an hour, Lake had published video of her testimony to her own social media channels.

Reach reporter Stacey Barchenger at stacey.barchenger@arizonarepublic.com or 480-416-5669.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Kari Lake speaks to Ariz. lawmakers' panel on social media influence