Good Afternoon National press club, im Angela Greiling keane, managing editor at politico and a Technology Team editor, past president of the National Press club and journalism institute. For todays headliners event we are pleased to welcome andy parker and hopefully joining us by phone, anderson francoise whose the director of Georgetown Universitys civil rights clinic and the Voting Rights institute. Theyre here to discuss andys campaign to get google take video of his daughter allisons murder off of its platform and to take your questions. During the q a, i will take as many questions as time permits. Wait for the handheld microphone will be brought to you and when i call on you, your name and affiliation prior to asking a question. Andys daughter Allison Parker was an awardwinning Virginia Television journalist who was tragically murdered along with her colleague photojournalist adam ward while reporting the morning news on a live location in roanoke virginia on august 26, 2015. Her husband has been advocating for changes in gun laws and tech policy. Advocacy can be found in his book for allison and in offense, tv appearances, testimony before congress and statehouses. Hes here today 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 andy parker to the National Press club. [applause] back to angela. Im allisons dad. And i find myself standing at the confluence of guns and google. They have a symbiotic relationship and ive been profoundlyaffected by both. As all of you know, as angela mentioned, your fellow journalist and my daughter allison was murdered. You probably also know about my fight for sensible Gun Legislation that has been awarded by republican lawmakers in the pockets of the nra. Even in the face of seemingly nonstop mass shootings, two of which we just witnessed this past weekend, these cowards can only offer us thought and prayers area most disturbing is the perpetrators of these acts are being spurred on by the racist rhetoric comingfrom the white house. As youve heard many times over the last couple of days, word consequences. From foam ended a climate where domestic terror is occurring with alarming regularity and while im sure that 99. 9 percent of Trump Supporters would never carry out the kind of atrocities that weve witnessed, there is that one percent that like the el paso shooter feels that the president is calling him to act. These pieces of human garbage are encouraged by trump and enabled by social 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 violent video games or mental illness, for that matter. What we have isunlawfully on guns with more guns than people in this country. These republicans are grasping at straws and will do everything they can place blame everywhere but where it belongs. Perhaps one day soon, this will be a partisanissue. 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 in flaunting their immunity protection under action 230 of the Communications Decency. They have refused to sell police their own terms of service with regard to violence and harassing content on its platforms, especially youtube. The el paso shooter, a trump depot today also said he was inspired by the christchurch massacre in new zealand. Point of view videos from that shooter still in that space on youtube despite what the executives have said. The video of allisons murder has inspired other malevolent characters to do evil including the shooter in the Umpqua Community college in oregon who professed his admiration for allisons killer. And who said he was acting in retaliation for the Charleston Shooting read google just perpetuates, helps perpetuate this evil change. On may 1 of this year, in a company of the Georgetown University civilrights law clinic in anderson francoise who hopefully will be able to join us , i had a videoconference with lance cavanaugh, youtubes counsel. Juniper downs, chief of Google Global strategy and alexandriawalden, google director of Global Human Rights ,whatever that is , regarding specific content and our attempts to have it removed. Their response was we are really trying. Lance cavanaugh swore up and down that googles algorithms and block this stuff. Further proof of their deception and indifference. It hasnt been blocked. The videos were blatantly obvious with titles stating raw video and or w dv j murder. It wasnt as if they were buried in some obscure way, they were rightthere in plain sight. Since that meeting, there have been, there have been nothing but silence until the morning of my Senate Judiciary committee testimony. Walden reached out to us. A person francoise responded and i quote, my plans as reach the point where he does not believe is productive to continue this conversation when google has not only failed to take meaningful steps in addressing his concern but also failed to timely respond to communications from georgetown. In short, until and unless google tells us the concrete steps it intends to take to make certain that the videos are automatically taken down in the matter of videos that violate the rights of copyright holders, my client does not see the point of continuing a conversation that is now lasted for years with no resolution. I stated in my testimony three weeks ago before the Senate Judiciary committee as a company with a virtual monopoly on internet search and online 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 theory. I implored both google and youtube to take down the footage of her murder and the related conspiratorial content. Their response was to suggest that i view and flagged the content i foundoffensive. Instead of self policing, they put the onus on me, in essence they wanted me to watch my daughters murder and explain to a robot like it should be removed. I never have nor ever will watch any of it for obvious reasons so in 2017 i reached out to lenny pozner whose son noah was work murdered at sandy hook and the Honor Network work long hours sliding videos that i was spared. Although hundreds of videos have been taken down to due to their diligencethey are often stymied even with an enforceable copyright. The person who replaced Susan Molinari as googles Vice President of Government Affairs and Public Policy proceeded my testimony. When senator carano asked him about related content and video of allisons murder, he replied that it had all been removed from the platforms with the exception of what theyconsidered newsworthy content. I contend that with that answer, he perjured himself. But sadly, it doesnt surprise me. Ever since my first conversation with Susan Molinari two years ago and subsequent communications with unit her downs and other google contact alex and Danny Sullivan, ive concluded that google executives lie as easily as they breed. The day after my testimony, senator hironos office submitted 32 links to frannie wellings, googles liaison. All these videos ive been fighting to have removed for three yearswere taken down. Not because of the flagging done by lenny pozner and the Honor Network or by eric feinberg, but because they were coerced through congressional scrutiny. If it falls to the senate staff to remove objectionable content as was the case here, thats a real problem but google could care less. And id like to introduce senator hironos counsel jeff hansen to summarize this discoursewith frannie wellings that will give you some insight on this. Thanks andy. So andy was gracious enough to be a witness before our subcommittee on the constitution of the Judiciary Committee a few weeks back now. And through that relationship , i learned about the difficulty hes had in getting some of these videos down and weve had some back and forth since then with google and theyve been willing when flagged by us to take some videos down and like andy said, we dont think thats the right approach and are trying to work with andy and others to put together a more efficient process so that google takes a little more ownership of this. We are continuing down that process, weve submitted questions for the record recently to google to explain the process a little more and were hoping to get a little more clarificationon that and better answers as to why they cant seem to solve this problem. Click you will have a list of those questions and we will pass those out momentarily. As i said in my testimony, thanks to section 230 google has complete immunity and therefore has no incentive to respond. Thats why they send back, lie and otherwise obfuscate the truth. At that may videoconference we had, i was trying to put my finger on what i was witnessing and it came to me the next day. The basis of lance cavanaugh, juniper downs and alexandria walden had this look of seeming innocent you will permit, either feigned or ingrained. They were all a modernday version of stepford wives or more appropriately in this case, androids. It was as if theyd watched Mark Zuckerbergs testimony and while back and said we need to be like this guy. Their demeanor and their responses were completely offputting and totally disingenuous. As i told senator cruise in my testimony, theres not much you and i can philosophically agree on but we can agree that google must be regulated. After my testimony i got the sense that there is Common Ground here to craft legislation that both parties can agree on and i think the coverage from, in the aftermath from some conservative outlets such as fox news and even the daily caller would confirm that observation. Google should not be allowed to publish much less profit from targeted harassment and murder videos. They are far too many new members of this club that no one wants to join after this weekend and unless we have congressional action, they will find themselves revictimized at the hands of other socialmedia platforms and in particular google. The solution is simple. Not long ago, section 230 of the cda was amended to respect online sex trafficking andchild pornography. Restricting targeted harassment incitement and murder videos should be an extension to this amendment. And i want to put a face on it. I want to call thisallisons law. For the san diego families, for all of us who been affected and for those yet to be, i heard legislators from both sides of the aisle to adopt and pass allisons law. And i want to thank jeff and senator hironos office for being a Good Shepherd and on that note, we have that list of followup questions that jeff was referring to. These were prepared by jeff in his office and sent to kiran batia. I encourage everyone of you to reach out to those google executives to see what kind of response you get. Thank you very much and i will turn it over to angela. Stay here and ill take questions. Section 230 is back in the news now. With the discussion of the host of 8chan. Tech Companies Google included but other Tech Companies that way as well say section 230 is what they need so they are able to voluntarily police some of the most violent or objectionable content thats out there. How do you respond to this topic . It would be great if they did police but they dont. Its my understanding and working with lenny pozner, he said that facebook which had been one of the most egregious offenders has been very helpful in removing content. When he block something, it comesdown immediately. Google, he has much more difficulty with google. With youtube, with their platform called blogger, he cant even get a response and the Honor Network is set up as a quote unquote Google Trusted slider and they just basically again, they make decisions on an ad hoc and arbitrary basis. There are pieces of legislation as well as discussions that would target section 230, either broadly or specifically making some of the amendments youre asking for. Have you endorse any of the particular pieces of legislation that are out there. I havent seen a lot other than i know there was, theres a push and i think the original premise of this subCommittee Hearing was to address bias by social Media Companies and google in particular , against conservative viewpoints and it was clear to me that they talk about it, but i think thanks to senator hirono, she pointed out that the real issue here and the real victim is people like me and david hogg and the parkland families, sandy hook, you name it so i think that what theyre trying to do, senator cruz and holly, they want to make this bill a lot harder than i think it will , that will necessitate or facilitate its passage. I believe that if we take the narrow approach, with what ive suggested with allisons law, Common Ground and i think you get that done and then you address the other stufflater. You alluded to the fact that there are legislators who have legislation introduced to target section 230 are republicans looking at different lens and youre approaching the sametopic. There are lawmakers tend to be in against increasing control measures as you also asked for. How do you align your two interests working with the people who are addressing the section 230 topic on capitol hill . I think that those two issues are not mutually exclusive. I think as i say, theres Common Ground here and as i mentioned to senator cruz, i know hes not where i am on gun control but i think 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 so i think that again, if we can narrow the focus and just make that bill happen, that law happen, i think theres Common Ground there. And his youtube the soul platform where the video of allison is currently posted or are you aware of other platforms also . The other platform and again, as i mentioned earlier ive never seen this video, i dont want to see it and i have to rely on friends like eric and lenny and volunteers to monitor this stuff and they shouldnt have to be doing this. The onus shouldnt be on me or them or any of these, anybody. The onus shouldbe on google. And theres a point there. Whether the video was on any other platforms. Blogger is one of the google platforms that i mentioned, that its rampant. They wont do anything about it. Again, i dont visit that but that according to lenny. He says they are, theres nothing that can be done. And introduced me before, i eric feinberg. On with the Cyber Intelligence company called. Probably over the last five years, we heard probably tens of millions of dollars in earned media because we have exposed facebook, youtube, google, instagram for this nefarious content. My firm was responsible back in 2017 or the youtube ad boycott, look that up. What andy saying and coming back to, all you have to do in addition to youtube is basically do a Google Search and youll see that because it lives on other platforms, not only on youtube but it also exists when you do a web search. Finally and i want to give you this, where doing this with andy and nobody in any physician or anybodys position would be in the situation. My lineup section 230 and it uses constantly is that section 230 protecting big tech but leaving citizens vulnerable. One sidebar, im responsible for around the world alerting media and other government christchurch videos. As of today and as of saturday on the el paso, you can still find dozens of these videos, even though like i said we received word media around the world hence exposing this, google, facebook tell us, meaning me, i have to tell them in the case of allison videos how to take these down. I think its enough and why . They have 230 protection. Follow up with Danny Sullivan who i mentioned earlier, one of the Google Content contacts that i have, he is at least last year he was head ofGoogle Search. And another instance of the communications i had was we taking this all down and thats just a lie. Again, they just lie. I want to let you and our audience know that we do have Peterson Francoise with Georgetown Law Center on the phone now so is connected by audio area and one question again before audience questions, your daughter obviously was a journalist, were here at the National Press club. Journalists and the National Press club and access to information how do you address that very tough issue of drawing a line between access to information and doing what youre asking, taking objectionable content on the internet question mark. I dont know that theres a conflict there. I think thats, i dont think that showing a murder and having that up is, violates the First Amendment mark i dont think thats, or continuing to have it up there is you know, that if you said if you take it down, going to violate the First Amendment, i don