Good afternoon. Welcome to the National Press club. I am deputy manager editor and passed past president of the National Press club and board member of the journalism institute. For todays headline or event, we are pleased to welcome any andy parker. Hopefully, joining us by phone is the director of the Georgetown Universitys civil hts clinicnic rig and Voting Rights institute. They are here to discuss and his campaign to get google to tape video off of its platforms and to take your questions. During the q a portion, i will take as many questions as time permits. Please wait for the handheld microphone that will be brought to you, and when i call on you, state your name and affiliation prior to asking the question. Andy parker and his daughter andy parkers daughter, allison parker, was an Award Winning journalist tragically murdered reporting the morning news from a live location in august of 2015. Her father has been advocating for changes in gun laws and lately and tech policy. His efficacy can be found in his book and his oped testimony before congress and state houses. He is here to tell us where things stand in his battle with google and what future steps he believes must be taken. Please join me in welcoming any andy parker in the National Press club. [applause] thank you, angela. I am allisons dad. And, i find myself standing at the confluence of guns and google. They have a symbiotic relationship. And i have been profoundly affected by both. As all of you know and as angela mentioned, your fellow journalist and my daughter, allison, was murdered. You probably also know about i my fight for sensible Gun Legislation that has been thwarted by republican lawmakers in the pockets of the nra. Even in the face of seemingly nonstop mass shootings, tools to have which we just witnessed this past weekend. These cowards can only offer us thoughts and prayers. The most disturbing is that the perpetrators of these acts are being spurred on by the racist rhetoric coming from the white house. As you have heard many times, over the last couple of days, words have consequences. Trump has fomented a climate where domestic terror is occurring with alarming regularity. 99. 9 of Trump Supporters would never carry out the atrocities we witnessed, but there is that 1 like the el paso shooter that feels that the president was is calling him to act. These pieces of human garbage are encouraged by trump and enabled by the media. The republican leaderships response came from congressman kevin mccarthy, who said the problem is with violent video games. Im sorry, kevin, but we dont have a monopoly on violence video games or mental illness. For that matter. What we do have is a monopoly on guns with more guns than people in this country. These republicans are grasping at straws and will do everything they can to place blame everywhere other than where it logs. But where it belongs. Perhaps one day soon, this will not be a partisan issue, but im not holding my breath. Which brings us to why were here. As bad as facebook and twitter have been, google has been worse, forming immunity protection under section 230 of the Communications Decency act. They have refused to sell police their own terms of service with regard to violent and harassing content on its platforms, especially youtube. The el paso shooter, a trump devote, also said he was inspired by the christchurch massacre in new zealand. Point of views video from that person still are on youtube. The video of allisons murder have inspired others to do evil, including the shooter of a Community College in oregon who professed his admiration for allisons killer. Who said he was acting in retaliation for the charleston shooting. Google just helps perpetuate this evil chain. On may 1 of this year, in the company of the Georgetown University civil rights law clinic, who will hopefully be able to join us, i had a videoconference with lance kavanaugh, youtubes counsel, jennifer downs, chief of Google Global strategy, and alexandria walden, google director of global human rights, whatever that is, regardings sister regarding specific content and our attempts to have it removed. Their response was, were really trying. Lance kavanaugh swore up and down that googles algorithms had blocked this stuff. Further proof of their deception and indifference, it has not been blocked. The videos were blatantly obvious with titles stating rock eo, or murder. Vid it was not as if they were buried in some obscure way. They were in plain sight. Since that meeting, there have been nothing but silence until the morning of my Senate Judiciary committee testimony. Walden reached out to us. Ancois law fr responded, and i quote, my client has reached the point where he does not believe it is productive to continue this conversation when google has not only failed to take meaningful steps in addressing his concerns, but also failed to timely respond to communications from georgetown. In short, until and unless google tells us concrete steps the concrete steps it tends to take to make certain the videos are automatically taken down in a manner that videos violate the rights of copyright holders, my client is not see the point in continuing a conversation that has now lasted for years without resolution. I stated in my testimony three weeks ago before this Senate Judiciary committee, as a company with a virtual monopoly on internet search and video hosting, google has a duty to make sure the information they make accessible to the world is based on facts and not harmful conspiracy theories. Implored both google and youtube to take down the footage of the murder and the related conspiratorial content. Their response was to suggest i view and flagged the content i flag the content i found offensive. Instead of self policing, they put it on me. In essence, they wanted me to watch my daughters murder and then explain to a robot why it should be removed. I never have nor ever will watch any of it for obvious reasons. So in 2017, i reached out to someone whose son was murdered in sandy hook. Though hundreds of videos have been taken down due to their diligence, they are often stymied even with an enforceable copyright. The person who replaced susan as googles Vice President of Government Affairs policy preceded my testimony. When the senator asked him about related content and video of allisons murder, he replied it had all been removed from the platforms with the exception of what they considered newsworthy content. I contend that with that answer, he perjured himself. But sadly, it does not surprise me. Ever since my first conversation with susan two years ago and subsequent conversations with Jennifer Downes and other google contacts, i have included that concluded that google executives lie as easily as they breathe. The day after my testimony, the Senators Office submitted 48 links to frannie w illings, googles liaison. All of the videos i have been fighting to have removed for three years were taken down, not because of the flagging done by the network, but because they were coerced through congressional scrutiny. If it falls to the senate staff to remove objectionable content, that is a real problem. As was the case here. But google couldnt care less. Could care less. I would like to introduce someone to give you insight on this. Thanks, andy. Andy was gracious enough to be a witness before our subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee a few weeks back now. Through that relationship, i learned about the difficulty he has had on getting some of the videos down. We have had some back and forth since then on google. With google. They have been willing, when flagged by us, to take the videos down. As andy said, we dont think that is the right approach. Were trying to work with andy and others to put together a more efficient processing google process so that google takes a little more ownership of this. We are continuing down the process. We submitted questions down the for the record recently for google to explain the process a little more. We are hoping to get more clarification on that and better answers as to why they cannot seem to solve the problem. And you will have a list of those questions, we will pass those out momentarily. As i said in my testimony, thinks to section 230, thanks to section 230, google has complete immunity. Therefore, has no incentive to respond. That is why they sandbagged, lie, and otherwise obfuscate the truth. It came to me the next day. Their faces had a look of seeming innocent the wilderness. Be wilderness. Either feigned or ingrained. They were a modernday version of the stepford wives or androids. It was as if they watched Mark Zuckerbergs testimony a while back and said, we need to be like this guy. Their demeanor and responses were completely offputting and totally disingenuous. As i told senator cruz in my testimony, theres not much you and i can philosophically agree on, but we can agree that google must be regulated. Got thee testimony, i sense there is Common Ground here to craft legislation both parties can agree on, and i the coverage i think the coverage from the aftermath from some conservative outlets such as fox news and the daily caller would confirm that observation. Google should not be allowed to publish, much less profit, from targeted harassment and murder videos. There are far too many new members of the club that no one wants to join after this weekend. Unless we have congressional action, they will find themselves revictimized at the hands of other social media platforms and, in particular, google. The solution is pretty simple. Not long ago, section 230 of the cda was amended to restrict online sex trafficking and child pornography, restricting targeted harassment, incitement, and murder videos should be an extension of this. Extension to this amendment. I want to put a face on it. I want to call this allisons law. For the parkland kids, the sandy hook families, all of us who have been affected and those yet to be, i urge legislators from both sides of the aisle to adopt and pass allisons law. I want to thank jeff and the Senators Office for being a good shepherd. And on that note, we have that list of followup questions jeff was referring to. These were prepared by jeff in his office and sent. Sent to others. I encourage every member of the press to reach out to the google executives i mentioned to see what kinds of responses you get. Thank you very much, and i will turn it over to angela. Thank you, andy. Stay here and i will kickoff questions. Section 230 is back in the news now with the discussion of the host of 8chan, the Online Platform where the el paso shooter posted his rant. The Tech Companies google included say that the section 230 is precisely what they need so they are able to voluntarily police some of the most violent and objectionable content out there. How do you respond . It would be great if they did, but they dont. That my understanding facebook has been one of the most egregious offenders and has been very helpful in removing content. When you flex something, fl something, it comes down immediately. He has much more difficulty with google. With youtube, with their platform called blogger, he cannot even get a response. The network is set up as Google Trusted flagger. They make decisions on arbitrary basis. An ad hoc and arbitrary basis. There are pieces of legislation and discussions that would target section 230 either broadly or specifically, if you are making some amendments you are asked for. Have you endorsed uses of some of the pieces of legislation that are out there . I have not seen a lot other than, i know there is a push, i think the original premise of the subcommittee hearing was to address bias by social media companies, against conservative viewpoints. In google in particular, against conservative viewpoints. It was clear to me that they talked about it. To the senator, he pointed out the real issue is that you name it. I think what theyre trying to do, senator cruz, they want to make the bill a lot broader than i think it will facilitate its passage. I believe that if we take a narrow approach, with what i have suggested with thousands allisons law, it is Common Ground. You get that done and address the other stuff later. You just alluded to the fact that most legislators who have legislation already introduced to target section 230 are republicans looking at it through a different lens. There are also lawmakers who are against increasing them control gun control measures, as you also asked for. How do you align your two interests here, working with people who are addressing the 230 topic on capitol hill . Andy i think those two issues are not mutually exclusive. I think that there is Common Ground here. As i mentioned to senator cruz, i know he is not where i am on gun control, but he is where i am on removing this kind of content that no human being, or no person with any decency would want to see. I think again, if we could narrow the focus and make that bill happened, that law happened, i think there is Common Ground there. The platform where it is currently posted, but youre ok with other platforms also . Andy again, as i mentioned earlier, i have never seen this video and dont want to see it. I have to rely on friends and volunteers to monitor this stuff. They should not have to be doing this. The onus should not be on me or them or anybody here, the onus should be on google. There was a point here. Whether the video lives on in other platforms. Thank you very much. Yes. Blogger is one of the google platforms that i mentioned is rampant. They will not do anything about it. I dont visit that, but that is according to lenny. There is nothing that could be done. My name is eric feinberg. I am with a Cyber Intelligence company. Probably over the last five years, we have earned tens of millions of dollars because we have exposed youtube, google, instagram, for nefarious content. My firm was responsible back in 2017 for the youtube ad cut. Look that up. What he is saying is all the they have to do in addition to youtube is basically do a Google Search and you will see that because it lives on other platforms, it is not only on youtube, but also exists when you do a web search. Finally, me doing this with andy, no one in andy or anyones position would be in this situation. I used this line of section 230, that it is protecting big tech but leaving citizens being vulnerable. All right . One sidebar, im responsible around the world alerting media and governments of christchurch videos still up on youtube, facebook, and instagram. As of today and saturday on the el paso attack, you can still find dozens of these videos even though like i said, we have received media around the world exposing this. Google, facebook, said tell us, meaning me, i have to tell them just like in the case of allisons videos, how to take these down. Why . Because they have 230 protection. Danny sullivan, who i mentioned earlier, a google contact i had, he is at least last year, the head of Google Search. Another instance of the communications i had was we have taken this all down. That is just a lot. Again, they just lie. Before we take audience questions, i want to let you in the audience know we have francois on the phone now. He is connected by audio. Georgetown and law center on the phone now. One question, your daughter was a journalist. We stand for access to information. How do you address the tough issue of drawing a line between access to information and taking extremely objectionable content off the internet . I do not know if there is a conflict there. I dont think that showing a murder and having that up violates the first amendment. I dont think that is you know, or continuing to have it up there, you know, if you take it down, itll violate the first amendment. I do not think that would either would be the case for multiple reasons. It is just human decency. Start here in front, you have a microphone. Andy, thank you for being here. My name is victoria, and i just moved back home to america after working five years as a journalist in new zealand. I was there when the christchurch massacre happened. Something that was different there, being in new zealand with that video versus how we respond to things like in america. So in new zealand, immediately, everybody, whether you are a citizen or government official, everybody made an allout effort to get rid of the video. Whether it was on facebook, i remember somebody sent it to me and i immediately got rid of it. One thing that was different there was the threat of prosecution. New zealand actually did prosecute people over that. Im wondering what are your thoughts about that here in america . What is so different about here that we dont jump to that call like New Zealanders did . My understanding of it, and i think eric will back this up, my understanding is our laws, the u. S. Laws supersede anything because it is an american company, our laws are in are the laws of the international community. So because they wanted it taken down, doesnt mean google had to do it, because theyre going by our laws instead of theirs. It is a shame. My name is roger. I was the ibm executive during the 1990s, responsible for the endorsement of section 230 and lobbying it through other through the congress and other countries around the world. It may be of some interest to you or others concerned about this that i recently posted it posted an oped in the hill which explained what it looks like in 1995 and what we thought we were doing, most important importantly, the title of the article is these are the four big things we missed when we wrote section 230 and a number of other internet laws. I guess my question and comment is that, we are spending some time understanding how the world looked 30 years ago when that law was written, because this was decades before youtube, decades before google, and there were four big things we missed. Check out the hill article and you will see what they were. I use the analogy of w