From their platforms. This is a matter of serious importance to the safety and wellbeing of her nations communities. I sincerely hope we can engage in a collaborative discussion about what more can be done within the jurisdiction of this committee to keep our communities safe from those wishing to do us harm. Today we welcome representatives from the Worlds Largest social Media Companies and on line platforms. We hear from ms. Monika bickert, head of the local policy management for facebook. And mr. Nick pickles Public Policy director of twitter. Mr. Derek slater global director of information policy at google and mr. George salim Senior Vice President of programs for the antidefamation league. Over the past two decades the United States has let the world in development of social media and other services that allow people to connect with one another. Open platform like Google Twitter facebook and instagram and youtube have dramatically change the way we communicate and have been used positively in providing spaces for likeminded groups to comeed together and shedding light on abuses of power throughout the world. No matter how great the benefits to society these platforms provide important to consider how they can be used for evil at home and abroad. On august 3, 2019, 20 People Killed and more than two dozen injured in a mass shooting at an el paso shopping center. Police have said that they are reasonably confident that the suspect posted a manifesto to a web site called eight chan. 27 minutes prior to the shooting the moderators removed the original posts so users continue cheering copies. Following the shooting President Trump called on social Media Companies to work in partnership with local state and federal agencies to develop tools that can detect mass shooters before they strike. We will talk about that challenge today. The el paso shooting isnt the only recent example of math violence with an on line dimension. In 1951 people were killed and 49 injured in shootings at two mosques in christchurch new zealand. The perpetrator used to buy the camera and livestreamed the footage to his facebook followers. He began to reload the footage to facebook and otherer sites. Access of the footage quickly spread on facebook and are removed 1. 5 million videos of the massacre within 24 hours of the attack in 1. 2 million views of the videos were blocked before they could be uploaded. Like the el paso shooter at the christchurch shooter uploaded a manifesto. The 2016 shooting at the pulse nightclub in Orlando Florida killed 49. The orlando shooter was reportedly lysed by isis and other jihadist propaganda through on line sources. Days after the attack the fbi director stated investigators were highly confident that the shooter was selfradicalized through the internet. According to an official involved in the investigation analysis of the shooters like tennis devices revealed that he had consumed quote a hell of a lot of jihadist propaganda unquotets including isis beheadg videos, shooting survivors of family victims brought a lawsuit against those three social media platforms under the act on terrorism act. The sixth circuit dismissed thet lawsuit on the grounds that this was not an act of international terrorism. With over 3. 2 billion Internet Users this committee recognizes the talent facing social Media Companies and on line platforms. Their ability to act and remove content threatening violence from their sites, these are questions about tracking of users on line activity. The system date an individuals privacy tort due processua or violate Constitutional Rights click the automatic removal of threatening content may impact and on line platforms ability to detect possible warning signs. The First Amendment offers strong protections against restricting certain speech. This undeniably adds to the complexity of our task. I hope these witnesses will speak to these challenges and how their companies are navigating through these challenges. In todays internet connected society misinformation, fake news, deep fakes in viral on line conspiracy theories have become the norm. Tyis hearing is an opportunity for witnesses to discuss how their platforms go about identifying content and material that threatens violence and poses a real and potentially immediate danger to the public. Our witnesses will also discuss how their content moderation processes work. This includes addressing how human review or technological tools are employed to remove or otherwise limit violent content before it is posted and disseminated across the internet communication with Law Enforcement officials at the federal state and local level is critical to protecting our neighborhoods and communities. We would like tone know how companies are coordinating with Law Enforcement in violent or extremist content is identified. Finally i hope witnesses will discuss how congress can assist in ongoing efforts to remove content promoting violence from on line platforms and whether best practices for codes ofry conduct in this area would help increase safety both on line and offline. I look forward to hearing testimonies from our witnesses as wee engage in a constructive discussion about Mutual Solutions to a pressing issue andan im delighted at this poit to recognize my friend and ranking Ranking Member senator cantwell. Thank you mr. Chairman and thank you for holding this important hearing and forwards as for being here this morning. Crossed the country we are seeingry and experiencing a sure of hate and of hate in the server so we need to think harder about the tools and resources we have to combat this problem both on line and offline. While the First Amendment to the constitution protects free violencecites imminent that is not protecting congress should repeal laws that prohibit threats of harassment stalking intimidation to makeke sure we stop this on line paper that doesnt cite the evidence. Testimony before the Senate Judiciary committee in july at the federal bureau off investigation fbi director said the white supremacist violence is on the rise. He said the fbi takes this extremely seriously macinnis made over 100 arrests this year. We are seeing in my state over the last severalst years where e suffered a a shooting at the jewish point of the center in shooting of a seikh in camp ikwashington a bombing attempt t a Martin Luther king day parade in spokane and over the last year we have seen a rise in the desecration of synagogues and mosques. The rise of hate across the country is also led to multiple Mass Shootings including the tree of life congregation pittsburgh, the pulse nightclub in orlando and most recently the walmart in el paso. Social media is used to amplify that hate and the shooter at one high school in the parkland posting said the image of himself with guns and knives on instagram can pose fire to the attack on students. An antiimmigration manifesto on a messagege board and my colleae just mentioned dreaming of life content related to the christchurchre shooting and the horrific incidents that happen there. The military engage in Systematic Campaign on facebook using fake names and sham accounts to promote violence against churkina. These human lives were cut short by hatred and extremism as we have seen to become more common. This is a particular problem on the dark web where we see certain web sites like the host ofs, 24 7, 365 hate rallies havg technology to mainstream web sites to stop the spread of the dark web site is a start but there needs to bes more a conference of imported effort to make sure people are not direct it into the cesspools. I believe calling on the department of justice to make sure we are working across the board on international basis with companies as well to fight this issue is an important thing to bee done. We dont want to push people off the social media platform only to then be on the dark web where we are finding less of them. Wed need to do more at the department of justice to shut down these dark webeb sites and social Media Companies need to work with us to make sure that we are doing this. Washington about initiatives, the state of washington has passed three gun initiatives by closing of the people, loopholes related private sales and extreme loss. All voted on and by majority of people in our state successfully passed. I do appreciate just last week representatives from various companies of all sizes, sending us asking for passage requiring background checks. Very much appreciate that. Keep the hands out of the hands that are determined dangerous. So this morning we look forward to asking you about ways in which we can better fight these issues. I do want us to think about ways in which we can all Work Together to address these issues. I feel that working together these are successful tools that weekend deploy. Trying to fight extremism online. Thank you mr. Chairman for the hearing. Thank you very much. Now we will hear oral testimonies from our witnesses. Your statements will be submitted for the record that went out objection. We thanks you to limit your comments at this. To five minutes. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today. And to answer your questions and spider efforts in these areas. My name is monica and i am facebook his Vice President for global posse management and counterterrorism. I am responsible for are rules around content around facebook Enter Company his response to terrorist would be attempt to use our services. On behalf of everyone at facebook, id like to begin by expressing my sympathy and solidarity with the victims families and communities and everybody affected by the recent terribleev attacks across the country. In the face of such heinous acts, we remain standing against the community of hate and violence. We are thinking to be able to provide a way for those affected by the horrific violence to communicate with loved ones organize events for people together in grief,s raise money to help the poor communities and begin to heal. Our mission is to give people the power to connect with one another and build community. But we know that people need to be safe. In order to build that community. Thats why we have rules in place against harmful conduct including hate speech and fighting violence. Ee our goal is to ensure facebook as though place where people can express themselvesre but with there are also safe. Who are not aware of any connection between the recent attacks in our platform, a we certainly recognize that we all have a role to play. This is to keep our communities safe. Thats why we remove content that encourages real world harm. This includes content that is involved violence, promoting or publicizing crime, or noting harmful activities or encouraging suicide or self injury. We dont allow any individuals or organizations to proclaim a violent mission advocate for violence, or are engaged in violence to have any presence on facebook. Even if they are talking about something unrelated. This includes organizations and individuals involved in or tivocating for terror activities, domestic and international, organize hate, and that includes white supremacy, white separatism or White Nationalism or other violence. We also dont allow any content posted by anyone that praises or supports these individuals organizations or their actions. When we find content violence are sinners, we remove it promptly. We also disable accounts when we see severe or repeated violations. And we work with Law Enforcement directly. When we believe there is a risk of suitable harm or it addresses public safety. Theres always room for improvement, weaver already moved content and much of that is before anybody has reported it to us. Our efforts to improve our focused in three areas. First building new technical solutions. They allow us to proactively, investing in people who can implement these policies, at facebook we now more than 30000 people across the company who are working on safety and security efforts. This includes more than 350 people whose primary focus is counter hate and counterterrorism. Third, Building Partnerships with other companies society, researchers, and government so that together, we can come up with shared solutions. Were proud of the work weve done this far to makes facebook a place at the work will never be complete. We know that bad actors will continue with more sophisticated efforts and we are dedicated to continuing to advance our work and show our progress we look forward to working with the committee regulators, others in the Tech Industry and Civil Society to continue this progress. Again i appreciateai the opportunity to be here today. I look forward to your questions. Thank you. Thank you. Y publicly committed to improving the collective health, openness and stability of public conversation on our top forum. Our policies designed to keep people safe on twitter and they continuously evolve to reflect the realitiese. Working faster, in remove content before it is reported including terrace and ms. Miss content. Tackling terrorism, and rprevention on these attacks requires a whole society response. Including from social media. The me be clear, twitter is incentivized to keep terrorists off our service. Both from a business standpoint and the current Legal Frameworks. Such content does not serve our business address and it breaks our rules, and is fundamentally contrary to our values. Communities in america and around the world, have impacted by Mass Violence, terrorism with tragic frequency in recent years. These events demand a robust public responsibility from everybody. Tech companies have a role to play however it is important to recognize that content alone cannot remove these issues. First lets zero tolerance approach. Individuals may not promote terrorism or engage in recruitment or terrorist acts. Since 2015, weve disbanded more than 1. 5 million accounts. For violations of rules linked to terrorism and continue to see more than 90 percent of these accounts suspended through the other measures. In the majority of the cases, we take action before in counters have even been tweeted and the remaining 10 percent is identified through user reports chips. D secondly, we prohibit these extremist groups. These are defined in our roles as group both of by statements or oral flat bar use or promote violence against civilians. To further the cause or whatever their ideology. This policy in 2017, weve taken action on more than 186 groups globally and suspended more than 2000 unit accounts. Certainly, we do not allow people content on our service. They are not threatened or violent comments or attack people. Wherever these rules are broken, we will take action to remove and permanently remove from terrace activity. We prohibit selling or buying or transactions and weapons, firearms and explosives ammunition, and instructions and making them. Will take appropriate action on any account found to be engage in this activity including permanent suspension where appropriate. Additionally, we prohibit the formation of weapons and accessories globally through our paid advertising policies. Collaboration with our industry peers and Civil Society is critically important to addressing the common threats from terrorism globally. Ine june 2017, we launch a globl platform against terrorism. The partnership with twitter, youtube and facebook. This facilitates among other things information sharing, Technical Corporation and Research Collaboration including academic institutions. Twitter Technology Companies have a rule to play assuring our platforms cannot be exploited by those promoting violence. This cannot be the only Public Public seat response. Removing content alone will not stop those with determined to cause home. What if and when we remove platforms it removes ideologies into the dark corners where they cannot be challenged. As a Parent Companies have improved their efforts, this content continues to migrate to Less Government pot platforms and services. We committed to learning and improvingfo of every part of the park to play. Addressing much violence is the whole society response. We welcome opportunity and continue to work with industry pears and government institutions, Law Enforcement, academics and Civil Society to find the right solutions. Thank you for your time today. Thank you. My name is derek, im global director of information policy. Undated team that advises with online content. Terrorism extreme speech. Before i begin, id b like to te those moment on behalf of everyone at google to express our work on the attacks. Condolences to the families and friends of communities. Dog local services were not involved in these recent services, we have engaged with people around the globe tore be sure our platforms are not used to support violence or hate speech. My testimony today i will focus on three key areas where were making progress to help protect people. Firstt we work with governments and Law Enforcement second,e we prohibit products that would cause damage harm or injury. And third, policies around terrorism hate speech. First, google engages an ongoing dialogue with Law Enforcement and agencies. Then understand the Threat Landscape and respond for the