Second the committee is discussing conducting this hearing in compliance with house regulations. It is being broadcast live on the committees website. Because of the threat posed by the pandemic remains ongoing, we are meeting remotely to ensure the safety of our witnesses, members, staff and public. While we wish we could return to all standard in person events, health and safety protocols dictate we find alternate means of carrying out obligations. Ok so, let me remind members of a few remote hearing procedures. First consistent with the regulations the committee will keep microphones muted to limit background noise. Members are responsible for on using themselves when they seek recognition or been recognized for their 5 minutes. Because there are sometimes delays, i would ask members and tonesses to allow some time ensure the last speaker has finished. Members and witnesses must have their cameras on at all times. If you need to step away, leave your camera on. If you encounter technical difficulties please contact Technical Support through the channels established prior to the hearing. Our technical staff will work to get you back up and running as soon as possible. Will at the appropriate time recognize members for 5 minutes in order of seniority starting with those who were present at the commencement of the hearing. Thank you for your patience as we proceed under these extraordinary circumstances. The vast majority of the committees work takes place behind closed doors. Takeve a responsibility to public testimony from those outside government and inform the public about growing trends that can endanger our nation in the shortterm and longterm. Building on prior and classified hearings today we examine the risks posed by misinformation, conspiracy theories, and infodemics online. Transnationalare and can originate overseas or here at home. Once they have taken root and begun to circulate, foreign adversaries can advantage their interest by amplifying inflammatory claims. Over the past several years a disturbing picture has emerged while the threat from without and a form of state backed media is real and substantial, we cannot ignore the threat from within which grows everyday. The online ecosystem and audiences that the kremlin exploited the main vulnerable to unscrupulous homegrown anarchists who spread seeds of falsehoods of their own. If left unchecked there could be here reversible damage not only to our nations discourse but to how we as a deciding we as a society discern fact from fiction. The very nature of social media can propel inaccurate limited bladed content, misleading claims and outright lies far and wide and at the speed of virality. Leading social media platforms have made significant changes in their policies and capabilities since 2016 but they have not changed the foundational features of their platforms that expose users and even recommend to them often extreme, sensational or emotionally charged content. The algorithmic engines that power social media platforms are designed to keep us scrolling and are often optimized for attention. They are difficult sometimes even for their own designers to fully understand that the algorithms are effective at their mission keeping users on the platforms as long as possible. It is a surprise that no one controversial, untrue content often engenders the strongest engagement creating Fertile Ground for conspiracy theories and misinformation to cross through the internets fringes into the mainstream. This has come to a careless head in a set of evolving conspiracy theories and twisted beliefs under the banner of qanon. Its precepts are byzantine but they echo antisemitic tropes and antiWhite Supremacy all while constituting the existence of an allpowerful cabal of evile leads people elites. Against the backdrop of the pandemic and lockdowns, the movement has witnessed a huge spike in visibility and followers. Ndemic videos pla with conspiratorial themes and misinformation about covid19 was boosted by qanon supporters and earned 8 million views prior to his removal from social media. It is incumbent on us to understand how it jumped into public view. Qanon is not just a Conspiracy Theory, it is a violent worldview with a devoted following of adherence who believe a bloody reckoning awaits their perceived foes. I report warned about potential escalating attacks driven by qanon beliefs. Some affiliates have already engaged in violent acts. Our men drive hundreds of miles to investigate. There was no basement, there were no captives and thankfully no injuries despite the selfproclaimed investigator firing his weapon. A woman was arrested after attacking two strangers in texas believing them to be child traffickers. And is accused of murdering a mob boss in march of last year, leaving he was part of the deep state which the movement demonizes for its alleged plotting against the president. The same man wanted to carry out a citizens arrest and political figures the president has targeted including myself. In response to the openly violent and hateful rhetoric of qanon, social Media Companies have begun to respond. Hours ago youtube announced a platformwide prohibition targeting the Conspiracy Theory and since July Facebook and twitter have initiated surges of groups and accounts. These are necessary for limitary steps. Such forceful responses are more difficult when conspiracy theories are at least partially egged on by the president of the United States. Just this week he twice retreated a Conspiracy Theory retweeted alleging that soleimani was still alive. Such a polluted online landscape remains ripe for exploitation. The fbi has warned that conspiracy theories and misinformation about voting or the pandemic are part of a Disinformation Campaign originating overseas this election cycle. Americans are voting right now in the midst of a pandemic. It could take days or weeks to count the votes after election day. That period will be especially susceptible to conspiracy theories and misinformation. Especially if amplified by maligned foreign actors which could potentially cast doubt on the legitimacy of the electoral outcome itself or make us doubt the viability of our democracy. That scenario goes to the heart of our National Security and evokes the oversight mandate of congress in this committee. Social Media Companies there some responsibility but the private sector alone cannot reverse these trends. U. S. Government must remain a partner to recognize and address these threats. We must be clear eyed that conspiracy theories can round up followers to commit acts of domestic terror. Each of us has a personal responsibility to do what we can to restore trust in authoritative information, to not share incendiary content or misleading claims knowing how quickly they can catch fire. To build bridges between the widening chasms that exist on both online and offline so that we can try to occupy the same shared reality once again even if we have different views about how to best turn that shared reality into a brighter future. And to step outside of our own personal information silos that are balkanized by society where we no longer seem to agree on the same set of facts. I want to thank the witnesses for joining us today and i look forward to an enlightening discussion of these issues. Lets move to opening statements. We will go alphabetically by last name. , researchjoan donovan director at the Harvard KennedySchools Center on media, politics and public policy. ,he second, Nina Jankowicz cindy otis, and finally, ms. Melanie smith. Welcome again to all of you, our thanks for your precipitation my house testifying for you all and thank you chairman schiff for organizing this hearing. It is a really important topic. This summer Disinformation Campaigns by foreign and domestic operatives targeted people seeking information, information about the election, the pandemic and the protests. , ithe Research Director lead 18 that is analyzing medium and Disinformation Campaigns for their effect on society. Today im going to speak about the sectors shouldering the cost of misinformation at scale. In january 2020 facebook published a really important statement and i quote, in the absence of regulation facebook is left to design its own policies. We have baystars on the principle that people should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them. Policies like this push Corporate Responsibility onto the public and other professional sectors. Inebook goes on to stimulate that statement that paid advertising will have to abide by Community Standards. Politicalappens when and media elites coordinate to blanket social media with falsehoods . In these cases advertising is not necessary for spreading lies to millions because all they need is the platform to work exactly as designed. Who is responsible for explaining why a consumer was exposed to certain falsehoods . Who was responsible for making public correction when falsehoods are identified . Yesterday we saw facebook and twitter refused to let their services be used to distribute these materials. Platform companies have taken similar actions on white supremacist manifestoes and covid19 misinformation too. It will take some time for moderation to become part of the design of social media just as it took a decade for medium to be leaders to scale their attack. Media manipulators. Suggested a new policy framework for assessing social medias negative effect on society. He compared social media to the Tobacco Industry because both focused on increasing the capacity for addiction by slowly modifying their products over time. Legislation about smoking had to move beyond the rationale that it was an individual choice and accept that Secondhand Smoke have Public Health effects. For some time families, insurance companies, employers and businesses pay the price for smokings ill effects on society. Identifiedh team has four clear impact zones charged with cleaning up after the damage caused by unmoderated, unregulated misinformation conspiracy. Adaptlists have had to over the last four years to the normalization of misinformation on social media and have developed a misinformation beach. Covering this information is a drain on newsrooms resources which could be better spent on sustaining journalism rather than moderating content. Second area of impact is Public Health and medical professionals. Increasingly Public Health and medical professionals including o. Have turned to my team for assistance. Doctors should not have to correctnfluencers to misinformation pushing miracle cures and bogus medical advice. Conspiracies link up with when conspiracies link up with medical misinformation, it can be difficult to advocate for the truth. Third, civil society. We are in a position where racialized disinformation is a seasoned tactic of domestic and foreign influence operations. Racialized disinformation refers to campaigns that either impersonate the ideas of communities of color or use racism to boost polarization. Testifiedins recently about these issues at a hearing in june where she highlighted how companies have hidden behind clarion calls to protect free speech at all costs without doing enough to protect those to misinformation and harassment on social media. Lastly Law Enforcement personnel and First Responders unfairly shouldering the burden of rumors and lies that are being spread where flashpoints or violence are permeated by calls to action on social media including the tragic events in kenosha. Are at a serious disadvantage when attempting to do their job amid rumors and conspiracy theories that are spreading like digital wildfire. I will close by saying rather than hold onto the stage of for a time when social media was not this harmful, sometimes it is worth asking what would it take to on inventive social media so that we can chart a course for the way we want that promote safety, equity and democracy . Thank you. Dr. Donovan, thank you. We now go to Nina Jankowicz. Distinguished members of the committee, it is an honor to theify before you today on exploitation by malign actors. This is a threat that is dismantling democracy. As americans right now exercise their democratic rights, it is critical the nation is informed about how disinformation might blunt their voice and their vote. I came to study this information through the lens of russian influence operations. My work has led me to an unsled unsettling conclusion. Not only have social media platforms all but abdicated their responsibility abdicated, domestic misinformation runs rampant. It is amplified in the media, online, congress, and from the white house itself. It does our adversarys work for them leaving us vulnerable to continue the manipulation and leading leaving our democracy in peril. I will outline three trends that i simplified the modern Information Space. The first is the increased use of information laundering to deliver foreign disinformation. Today malign actors like russia are increasingly amplifying their narratives using authentic local voices or organizations to conceal the origin and to lend legitimacy to a given malign narrative. Perhaps the most wellknown example of information laundering and one that this committee knows intimately is the nexus of conspiracy theories related to ukraine and Vice President joe biden. These unsubstantiated and misleading narratives corroded by self interested and corrupt individuals seeking powerful gain were endorsed by the president s advisors, treated as fact by the media and legitimized within congress. Asividuals that served sources for these theories have been discredited, sanctioned and revealed to have active connections to Russian Intelligence Services and this week we are still talking about these theories. Actors andlocal information laundering makes tracking down on disinformation through content moderation alone much more difficult given First Amendment protections. This is why they take advantage of social platforms to feed malign narratives and contribute to todays second trend, conspiracy convergence. When adherents of one theory are exposed to and encouraged to spread others. This year as americans search for answers about the pandemic, closed spaces online have become a Fertile Ground for feeding and amplifying disinformation. Found,opanelist has conspiracies run rampant across platforms and cross pollinate communities and indoctrinate new members. This is a problem on facebook groups. Toebook has made changes soften this phenomenon but they leave aside the most pernicious source of disinformation, high profile accounts to which facebooks Community Standards do not apply. President trump pushes content including falsehoods about the safety and security of mailin balloting which is against terms of service to nearly 30 million users on his page alone. Unlike what facebook policies implied, this Information Campaign does not begin and end on election day. They are built over time in emotion and trust to undermine the democratic process as a whole. When our information ecosystem gets flooded with highly salient junk that keeps us scrolling and angrily reacting, civil discourse suffers. Our ability to compromise suffers. Our willingness to see humanity in one another suffers. Our democracy suffers. Profits. Ook in 2019 facebook generated 90 of its revenue, 69. 7 billion from ads. The third trend relevant to our bill and Brilliant Panel is that disinformation often target women and minorities. We know the ira disproportionately targeted black voters to separate the black vote suppressed the fact suppressed the black vote. Today an ongoing project has observed an increase in individuals spreading false narratives against senator Kamala Harris ahead of election day. These campaigns are meant to affect american women and participation in the. Emocratic process every american should categorically reject them. Overall, these trends that mean that foreign adversaries no longer need brute force to be successful. They need only sit back and watch, regurgitating and amplifying what is already endemic to our society. Just 19 days before voting closes in the election, i believe we are more voting vulnerable to foreign and domestic sources than ever before. Any of the recommendations we discussed today need to have an underlying recognition that any government that claims to fight disinformation originating from outside its borders cannot do so while it embraces the same methods within down. Disinformation is a threat to democracy no matter what Political Party it benefits. Weis long past due that address this challenge to the foundation of our country and its values. My written testimony details the urgent changes necessary to heal our information ecosystem. I look forward to discussing them with you later today. Thanks so much. Thank you. Otis . Tice thank you. I am honored to appear before this committee. Im here to lay out the threats as i see them from the range of actors both foreign and domestic who are amplifying false information to influence and manipulate the american people. By theysis is informed decade i spent at the cia as an officer of analysis serving our country under both republican and democratic administrations. It is informed by the years i have spent since leaving disinformation investigations in the private sector. Almost four years ago, the Intelligence Community release it assessment on russian interference. The report it stated that, russian efforts to influence the 2016 u. S. President ial election represent the most recent expression of mosco