{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=D3D15A1D-1542-482D-8E65-5C9301804BA7", "Thune Stands Up for Consumers, Insists That Big Tech be Held Accountable", "2021-09-30", "2021", "2021-09", "Republican", "Senate", "SD", "John Thune", "T000250", "www.thune.senate.gov", "thune", "https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases", "scraper", "U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Communications, Media, and Broadband, today expressed deep concern about the lack of transparency and the limited accountability of big tech companies during a Commerce Committee hearing, titled \u201cProtecting Kids Online: Facebook, Instagram, and Mental Health Harms.\u201d Thune questioned Facebook\u2019s global head of safety about the use of algorithms to influence certain behaviors online and whether consumers should have the ability to use Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms without being manipulated by algorithms. Earlier this year, Thune reintroduced two bipartisan bills, the Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency (PACT) Act and the Filter Bubble Transparency Act, that would help increase online transparency and accountability.\n\nThune\u2019s opening remarks below (as prepared for delivery):\n\n\u201cThank you for holding this important hearing.\n\n\u201cI, along with many of my colleagues, are deeply concerned about the lack of consumer transparency and limited accountability of big tech companies. Consumers have become increasingly troubled about the way their information is used by social media platforms, and how these sites decide what news and information we see.\n\n\u201cBecause of the secrecy with which platforms protect their algorithms and content moderation practices, which largely has been and continues to be a black box, consumers have little or no idea how the information they see has been shaped by the sites they\u2019re visiting.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T20:17:01Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.thune.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=D3D15A1D-1542-482D-8E65-5C9301804BA7"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.8130550850182772, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}