Legislators from both the u. S. And canada, discussed the challenges they are facing. Cement was caused by George WashingtonUniversity Institute for data democracy and politics. Welcome to our continuing conversation about the social media platforms in response to this information campaigns around covid19 pandemic. Very serious situation. Obviously where it lives are literally in the balance. On director of the George WashingtonUniversity School of many of the public affairs. Affiliated with the institute of data democracy and politics which is presenting this event together with the International Committee on disinformation. Ill be your moderator and your timekeeper and i will continue this conversation with her distinguished panelists and guests. And if you are journalist, please feel free to put your question into the q a. And make sure that is addressed to everybody so that we can all see it and i will try to incorporatee at least some of those questions to our panel in a bit. Social media platforms as we know and discussed allowing unscrupulous actors to sell on illegal and overpriced medical equipment during this pandemic. That is one of many issues that we see across the platforms. This one is not a new problem. Social media platforms however continue to allow these dangerous disinformation street that covid19 pandemic. In so doing they expose just how dangerous they are responsible this kind of behavior can be. In the role they play in continuing to allow it. Rev in conspiracy theories, make the situation worse and confusing people and discharging people. Social media platforms how the technological knowhow and the resources to face of the date actually have little intent and incentive to dole so. And i got a distinguished panel does to discuss these problems. On frontlines heard doing with these issues directly and legislators who are trying to do something about it and two countries. First of a look at some of the issues in the states to launch this conversation. [silence]. Next advertise on facebook, why state companies have the mass can filter out 99 percent of harmful particles. Here is what you pay for years but to get buried. Im a foster founder, Janet Williams county justice, we need we need advanced. These boys dont have any other place to live. We are responsible for overseeing these children and help the welfare of these children. I hadnt noticed an ad for mask on facebook. I saw facebook as a legitimate company. So i adored my on april 3rd. I got the confirmation that they received my payment. And after my initial reply to facebook, then went silent. I got nothing. I absolutely have thought about the fact that without these masks coming, it put these childrens and the families, our organization that higher risk. [silence]. U. S. Law makers who are joiningin us. They are charged with consumer protection. [inaudible]. So my apologies for that video there and some of the technological problems. We have been trying to connect the world with via web next. Is the learning process for allwe f this writing and again apologies. We have two fleeting lawmakers who are charged with consumer protections. In the United States congress and the from canada. Also a leader from and about disinformation. Senator blumenthal joins us. And it traces back to decades pretty connecticuts attorney general damages a senator blumenthal coming from connecticut. And its a great pleasure. And with the consumer rights, for more than two decades as the state attorney general. An recognized leader in the senate on the Democratic Caucus on this issue pretty and from the great state of illinois, ninth congressional district. House energy and Commerce Committee pray you serve as a Senior Deputy in the house leadership as well. So thanks to you for joining us. Rosen joined by nathaniel smith. He is a canadian member of parliament prayed for the liberal party pretty former litter getter and industry science and technology. N. Randy smith is a mentor ship at risk youth in texas after a successful corporate career. He became a house t apparently saw in that video. He is the kind of community leader, as we see in that video, we would all like to have. Randy we thank you, celebrate you and appreciate everything you do are doing. Doctor sonia stokes is a fellow at John Hopkins Center for Health Security and bio Security Issues that s clinically attending physician at mount sinai morning hospital also serving the covid19 best practices committee. Le lets get a sense of what is going on with you, out there in the world and bring that to our elected representatives are further conversation. So randy smith, lets start withve you. Go head and share your story. You are expressing your experiences and frustration and mistakes of what this is all about, go ahead the floor is yours. Thank you when this pandemic happened we became concerned about our ability to serve and support the teams that were in our program. We immediately started to look at the need of the teams but the logistics of complying with social distancing guidelines. We knew we needed to perform well. We quickly realized we were also going to be responsible for supplying food and other supplies to families. Initially when i found the masks they were on amazon they were the only the last masks. I found a link that advertise on facebook. Knowing facebook is a legitimate company, i assumed they only allowed legitimate advertisers. I went aheadhe and purchased the masks through disaster through facebook. Shortly later i received an inaccurate order confirmation which let me know something was wrong. In looking into that a found a Facebook Group over thousand membersed and most had ordered from these and hundreds had posted information regarding the dispute on facebook and paste pal was very difficult to find anyone posting resolutions to those concerns. It was not justus facemasks. Hundreds had ordered robotic vacuums, drones, and had become victims ofro b scams. It was apparent that facebook had been aware of this forre several weeks. There were no secrets people were getting ripped off. I would imagine for every one person reported might have been hundreds who did not speak up or say anything. I looked at it i walked into home depot they have a responsibility to make sure i receive what i was sold. They are also regulated to protect my electronic phones. The platform is selling online needs to be held to a higher standard. The fact is there often representing a company that does not have a storefront there may be a seller based outside of the United States. Consumersta are powerless and finding them. We cant walked in and talk to the returns count counter. Its easier to get ripped off. Think allowing fraudulent practice to continue will only cause consumers to be more cautious about buying online. That is going to be at the expense of smaller Reputable Companies that rely on that platform to promote and sell their products. So in the grand scheme of things 200 may not seemed like a lot of money, but regardless the amount it is theft of another persons precious dollars and for settlement like me or our Nonprofit Organization that serves and houses these youth on these essential donated dollars, every dollars absolutely vital. May say, look things first vice a 200 is not very much. One person multiply that by 100, 1000, 1 million guards talking serious dollars in a major major fraud cast out over a lot of people. I also want to say and i think its important your story got known until because of the incredible work that Craig Silverman from buzz fee did our data democracy and politics in her colleague trevor davis is a started looking into some of these proliferation of social media and emails theres a billion emails wrapped some of the stuff they found. They found your story. I think part of what is important is exposing these things. Thank you for sharing your story with them so it could be reported and thank you for sharing your story with us right now. We will come back to you. Doctor stokes owing to turn it over to you for your perspectiv perspective. Thank you. As an emergency physician in new york city, i have managed more than 100 cases of covid19. Ive lost count of how many people were exposed not to the virus itself but medical misinformation about the virus from the media. And it hurting my patients. When my first cases of the beginning of march wasnt elderly womanso brought in by her adult son she had a fever cough her oxygen was very low. When i told her son he did not believe me. E he did not believe the virus existed. He actually showed me facebook there is a post that said Something Like covid19 is a hoax made up by drug companies. That same week another patient was brought in by her daughter same symptoms, same diagnosis. But her daughter insisted to me there is no way her mother could have the virus because she went on facebook and said covid19 was prevented by antibiotics. So she went to the medic in her neighborhood picked up the pills for her mother and she been taken as every day. There is no way her mother could have covid19. I have had so many s of these conversations since the beginning of the outbreak. After everything weve been through in new york over these past months im still having these conversations. When i counsel patients and their families about the facts of covid19, they are understandably confused and scared because theyve been exposed to so much conflicting information they dont know whats real and what isnt. The common reaction is for family members to get angry and how is it even possible for the patient to have covid19y. My mother hasnt left the house she hasnt been in contact with anyone but the grandchildren they are all healthy. On that first they dont make the connection even they themselves are healthy and have no symptoms they can still have the virus they can still pass it on. Eventually after we talk it start to sink in on one of the things i will never forget is that look on someones face when all the sudden they realize they are the ones. They are the one who likely had the virus and likely pass it on to their loved ones who have now died. Ive seen that look so many times. Is something im going to remember for the rest of my lif life. I have been told the way to counter medical misinformation is to put out just as much accurate information. But social media is so fast i cant keep up. In the middle of a pandemic theres just not enough time w were fighting to keep our patients live on the front line. We should not be fighting this war of information at the same time its just not possible re arts arranged to have handled mass casualty events we are not trained for this. We need help. Thank you smacked doctor stokes thank you very much. Not only are you not trained hofor this, you should be spending your time treating patients not treating disinformation. But i want to ask you one question before going to senator blumenthal. The stories that you tell are really disturbing and very shocking of patients who think they can get appellant take a pill be immune from it these others examples you give. Are these and this is not scientific its anecdotal from your experience recognizing that are these rare cases are these 10 20 give us a sense from your lived experience, how prevalent is thisou misinformation . Disinformation . And what you hear from patients . I would say with great confidence the overwhelming majority just to give you a sense of it, the beginning of the outbreak their actual doctors what i do at the hospital is look at the literature there following best practices. I dont think we understand what it was like in the beginning of february beginning of march we just did not have enough information. On the hate to say it but id colleagues of mine who fell for some of the hoaxes we were seeing on facebook. I think now its much more clear, we are having people from the medical communities were not this early able to identify false information for misinformation what did they expect from patients . I dont think its possible to put the onus on people to know how to make decisions for their health that are based on solid good information. Thank you doctor stokes. Senator blumenthal let me turn to you, you have taken on Health Insurance industry, big tobacco, we have been outspoken advocate for consumer rights. In this case, as consumers as we heard from doctor stokes, are getting huge amounts of Bad Information across social media platforms. The scammers who are selling useless pills like this leading people to think they are immune. Conspiracy theories that will drive people in different directions. Lets turn it over to you and you can respond with what youve heard from randy smith, doctor stokes, give us a sense of what can, should be done about it . What should the platforms be doing about it . You are muted senator blumenthal we cannot hear you. Can you knew to yourself or we will unmute you . There we go. Unwelcome thank you for joining us. So let me have my thanks again to all of you who have described so compellingly some of the real harm that results from this disinformation. Into my colleagues thank you for being such a steadfast, energetic warrior on behalf of consumers. I will tell you my reaction as i listen to these stories from the real world i am so angry and worried, really outraged we use that word a lot but when you hear, randy smith says its only 200 but 200 here, 200 there and pretty soon youre trying but real money. I have been involved involving a lot less than 200 lawsuit for people. But what doctor stokes says so compellingly as there is a real threat to human life and safety. And so it can be a great boon can also be the bane of our lives. Theres a threat when they have disinformation and commonly they are displacement because they are complicit in the fact that aiding and abetting the spread of deceptive and misleading ads that do great harm or threaten great harm. I will give you one or two examples that are particularly out of bounds, across the line, congresswoman and i are writing a letter today we are releasing it, shes been a real leader in this effort that stated to the ftc they should be taking action nancy frauds and scam around the stimulus a payments. Those are being issued by the federal government. All too often people are not receiving it due to United States treasury lacking effort. And now what we are discovering is that people who go to google and counter fraudulent referrals google does or should know a scam. We are asking the ftc to take action. Not just against the advertiser advertisers, the con artist, but also google. It is taken action the past against advertisers or web designers that enable frauds to reach the people. We are asking the fcc to take action. You mentioned exposing these frauds will exposing them is very, very important. But enforcing against them is an obligation of the federal trade commission and the federal Communications Commission all of these groups and agencies have a real responsibility that affects peoples lives absolutely astonishing, by the way the project you are doing today the letter is a result of the transparency project. But like wise on fake cures the department of interest has 46 separate false cures they are Dietary Supplements their chemicals, there is no vaccine as you know for covid19 and there are no proven therapeutics or treatments and certainly none of these are. So im asking them to take action. And just to be clear these 46 fake cures are being promoted and represented as cures . And the platforms are you saying theyre doing nothing to pull them down to identify them to expose him . They did nothing on their own until he wrote the fcc. Now they are down but there are more in their place. So to your key point near the platforms are failing to act against them on their own until they are ordered to do so by the ftc and of course the ftc is limited in terms of its resources. But also in the past often it lacks the will to effect enforcement. We are also on the subject of masks going to some of the largest onlineto marketplaces, amazon, ebay and others and ask them to stop selling masks that are in the fact not effective but potentially dangerous to people. Doctor stokes probably encounters a lot of people who said i was wearing my mask all the time. And it was supposed to be an and 95 mask and they may be infected because of the misleading. You can go through pricefixing, profiteering, price gouging, also the deceptive and misleading ads and pictures, all of them directly with the result of these platforms complicity in the scam. Let me turn to you for a couple of minutes. You coauthored this letter with the senators he was just talking about it what exactly are you to calling to be done and again i would like you to ask as we are here now we are focusing on scams, fraud, ripping people off in the name of covid19 safety or health or cures or whatever it is. Tell us a little bit more about this letter and where it needs to go. Congresswoman you are muted as well, sorry. There we go. There are a number of tools we can use in one is going to the federal trade commission which really does have the authority, not only to enforce the fraudulent ads be taken down, but there are also penalties the federal commission could use. At this point we are calling on google to take responsibility. The issue of immunity that these platforms fill is a really dangerous situation along with senator blumenthal for facebook because they are allowinge the sale of the incline sleepers that have killed 100 children already in the Consumer ProductSafety Commission says to not be sold. But they are selling them. I also want to thank the transparency projects, people are looking for information. And so they go to the internet. If they just look up who is selling the fraudulent items, including the masks. Randy tells us terrible stories. It is because while there may be some that are legitimate, the consumer has no way of knowing what the differences if there is not some regulation. Making sure we act in one of the big policies has been the immunity in section 230 of the Communications Decency act. Said they are hosting and they have no responsibility whatsoever. Thats a newew clearly hafted change and we have bi