Transcripts For CSPAN2 Facebook Google Twitter Executives Testify On Social Media Regulations... 20240712

[inaudible conversations] this hearing will come to order. Ms. Cantwell will join us remotely at the beginning of the hearing. We convene to continue work to make sure the laws that govern it are sufficiently uptodate the internet is a Great Success story thanks in large part to the regulatory and legal structure that we cannot take that for granted and with those prominent internet platforms the witnesses include mr. Jack dorsey. And Mark Zuckerberg of facebook. On october 1st the committee voted on bipartisan and unanimous basis to approve the issuance of subpoenas after discussions among representatives and the Committee Witnesses have agreed to voluntarily and remotely appear there is a strong agreement on both sides of these aisled that hearing frm these witnesses with those deliberations before this committee with legislative reformss with a free and open internet i was 25 years it has been the hallmark of a driving Digital Economy in the United States this has been attributed b to a Regulatory Framework and section 230 of the Communications Decency act and there is little dispute they play a Critical Role in the development andt growth of Online Platform section 230 content providers protection from liability to remove content that they consider to be obscene or lascivious, filthy, excessively violent harassing or objectionable. So to protect the Online Platform some endless and potentially ruinous lawsuits but also has given the platforms the ability to control and stifle even censor content in whatever manner for the standards after 24 years being the law of the land much as changed the internet is no longer and emerging Technology Companies before us today o are no longer scrappy startups now among the largest corporations in the economy and culture in public discourse. The applications they have created its not what they couldve imagined three decades ago they control the overwhelming t flow of information and the public can share. Want to know where the example occurred just two weeks ago after our subpoenas were unanimously approved the New York Post, the fourth largest newspaper ran a story running communications between hunter biden and a ukraine official the report alleged hunter biden facilitated a meeting with his father joe biden who is an Vice President of theen United States almost immediately twitter and facebook took steps to block the story. Facebook according to policy Communications Manager began reducing the distribution on the platform. Pending a thirdparty check and twitter went beyond that blocking all users including the House Judiciary Committee from sharing the article from direct messages even twitter walked the us on the post account entirely say they were potentially harmful its worth noting twitter and facebooks aversion to hacked materials has not always been so stringent when the tax returns were illegally leaked they went to restrict access to that information. Similarly to now discredit the steell dossier was shared without Fact Checking or disclaimers the double standard with a problem under circumstances but the fact that censorship is occurring in the midst of the 2020 election cycle dramatically amplifies the power wielded by facebook andok twitter google recently generated his own controversy when it was revealed to cut off several conservative websites including the federalist make no mistake for those that rely heavily on advertising revenue for their bottom line to be blocked from Google Services or to be demonetized that could be a death sentence. The defense of thesese websites was posting user submitted comment sections that included objectionable content. But googles own platform, youtube house user submitted comment sections for every video uploaded. Seems that google is far more zealous in policing conservativeng sites than its own youtube platform. And with the subject of Net Neutrality Technology Companies have warned about the grave t threat of battling the flow of information on the internet. And that distribution of content on their own platforms using protection under section 30. And with hypocrisy or that interference so thes are the latest of censorship and suppression of conservative voices of big tech firms are struck with the flow of information without political ideology or agenda. My concern is these platforms are powerfule arbiters of what is true and what content users can access. The American Public gets little insight into the decisionmaking process when it is moderated with little recourse when sensors are restricted those issues are ripe for thoroughth examination and introduce legislation to clarify of those who engage in content moderation it would make changes to the liability shield and what type of content moderation is protected with the challenges thatth we discuss leaving those fundamentals in place. Father some of my colleagues on the other side of thehe aisle see this is a truly partisan exercise their strong bipartisan support and president ial candidates trump and biden have posed repeatedly section 230 in its entirety. And have not yet embraced. That they can focus on the issues that affect all americans with a true diversity. And three discourse is central to our way of life record of todays witnesses for transparency and accountability and fairness in the content moderation process and i think each of them for cooperating with us. Now Ranking Member senator cantwell for her opening remarks. So in the state of washington in washington dc the ecosystem which we very much appreciate just the number one stem economy in the United States and the United States of america so these issues how we harness the Information Age is something that we deal with every day of the week and to have the discussion and discourse i believe that should be broader than just 230. And then how there is a free andd competitive market and with the Publishers Association asking them why they have repented information you alluded to in your testimony that you wish was more broadly distributede. To have the competition in the news market is to have a diversity of voicesit and opinion in my report just recently released true competition and does affect information for our economy and the help of ourf democracy. Look forward to discussing these issues today i dont want this to be a Chilling Effect on a very important aspect to make sure that hate speech or misinformation related to health and public safetyty are allowed to remain on the internet. We all know what happened in 2016 with the Intelligence Agency andnd a Bipartisan Committee the russian operatives did masquerading as americans using targeted advertisement intentionally falsified newsfa articles, self generated content, social media platform tools to interact and defeat tens of millions of social media users in the United States. Deli director of National Intelligence to say in july 2018 the warning lights will be read but the Digital Infrastructure is literally under attack. I take this issue very seriously and i have for many years to make sure as mueller indicated those russian intelligenceca to detail phishing attacks into the state election board so when we had aen subCommittee Hearing former bush Security Director testified iic asked point blank everybody does election interference. Interferences something that we did what we should be encouraging and he responded interfering with infrastructure or election is completely offlimits and unacceptable and then to work aggressively internationally distinction and anybody so i hope today we get a report from the witnesses on exactly what they have been doing to clamp down on election interferencenc and they will tell us what kind of hate speech and misinformation they have taken off the books. It is no secret there are various state actors to take a whack at democracy to sell way of government or our way of life, freedom of speec speech, information and somehow is not as good as we have made it being the beacon of democracy around the globe. Will not tolerate people with our election process or the ability Security Companies in the collective community to speak with misinformation and hate speech but we have to show the United States of america stands behind of principles and they do also transfer to the responsibility of communication online. As my colleagues will know weve been through this in the past that is why we sponsor the hack act to help increase the security and cybersecurity of our nation to include a workforce that is why i join to establish sanctions against russia election interference to make sure we build the infrastructure off tomorrow. So i know some people think issues are out of sight and out of mind. I guarantee they are not many have been actors for a long time they want to destabilize Eastern Europe and we became the second act when they tried to destabilize our democracy e here. I want to show them that we in the United States to have a Fair Election and a fair process we would be that beacon of democracy. So i hope as we talk about 230 and the progress they have made the this information is not allowed online we will consider ways to build and strengthenre that to say as those were testifying today , what can we do on transparency, reporting, analyss , and you will hear a lot about algorithms and the kinds of oversight we all want to make sure we can continue to have a diversity of voices in the United States i do want to say mr. Chairman i am concerned the vertical nature of news and information today i expect to ask the witnesses there is the chokepointe the trn to the digital age. Somehow we have to come together to show that the diversity of voices at local news represents need to be dealt with fairly when it comes to the Advertising Market and too much control on the Advertising Market put the foot on their ability to continue to move forward and grow in the digital age, just as other forms of media have made the transition and still making the transition, we want to have a very healthy and dynamic news media across the United States of america, i plan to ask the Witnesses Today about that, i wish we had time to go into depth on privacy and privacy issues but mr. Chairman, you know and so does senator and other colleagues of the committee on my side, how important it is that we protect American Consumers on privacy issues, we are not done with this work, there is much to do to bring consensus in the United States on this important issue and i hope as we do have time or in the followup to these questions that we can also witnesses about that today, make no mistake gentlemen, thank you for joining us, this is probably one of many, many conversations that we will have about all of these issues but again lets harness the information as you are doing but lets also make sure that consumers are fairly treated and that we are making it work for all of us to guarantee our privacy, our diversity of voices and upholding our democratic principles and the fact that we the United States of america stand for freedom of informati information. Thank you, senator cantwell, you are correct that this will not be the last hearing with regard to the subject matter, i also appreciate you mentioning your concern which i share about local journalism at this point were about to receive testimony from her witnesses, before you begin that let me remind members that todays hearing will provide senators with seven minutes with a round of seven minute questioning rather than the usual five minutes that we have done in the past, at seven minutes the gavel, lets say a few seconds after seven minutes the gavel will go down, even so this hearing could last some three hours and 42 minutes at that rate, this will be an extensive and lengthy hearing, members revise that we will hear closely to the seven minute limit and also shortly before noon as the request of one of our witnesses we will take a short ten minute break. With that we welcome our panel of witnesses, thank you for the testimony and ask them to give their Opening Statements, summarizing them in a fiveminute and the entire statement will be added at this point in the record and we will begin with mr. Jack dorsey of twitter, sir do you hear us and we have contact with you . Yes can hear me. Yes. Thank you for being with us in your now recognized for five minutes. Thank you members of the Congress Committee for the opportunity to speak with the American People about twitter and section 230, ramie rocks will be brief so we can get to the questions, section 230 is the most important law protecting internet speech and removing section 230 will remove speech from the internet. Section 230 gave Internet Services to important tools the first provides immunity from liability from users content the second provides Good Samaritan protection for content moderation and removal even of constitutionally protected speech as long as its done in good faith. The concept of good faith is whats being challenged by many of you today. Some of you do not trust were acting in good faith, that is a problem i want to focus on solving. Other Services Like twitter earn your trust. We ensure more choice in the market if we dont. There are three solutions we would like to propose to address the concerns raised. All focused on services that decide to moderate content. It can be expansion to section 230, legislative framework or commitment to industrywide selfregulation best practices. The first is requiring a services moderation process to be published, how are cases reported and reviewed how are decisions made, what tools are used to enforce, publishing answers to questions like these will make our process more rebuffs and accountable to the people that we serve. The second is requiring a straight forth process to appeal decisions made by humans or by algorithms. This ensures people can let us know when we dont get it right so we can fix any mistakes and make your processes better in the future. Finally much of the content people see today is by algorithms, its very little disability into how they choose what they show. We took the first step in making this more transparent by building a button to turn off the timeline algorithm and its a good start but were inspired by the market approach suggested by doctor before this committee in june 2019. Enabling people to choose algorithms created by third parties to rank and filter the content is an incredibly energizing idea that is in reach. Requiring one moderation process and practice to be published, to a straightforward process to appeal decisions and three best efforts around algorithmic choice, or suggestions to address the concerns we all have going forward. And theyre all achievable in short order. It is critical as we consider these decisions we authorize from new startup and independent developers. Doing so ensures a level Playing Field that increases the probability of competing ideas to help solve problems, we must not entrench the Largest Companies any further, thank you for the time and i look forward to a productive discussion to begin to these and other ideas. Thank you very much mr. Dorsey, we now call, youre recognized for five minutes. Ranking number cantwell and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today, the internet has been a powerful force of good for the past three decades, its improved information whether its connecting americans to jobs, getting critical updates to people in times of crisis or helping a parent finances answers like how can i get my baby to sleep for the night, at the same time people everywhere can use their voices to share new perspectives, express themselves and reach broader audiences than ever before, whether youre a barber in mississippi or home renovator in indiana you can share a video and build a successful business right from the internet. In the space it is been one of the most important equalizers it can be shared and knowledge can flow from anyone to anywhere. The same low value also make it possible for bad actors to cause harm, as a Company Whose mission is to organize the world information and make it universally accessible its accomplished for the opportunities. I am proud that the information Services Like gmail, maps and photos with thousands of dollars of year for free. You feel a deep responsibility to keep the people who use a product safe and secure and long listed innovative tools we are committed to keeping the information safe, treating it responsibility and putting you in control, we continue to make privacy improvements like the changes announced earlier this year by default in the creation of comprehensive federal privacy laws. We are equally committed to protecting the quality of information on our platform and supporting our democracy in a nonpartisan way. As just one timely example our Information Panel on google and youtube about how to register, weve also taken many steps to raise high quality journalism from sending 24 billion visits globally every month to a recent 1 billiondollar investment and partnerships with the publishers. Since the founding we have been deeply committed to their freedom of expression, we also feel responsibility to protect people who use our products from harmful products and be transparent on how we do that. That is why we publicly disclose the guidelines for products and platforms which reinforce, we recognize that people come to the services with a Broad Spectrum of perspective and be a dedicated that are helpful to users of all backgrounds and viewpoints, let me be clear the approach to do otherwise would be contrary to both their business and trips and mission to make information accessible to every type of person no matter where they live or what they believe. Of course our ability to provide access to a wide range of information is only possible because of existing legal frameworks like section 230. The United States section 230 in the internets history with the u. S. Leadership in the sector and it protects to the platform same services of all size hits to responsible content because the committee has put content and we look forward to having these conversations. If you think about policy in this important area i would urge the committee to be to section 230 and the consequences that the changes might have on businesses and customers. At the end of today we all have the same goal, free access to information for everyone in responsible predictions for people in their data. We support legal frameworks and i look forward to engaging with you with these important issues in answering these questions. Thank you. Thank you very much, members should be advised that we are unable to make contact with mr. Mark zuckerberg, we are told by facebook staff that he is alone and attempting to connect with this hearing and that they are requesting a five minute recess at this point to see if that connection can be made, i think this is most and interest in the moment but we will accommodate the request of facebook employees and to see within five minutes that we can make contact and receipt, at this point we clarify recess. [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] i called the hearing back into order and were told in less than five minutes we have success, so mr. Zuckerberg named told that we have video and audio connection, are you there sir. Yes i am, can you hear me. I hear you fine and you recognize for five minutes to summarize your testimony. I was able to hear the other Opening Statements i was having a hard time connecting myself. I know the feeling mr. Zuckerberg. Ranking member cant one members of the committee, every day millions of americans use the internet to share their experiences and discuss issues that matter to them. Setting the rules for online discourse is an important challenge for our society and there are principles that go beyond anyones platform, how do we balance Free Expression and safety, how do we define what is dangerous, who should decide, i dont believe the private companies should make so many decisions about these issues by themselves, at facebook we have to balance competing equities and sometimes the best approach for his safety an and we work wh experts across society to strike the right balance, we dont always get it right but we try to be fair and consistent. The reality is people of very different ideas and views of where the line should be, democrats often say that we dont remove enough content and republican say we remove too much. I expect that we will hear some of those criticisms today. The fact that both sides criticize us does not mean that were getting this right but it does mean that there are real disagreements about where the limits of online speech should be. I think that is understandable, people reasonably disagree where to draw the line, that is a hallmark of Democratic Society especially here in the u. S. With our strong First Amendment to jason but it strengthens my belief when a private Companies Making these calls, we need a more accountable process the people feel is legitimate and gives platform certainty at facebook we publish our standards and issued quarterly ports on the content that we take down and watch an independent Oversight Board that can overturn a decision and we committed to an audit of our content report, i believe congress has a role to play in order to get people confident that the process is carried out in a way that balances society and deeply held values appropriately, thats why call for regulation. Right now the discussion is section 230 some say ending 230 would solve the internets problem, others say it would in the internet as we know it, from our perspective section 230 does two basic things, and encourages Free Expression which is fundamentally important, without 230 plot on plum platforms to be held liable for everything the people say it takes much greater pressure to take ten more content to avoid legal risk, second it allows platforms to moderate content, without 230 platforms conveys liability for basic moderation like removing harassment if it impacts the safety of their communities. There is a reason why america leads and technology, section 230 helped create the internet as we know it, help new ideas get built in their companies to spread American Values around the world and we should maintain this advantage, the internet is also involved and i think that congress should update the raw to make sure it is working as intended, one important place to start would be making content moderation systems more transparent, another with separate good actors from bad actors by making sure companies cannot hide behind section 230 to avoid responsibility with intentionally facilitating the illegal activity on their platforms. We are open to working with congress on these ideas and more and i hope the changes that you make will bring truth to the spirit and the intent of 230 and their consequential choices to make and its important that we dont prevent the next generation of ideas from being built, of this hearing is content policy and i want to cover our election preparedness work, voting ends in six days and were in the midst of a pandemic and ongoing threats to the integrity of the selection, and 2016 facebook has made major investment to stop foreign interference weve hired more than 35000 people to work on safety and security and we disrupted more than 100 Networks Coming from russia, iran, and china and more that were misleading people about who they are and what theyre doing including three just this week, this is an extraordinary election and we updated our policies to reflect that. Were showing people reliable information about results and we strengthen our ads and misinformation policies. We are also running the largest voting Information Campaign in u. S. History, we estimate that weve helped more than 4. 4 Million People registered to vote in 100,000 People Volunteer to be pulled workers. Candidates on both sides continue to use her platforms to reach voters people are rightly focused on the role that Technology Companies plan our election, im proud of the work that we have done to support our democracy, this is a difficult. But i believe america will emerge stronger than ever and we are focused on doing our part to help. Thank you very much mr. Zuckerberg and thank you to all of our witnesses, i think we are supposed to set the clock to seven minutes, somehow we will keep time, thank you will let me start with mr. Dorsey the committee has compiled dozens of examples of conservative content and suppressed by your platforms over the last four years in into these in october 1 when the Committee Voted Unanimously to issue the subpoenas and thank you all three again for working with us on the scheduling and alleviating the necessity for actually exercising the subpoenas your platform allows foreign dictators too post propaganda typically without restriction yet you routinely restrict the president of the United States, heres an examp example, in march as spokesman for the Chinese Communist party falsely accused the u. S. Military of causing the coronavirus epidemic. He tweeted cdc was caught on the spot, winded patient zero begin in the u. S. And how many people are infected, what are the names of the hospitals, it might be the u. S. Army who brought the epidemic to wuhan and on and on. After this tweet was up for two months twitter added a fact check label after being up for two months, however, when President Trump tweeted about how mailin ballots are vulnerable to fraud and statements that i subscribe to and agree with in a statement that is in fact true, twitter immediately imposed fact check label on that tweet. Mr. Dorsey, how does the claim by Chinese Communist that the u. S. Military is to blame for covid remain up for two months without a fact check in the president s tweet about security mailin ballots get labeled instantly. First and foremost as you mentioned we did label, as we think about enforcement, we consider severity of potential harm and react as quickly as we can, we have taken action against tweets from World Leaders all around the world including the president and we did take action on that tweet because we sought, we saw the confusion it might encourage and we labeled it accordingly your speaking of the president street. Yes. The goal of relabeling is to provide more context to connect the dots so people can have more information and make decisions for themselves, we created these policies recently, we are enforcing them, they are certainly things that we can do much faster but generally we believe that the policy was enforced in a timely manner in the right regard. And yet you seem to have no objection to a tweet by the Chinese Communist party saying the u. S. Army brought the epidemic to wuhan. We did in relabeled that tweet providing. Im not sure of the exact timeframe but we can get back to you on that. Youre gonna get back to us on how ho and tweet from the Chinese Communist party falsely accusing u. S. Military of causing the coronavirus epidemic was left up for two months with no comment from twitter or the president of the United States making a statement about being careful about voter ballot security with the male was labeled immediately. I have a tweet here from the chairman of the federal communication commission. He recounts four tweets by the iranian dictator which twitter did not place a public label on, all four of them glorified violence, the first tweet says, each time the regime is a deadly cancerous growth and a detriment to the region, will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed, that is the first tweet, the second tweet though only the remedy of the regime is firm armed resistance. Again left up without comment by twitter, the struggle to free palestine is jihad in the way of god, i quote that in part for the sake of time and number four, we will support and assist any nation or group anywhere who opposes and fights the zionist regime. I would simply point out that these tweets are still up mr. Dorsey and how is it that they are acceptable. All ascii unanimous consent to enter this tweet, record at this point and that will be done without objection, how is mr. Dorsey, how is that acceptable based on your policy that twitter . We believe its important with everybody here Global Leaders and we have policies around World Leaders, we want to make sure that we are expecting their right to speak into publish what they need if there is a violation of her terms in the service we want to label it. Did they violate your terms of service mr. Dorsey . We did not find those to violate our terms of service, we consider them which is part of the speech of World Leaders in concert with other countries. Speech against our own people or countries own citizens we believe is different and can cause more immediate harm. Very telling information. Senator cantwell you are recognized. We are referring to a colleague senator peters because of the timing and situation for him. Senator peters are you there . I am here, you are recognized for seven minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman and Ranking Member cantwell appreciate your deferral and we certainly appreciate the consideration a great deal, i also want to thank each of our panelist here today for coming forward and being a witness and appreciating your schedule so we can have this hearing my question is for mr. Zuckerberg and i want to start off by saying how much i appreciated our opportunity last night to speak at length on a number of issues and i told you last night i appreciate facebooks efforts to assist Law Enforcement to disrupt a plot to kidnapped and hold the trial and kill our governor, governor witmer, the individuals in that case apparently used facebook for a broad recruiting effort but then they planned the specifics of the operation off of your platform. My question is when users reach the level radicalization the preacher Community Standards you will be on those and then drive them off to other platforms, those platforms tend to have less transparency and oversight, the issue that i would like you to address, those individuals that remain on your platform, they are far down the path of radicalization but they are definitely looking for an outlook, i understand facebook is recently adopted a strategy to redirect users who are searching for election misinformation but it does not seem that the policy applies to violent extremists. Mr. Zuckerberg, do you believe that the platform has a responsibility to offramp users who are on the path of radicalization by violent Extremist Groups . Senator thank you for the question, this is a very important one, my understanding that we actually do a little of what you are talking about, people are searching for white supremacist organizations which would be on those and treat those as terrorist organizations and not only will we show the content but i think we try and highlight information that would be helpful i think we try to work with experts on that, i can follow up and get you more information on the scope of those activities and when we invoke that but i certainly agree with the spirit of the question that this is a good idea and something that we should continue pursuing and perhaps expand. I appreciate those comments on the Ranking Member in the Senate Holding committee and what we see is the rise of a violent Extremist Groups which is very troubling and we need to work very closely as to how we disrupt this radicalization, from using your platforms, i appreciate the opportunity to work further and as we talked about last night, you asserted that facebook is proactively working with Law Enforcement to disrupt some of the real world violent attempts that stem from that activity that originated from your platform. Can you tell me how many threats that you have proactively referred to local or state Law Enforcement prior to being approached for a preservation request. Senator i dont know the number off the top of my head so i can follow up with you on that and its common that our system are able to detect when there is potential issues and over the last four years in particular we built closer partnerships with Law Enforcement in the Intelligence Community to share those signals. We are doing more of that including the case that you mentioned before around the attempted kidnapping governor witmer, we identified that as a signal to the fbi and i think it was six months ago where weve seen suspicious activity on a platform and there is certainly that is part of our routine. Discovery tools and recommendation algorithms that your platform use does serve potentially extremist content and user profile of some folks, as we seek to understand why membership in these Extremist Groups are rising, i would hope that your companies are engaging in forensic analysis of friendship when you take down an Extremist Group to take a look at how that happened on your platform, it is certainly going to better inform us as to how we can disrupt this improvement into Extremist Groups, my question for you in 2016 you said, this was an internal facebook an internal document that was reported by the wall street journal that said the 64 of members of violent groups became members because of your platforms recommendation from that report that was reported in the wall street journal, our Recommendation System is a problem, thats very concerning and i know in response to the report in 2016 you made changes to your policies, you made changes to some of the algorithms that they existed at that time, my question have you seen a reduction in the platform of facilitation of extremist recruitment since those policies were changed . Im not familiar without specific study but i agree with the concern and making sure that our Recommendation System for workgroups people are given the opportunity to join, there is one important sector for addressing this issue, weve taken a number of steps including this disqualifying groups for being in our Recommendation System at all if they are being used to share misinformation or if they have content violation or a number of other criteria. I am quite focused on this, i agree with where youre going with that question, i dont have any data today on the real world impact of that yet, but i think addressing this upstream is very important. I appreciate you green with that and we need more data, is that you dont have the data is about the top your head or that it does not exist. Senator certainly the former and potentially the latter as well, it probably takes some time after we make these changes to be able to measure the impact of it, i am not aware of what studies are going on, it seems like the type of thing that one would want, not just internal facebook researchers to work on a collaboration with independent academics as well. Thank you mr. Zuckerberg and thank you, senator peters. Senator gardner has also asked to go out of order in senator thune has graciously deferred to him, senator gardner, you are recognized for seven minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman and thank you, senator thune for sharing your time or at least differing your time to me and thank you mr. Zuckerberg, i thank you very much and i think you mr. Dorsey for being here, mr. Dorsey im going to address these questions to you, do you believe the holocaust really happen, yes or no. Yes. So you would agree someone who says the holocaust may not have happened spreading misinformation, yes or no. Yes. I appreciate your answers on this, they surprised me and probably a lot of americans after all they have done exactly this, questioning the holocaust and yet his tweets remain unclogged on twitters platform, you and i agree that moderating your platform makes sense in certain respects we dont want the next terrorist finding information on twitter or any platform for that matter but you also decided to moderate certain content from influential World Leaders, like your decision to do so a little bit better. Can you name any other instance twitter hiding or leading a tweet. We have many examples. Would you be willing to provide a list of those. Absolutely. I know weve established content moderation in combating terrorism but twitter has a content moderation from the standpoint of combating misinformation as well and its strange to me that you flagged the tweets from the president and the calls to israel off the map and that you cant recall off the top your head if you deleted tweets from other World Leaders, i would appreciate that, i think its important that we all hear that prayer that brings my next question to a list of certain accounts that you actively monitor for misinformation. No, we dont have a policy against this misinformation and three categories which are manipulating media, Public Health specifically coded and civic integrity election interference and Voter Suppression, that is all for misleading information, we do not have policy enforcement for misleading information that you are mentioning. Somebody denying the murder of millions of people or instigating violence against the country as head of state is not categorically falling in any of the three misinformation or any other categories twitter how. We do have other policies which some of the tweets they mentioned are the examples that your mentioning about for misleading information we are focused on those three categories. Somebody who denies this information. Is misleading information but we dont have a policy against that misleading information. We had millions of people died and thats not a violation, again i just dont understand how you can label a president of the United States, have you ever taken a tweet down. I believe we have that we can get back to you on, we certainly label tweets and i believe we have taken them down as well. You said you do not have a list, you do not maintain a list. We dont maintain a list of accounts we watch, we look for reports and issues brought to and then we weighed against our policy. You look for reports from your employees. From the people using the service. And then they turn that over to your board of review, is that correct. In some cases have algorithms and they take action and in other cases in some cases its a pairing of the two. Theres numerous examples of blue checkmarks that are spreading false information that are not fox and twitter must have some kind of accounts that are maintained, how do you decide and is there a formal threshold that must be met before the tweet. No. Twitter cant claim, with your answers, i dont understand how twitter can claim to want a world of less hate and misinformation while you simultaneously let the kind of content that they had tweeted on the platform including from other World Leaders, its no wonder that americans are concerned about politically motivated content information given what we have just said, its an idea of unelected elites in San Francisco or Silicon Valley deciding whether my speech is permissible on their platforms but i like the idea of washington, d. C. Bureaucratics trying to enforce a politically neutral content moderation, just as we have heard from other panelists and as we will hear throughout the day, we have to be very careful and not rush the legislator that stifle speech, you can delete facebook and twitter and ditch google but you cannot unsubscribe from government centers, congress should be focused on encouraging speech not restricting and the Supreme Court has tried teaching us that lesson time and time again in the constitution demands that we remember, im running short on time, somebody quickly go through another question. It creates . If we are acting as a publisher, i would say yes. The content you create on your own platform. Thank you as well to the witnesses. Thank you, senator gardiner. The Ranking Member has now deferred to senator klobuchar. Senator, you are now recognized. Thank you, mr. Chair man. I want to note first this hearing comes six days before election day and it makes i believe we are politicizing and the republican majority is politicizing what should actually not be a partisan topic and i do want to thank the witnesses for appearing but also for the work that they are doing to try to encourage voting and to try to put out the correct information when the president and others are undermining vote by mail. Something we are doing in every state in the country right now. Second point, republicans failed to pass a bipartisan honest and act and the white house block to the bipartisan Election Security bill that i had with senator langford as well as several other republicans, and its one of the reasons i think we need a new president. Third, my republican colleagues in the senate and many of them i work with in the committee when it comes to antitrust, privacy, a subject that came up with so many things. Im going to use my time to focus on what i can consider in Justice Ginsburgs words to be a blueprint for the future. I will start with you, how many people log into facebook everyday . More than 2 billion. How much money have you made on political advertisements in the past two years . Off the top of my head its a relatively small part. Small for you but i think that 2 billion over the 10,000 ads sold. Those are your numbers and we can check them. Do you require employees to review the content of each of the political ads that you sell in order to ensure they signify with the law and your own internal rule . We require all advertisers to be verified before they can run ads. And i believe we do review advertising as well. A. But does a real person read the political ads, yes or no . Senator, i imagine that a person doesnt look at every single ad. Add. The systems are a combination. We have 35,000 people who do content security reviews. I dont think they do. I think instantly they are placed; is that correct . My understanding of the way the system works is we have computers and Artificial Intelligence scan everything and if we think that there is a potential violation then the system will act or flag it to the people who do content review. You could have a real person review like the other traditional media organizations. Another question, when john mccain and i and senator warner introduced the act we got pushed back from your company and others and you were initially against it then we discussed at the hearings you were for it and i appreciate that. I know youve spent money on lobbying. Have you spent any of the money trying to change or block the bill . I have endorsed it and we have implemented it even though it hasnt become law. We are at a roadblock. I do appreciate that you voluntarily implemented some of it but have you voluntarily implemented the part where you dispose which groups of people are being targeted . Weve tried to provide as much transparency and we are leaning in that area. With such limited time, one of the things i want to ask about is divisiveness on the platform. More tile on the platform and the Company Makes more money. Does that bother you what its done to the politics . I respectfully disagree with the characterization. We designed the systems to show the content thats going to be the most meaningful to them which is not trying to be as divisive as possible. Much of the content isnt political. Its like making sure you can see when your cousin had her baby. Im going to move on but im telling you right now that isnt what im talking about. We are talking about conspiracy theories and all the things i think the senators on both sides of the aisle know im talking about and its been corrosive. Mr. Pichai, i havent really liked your response to the lawsuit and we need a change in competition policy and i believe im able to ask more about it in the Judiciary Committee. I think your response isnt just defiant but you control over 90 of general Search Engines and a 7070 of the search Advertising Market. Dont you see these practices as anticompetitive . We see robust competition and we are lowering prices and happy to engage and discuss it further. One of your employees testified last month and suggested google wasnt dominant and it was one of only Many Companies than a highly competitive landscape. Google has 90 of the Service Market product. Does the market to sound highlyy competitive to you . Very brief answer. Its significant in the last two years. This is a market where the margins are low and we are trying to support the Publishing Industry but definitely open to feedback. We are looking forward to the next hearing to discuss it more. Senator thune you are recognized. Its an important followup to the Committee Hearing on section 230 and many of us here today and many of those we represent are deeply concerned about the possibility of the political bias and discrimination by large internet social media platforms. The explanations given by the platforms are taking down or suppressing content to lock back after scrutiny and due to exceptional secrecy with which platforms protect the algorithms and content practices its been in possible to prove one way or another whether the political bias exists to the users are stuck with anecdotal information that seems to confirm their worst fears which is why ive introduced the platform Consumer Transparency act and the filter bubble Transparency Act to give users the regulators and the general public meaningful insight. It assumes that you are the very least the publishers making editorial decisions about speech. So, yes or no i would ask of each of the three of you are you with the legitimate referees over our political speech. Are you the referee . Senator, i certainly think not and i do not want us to have that role. Mr. Dorsey, are you the referee . No. Mr. Pichai . I think we make moderation decisions and we believe in support o maximizing freedom of expression. I will take that as three nose and i agree you are not the referees of the political speech and that is why you have to be more transparent and fair with your content moderation policy and content selection algorithms because at the moment it is as i said largely a black box. There is mistrust among the American People whether you are being fair or transparent and this is concerns about the kind of amplification and suppression decisions your platforms make during the period as a result of the election too close to call so i want to underscore again for my democratic friends who keep using this referee an analysis of google, facebook and twitter are not the referees over our democracy. Now, the second question. The users should be entitled to the due process and explanation when the content they post has been taken down. Senator, i think that that would be a good principal to have. Mr. Dorsey . Absolutely. Most are justifiably concerned how often the suppression of the major newspaper articles occur online what yo would you commito provide for the record newspaper articles facebook suppressed are limited the distribution why each was suppressed and the distribution was limited . I can certainly follow up with you and your team to discuss that. We have an independent Fact Checking program and we try not to be arbiters of what is true ourselves, but we have partnered with Fact Checkers to help assess that would you commit to doing the same on behalf of twitter . We would absolutely be open to it and we suggest going a step further aligned with what you are introducing which is much more transparency around the process and also the results doing that on a regular basis. I do agree it builds more accountability and lends itself to more trust. Very it may be contributing o the distrust among the users. My understanding is the person that is in charge at facebook is a former staffer. Is there someone closely associated that is in the same integrity role and how do you all respond to that argument that there isnt a sufficient balance in terms of the political ideology or diversity in the companies and how do you deal with the lack of trust that creates . Lets see if we can have three brief answers there. I think having balance is valuable and we try to do that. Im not aware of the example you say of someone in charge in the process who worked for we can fn that. Follow up on the record for the rest of this answer please. I do believe its important to have more transparency in the process and practices and it is in the viewpoint that the employees hold. In these teams there are people that are liberal and republican and so on and with important thirdparty organizations on both sides and we know the different policies we are happy to engage. Thank you, senator. Its the issue of privacy and competition and local news. I will be examining some of these topics before the Judiciary Committee. You know, ive been an advocate of reform for literally 15 years when i was attorney general in connecticut i raised this issue of the community that no longer seems appropriate so i welcome what we are seeing now and there needs to be constructive review but frankly i am appalled that my republican colleagues are holding this hearing literally days before an election when they seem to want to browbeat the platform to try to tilt them towards President Trumps favor. The timing seems inexplicable except to gain the rest and effect. I recognize the analogy isnt exact but that is what they are trying to do to bully and browbeat the platforms to favor President Trumps posts and frankly he has broken all of the norms and has put on the platform potentially dangerous and lethal misinformation and disinformation. Im going to hold up one of them. This one as you can see pertains to covid. We have learned to live with it he says. Just like we are learning to live with the flu in most populations far less lethal. He has said children are almost immune from the disease and theres discrepancies with mailin ballots all over the usa with a final total november 3rd fortunately the platforms are acting to label or take down these kind of posts but my republican colleagues have lost their phones and voices and the platforms in my view [inaudible] wevwe lost your voice midsentence there. Lets suspend for a minute. We can hear you now, senator blumenthal. Start back one sentence. We had you until then. About this a disinformation now we have hearings that are designed to browbeat the platforms that have labeled this disinformation for exactly what it is. We are on the verge of a massive onslaught of the integrity of our election. President trump has indicated that he will potentially interfere by posting disinformation on election day or the morning after. The russians have already been interfering and there will be briefings that are literally chilling about what they are doing and thereve been public alerts that foreign actors and criminals are likely to spread disinformation regarding the results. They are making it look like childs play in what they are doing so President Trump and the republicans have plans that involve disinformation and misinformation. The russians have a plan. I want to know whether you have a plan. Facebook, google, twitter if it uses your platform to say on the day of the election that there is fraud without any basis and evidence for attempts to say that its over and the counting of the votes must stop either by november 4th or subsequent after. I would like to ask about whether you have a plan yes or no. We have policies related to all of the areas youve just mentioned. Campaigns trying to delegitimize and declare victory and spread Voter Suppression material thats misleading about how how or when to vote so we have taken a number of steps on that front. We have been planning for a while and we rely on raising up new sources and moments like that to make sure we can provide the most active information possible. We want to give the people using the service as much information as possible. Thank you, senator blumenthal. Senator cruz. I have concerns about the behavior of both of their companies. I would note that facebook is at least trying to make some efforts defending free speech. I appreciate them doing so. Google i agree with the concerns of senator klobuchar. I think google has more power than any company on the face of the planet and the antitrust concerns are real and the impact is profound and i expect we will have continued discussions about the abuse of that power and its willingness to manipulate the search outcomes to influence and change results. But today i want to focus my questioning on mr. Dorsey because the three players before us i think the conduct has by far been the most egregious. Does twitter have the ability to influence elections . No. You dont think that theres any ability to influence elections . So you are testifying to the committee right now that when it silences people it has no impact on elections . People have choice of the communication channels. Not if they dont hear the information. If you dont think you have the power, why do you block anything . We have policies that are focused on making sure they are possible and we see a lot of abuse and harassment that silences people. I find your opening answers absurd. Lets talk about the last two weeks. As you know i have long been concerned about twitters pattern of censoring and silencing individuals with whom twitter disagrees. But two weeks ago to a lesser extent twitter and facebook crossed a threshold that is fundamental in the country. Two weeks ago twitter made the unilateral decision to censor the New York Post in a series of two articles both alleging evidence of corruption against joe biden. First concerning ukraine and second, communist china and the twitter made the decision to prevent users from sharing the stories and number two you went even further and blocked the post from sharing its own reporting. Why did twitter make the decision to censor the post . We had a material policy. When was the policy adopted . 2018. The policy is around limiting the spread of materials. We didnt want t twitter to be a distributor of hacked material. We found the New York Post because it showed the direct materials and screenshots of the materials its clear how they were obtained. The source in this instance the New York Post documented what it said the source was which it is said was a laptop owned by hunter biden turned into a repair store so they were not hiding the source. Is it your decision that they block storage . No, not at all. Our team made a fast decision. The enforcement action, however blocking these with direct messages we believe it was incorrect and we changed it. The New York Post is still blocked. To delete the original delete that fell under the actions and they can say the same material and article. The New York Post the New York Post is 200yearsold and founded by Alexander Hamilton and your position is that you can demand of the media that you can tell the stories and tell the American People what they can hear. Is that right . Every account and every organization agrees to a terms of service. So if they wish to be able to communicate. Is that right . No, not at all. We recognized an error. You are still blocking the post, right now today. We are not blocking the post. Can the New York Post go on their twitter account . [inaudible] [inaudible] did you claim it was because of the material policy . I find that highly dubious and in a deeply partial way. Data twitter block this based on copies of President Trump stacks returns . Its reporting about the material. It wasnt distributing. Thats not true. They posted what was original source material and federal law and federal statute makes it a crime to distribute someones tax returns against their knowledge so it was based on something distributed in violation of the law and yet twitter gleefully allowed people to circulate that. But when the article was critical of joe biden, twitter engaged in rampant censorship and silencing. We recognized in that policy as the policy has changed you can censor the times and any other media outlet who put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and here and behaving as a democratic super pack silencing lets give a few seconds to answer that and then we have to conclude this one. We are not doing that and this is why i opened this hearing with calls for more transparency. We realize we have to earn trust more so i hear the concerns and acknowledge them this is an unusual hearing at an unusual time and ive never seen a hearing so close on any topic let alone on something so obviously a violation of our obligation under the law and the rules of the senate it is a misuse of the taxpayer dollars its carrying out a hit job making sure they push out foreign and domestic misinformation. To the Witnesses Today, you and other leaders need to stand up to this immoral behavior. They accuse you, your companies and employees of being biased or liberal. You have institutionally bent over backwards and overcompensated and contravention of the terms of service giving to the rightwing voices and progress of progresse journalism simply put republicans have been successful in this play. So during one of the most consequential elections in american history, my colleagues are trying to run this again and it is an embarrassment. On their relationship with journalism we have to call the hearing what it is. For the first time in my eight years in the senate im not going to use my time to ask any questions because this is nonsense and it isnt going to work this time. It isnt just happening here in the senate. Its a coordinated effort. Last may President Trump issued an executive order designed to narrow the protection of section 230 to discourage platforms from engaging in content moderation on their own site. After it was issued, President Trump started tweeting section 230 should be repealed as if he understands section 230. And in the last six months, President Trump repealed five times and theres another in which he threatens the companies. A few weeks later President Trump withdrew the nomination of the commissioner. Republican commissioner oreilly questioned the authority to regulate and the statute isnt unclear on this. President trump then nominated the drafter for section 230 and republican senators have enthusiastically participated. Since june of this year, six republican only bills have been introduced in the ability to moderate on their site and as it draws closer, this effort has become more and more. September 203rd of the doj unveiled its own draft legislation to narrow the protections under the law and discourage platforms from moderate to getting content on their own site. September 14th and october 1st, senators pauley and kennedy tried to pass the bills by life unanimous consent. What that means is they went down to the floor and without any input from democrats at all tried to pass something so foundational to the internet unanimously without any discussion and any debate. On the same day as the attempt the senator forced the committee to vote on subpoenaing them to testify. That is why we are here today. Two weeks later on october 14th, Justice Clarence thomas issued a statement that appeared to support the narrowing of the courts interpretation on section 230. The very next day the chair man announced they would seek to clarify the meaning of section 230. On that day senator graham announced they would post a subpoena to the companies over the content moderation and the context of this in addition to everything is that senator cruz is talking about a blockbuster story from the New York Post. Senator holly is on fox and the floor and the committee itself is putting out a Campaign Style video that sort of alarmingly says Hunter Bidens emails and text censorship so they re attempted to pass the bill on section 230 without going to any Committee Markup or vote and on friday, senator graham announced the ceos would testify before the senate Judiciary Committee on november 17th. This is for electoral purposes. Do not let the United States senate bully you into carrying the water for those that want to advance misinformation and dont let the specter of the amendment to the antitrust law or any other kind of threat because you to be a party to the subversion of our democracy. I will be glad to participate in good faith bipartisan hearings on these issues when it is over but this is not that. Thank you. Thank you. Next is senator fisher. Thank you, mr. Chair man. Im not here to bully you today and im certainly not here to read any kind of political statement right before an election. To me this hearing is not a sham. Im here to gain clarity on the policies that you used. Im here to look at your proposals for more transparency because your platforms have become an integral part of our democratic process. We are both candidates but also more importantly for the citizens as well. Your platforms also have enormous power to manipulate User Behavior and to direct content and shape narratives. I heard your Opening Statement and you also said the concept of good faith is what is being challenged by many here today. Some of you dont trust we are acting in good faith. That is the problem that i want to focus on. Mr. Dorsey, why should we trust you with so much power in other words, why shouldnt we regulate you more . The suggestions we are making around more transparency is how we want to build that trust. We do agree we should be publishing more of our practice of content moderation. Weve made decisions to moderate and make sure we are enabling as many voices on the platform as possible and i acknowledge and agree with the concerns that it feels like a black box and anything we can do to bring transparency to it including publishing and policies and practices, answering simple questions and then doing what we can around the growing trend of algorithms. As i said, this one is a tough one to actually bring transparency to i think a better opportunity is giving people more choice around the algorithms they use. Understanding the concerns people have when they see what many consider you are making value judges on whats going to be on the platforms. You say that users can report content and then you take action. Certainly you can understand people are very concerned and very worried about what they see as manipulation. To say you are going to have more transparency, saying that its respect i dont think you are going to have that transparency there and you are not influencing people because any time a free press is bought on both sides, what we would do on both sides here when it might be able to be expressed, that does have a huge amount of influence. I agree that its not enough. I dont think transparency alone addresses these concerns. We have to continue to push for a more straightforward and fast and efficient appeals process and we need to look at deeper algorithms and how they are used in how people have choice on how to use the algorithms and whether they use them. But ultimately somebody makes a decision. When does the buck stop with the algorithms. Who is going to make the valued judgment because in my opinion it is a value judgment. Ultimately im accountable to all of the decisions the Company Makes but we want to make sure we are providing frameworks that are tested and then we have multiple checkpoints associated with them so we can learn quickly if we are doing something. When your company amplifies some content over others, is it fair for you to have Legal Protection for your action . A lot of the algorithms content is focused on saving people time. So, we are ranking things people find most relevant and valuable. But if you respond to what they find relevant. Its based on the engagement metrics and who you follow. With your ever expanding content are you materially involved in that content . Senator, yes. Ive spent time making sure we get the enforcement right. Thank you. What changes do you think should be made to address the specific concerns regarding the content moderation that youve heard so far this morning . I would outline a couple. First, i agree that increasing transparency to the moderation process would be an important step for Building Trust and accountability. One thing we already do that facebook is every quarter we issue a transparency report where for each of the 20 or so categories, so terrorism, child exploitation, different types of content we issue a report on how we are dealing with the prevalence and what percentage of it the systems are able to take down. Getting to the point where everyone across the industrys reporting on a baseline like that i think would be valuable for people to have these discussions not just about anecdotes like i saw a piece of content and im not sure that i agree with how it was moderated, it would allow the conversation to move to the data so that we can understand how these platforms are performing overall and hold them accountable. And to your answer the time involved that it wouldnt be an Immediate Response to have that conversation. We are taking the questioning after which we are going to accommodate the witnesses with a five minute recess. So, senator cantwell, you are recognized. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I can see you now. Yes. Thank you, mr. Chair man. I agree that hearing di the heao take place at this moment. Its how we keep a thriving internet economy and how we continue to make sure hate speech and misinformation is taken down from the web. Its something that would have been better done in january than now. Im not going to take lightly anybody that tries to undermine mailin voting. Mailin voting in the United States of america is safe. The state of washington, the state of oregon. There is nothing wrong with the mailing system, so i think that there will be secretaries of state, Law Enforcement agencies that worked hard with state Election Officials talking about how the process works and how we are going to fight to protect it. Im also going to not demean an organization just because they happen to be headquartered in the state of washington or to have businesses there. Somebody claims just because the geography of a company somehow makes it political for one side of the aisle or another. I seriously doubt. I know that because i see many of you coming to the state of washington for republican fundraisers. I know that you know darn well there are plenty of republicans that work in hightech firms. So, the notion that somehow these people are crossing the aisle because of something in creating censorship, the notion that free speech is about the ability to say things and it doesnt take maybe we need to have a History Lesson from high school again, but yes, free speech means people can make outrageous statements about their beliefs. So i think that the ceos are telling us here with their her s is for taking down Healthcare Information that is in fact not true and is a threat to the public, and information that is a threat to our democracy. That is what they are talking about. So, i want to make it clear that this hearing could have happened at a later date. And i dont appreciate the misinformation that is coming across today to try to undermine the election process. It is safe and it is the backbone of what distinguishes america from other countries in the world. We do know how to have a safe and Fair Election. One of the ways we are doing that is to have these individuals work with our Law Enforcement entities. Gary peters made it clear they helped to stop a threat on the governor of michigan because they were working with them to make sure that information was passed on so this is what we are talking about, whether we are going to be on the side of freedom and information and whether we are going to put our shoulder to the window continuing to make sure or whether they will prematurely try to get rid of 230 and squash free speech. So i want to make sure we continue to move forward. So, mr. Zuckerberg, i would like to talk with you because there was a time there was a great concern about the government using information among the minorities and you took action and reformed the system. Just recently in September Facebook and twitter announced the various organizations for the use of techniques laundering the websites accounts and propaganda so we associated the state run attempts to interfere. Could you please mr. Zuckerberg talk about what you were doing o make sure the state wide entities do not interfere in the u. S. Election . Thank you, senator. Since 2016 to stop the interference to the u. S. And around the world. A lot of this involves building up the ai systems to identify when the accounts are not behaving in a way that a normal person word in making its accounts in some coordinated way. Its about forming partnerships and the Tech Companies here today work more closely together to share signals. Working closely with Law Enforcement and intelligence communities around the world as a result of that. They were potentially attempting to spread misinformation and interfere. A lot of them were coming from russia or iran and china as well. At this point, im proud. They build systems that are very effective at this. We can stop those like russia from trying to interfere with the appropriate leverage to do that we have built up systems to make sure we can identify when they are attempting to do that and that should give the American People a good amount of confidence leading into this. Is it true that they are trying to find sources to help with that misinformation . They are certainly evolving including trying to put people outside of their country and in some cases domestic interference informations as well and they have to be able to identify and take those down as well. About half were domestic operations at this point in various countries around the world. This is a global phenomenon we need to make sure we continue pushing forward aggressively on. I would like to turn to you for the second becaus a second t information on this point. But id like to turn to you. Theres information now from the media that it may be as much as 40 to 50 of the google and revenue. They could be getting to the newspapers and broadcasting to the formats to add information. Can you confirm what information you have about this and do you think that google is taking the ad revenue from these sources in an unfair way . Its an important topic and a complex topic. Few have called attention to it. Today we would make the case. We send a lot of traffic to the publishers. We are investing in subscription products and we are committed to the licensing the next three years in the organization. We have set up local emergency for the journalistic institutions. I could give plenty of examples but the underlining forces that are impacting the industry i dont have a clock on me you hit on the keyword. I dont think you can turn the majority of the revenue into these broadcast entities. Yes theyve had to make it through the transformation which is a rocky transformation, but we need the message from todays hearing is the free press needs to live and be supported by all of us and we look forward to discussing how to make sure that they get their return on their value. Thank you mr. Chairman. We will now take a five minute recess and most of the members have not yet had a chance to ask questions. The committee is in recess