Portion of the meeting that just wrapped up. I call the hearing to order. Good morning, i would like to welcome our Witnesses Today before i introduce them, i want to say on behalf of the full committee that our hearts and our prayers go out to the individuals of new york, the families and the friends of those who were affected by a senseless terror act. To most on this committee, we have come to expect this. We spend countless hours working through the threats that exist to this country and around the world. And its sad that we have come to the point where really nothing can happen that surprises us. But its the responsibility of this committee to work hand in hand with our intelligence community, to help to keep america safe by providing the tools they need to accomplish their mission. We will continue to do that. As is the case that were here today, and i welcome our witnesses, colin stretch, Vice President and general counsel alt facebook, sean edgett, general counsel with twitter, and kent walker from google. For several months now, the media has been fixated on the role that social media platforms played in spreading disinformation and discord during the 2016 elections. This was an opportunity for each of you to tell your respective stories, and if necessary, correct the record. My sense is that not all aspects of those stories have been told accurately. Ill note for the record that this committee is now having its 17th open hearing this year and the 12th at which well be discussing russia and russias activities. Today im hopeful we can provide the American People with an informed and credible assessment of how foreign actors used your platforms to circulate lies and to agitate unrest during last years elections. Im also hopeful youll share with us what your companies are doing to make it harder for foreign actors to use your platforms, automated accounts, and falsified stories to influence sentiment in the United States. Very clearly, this kind of National Security vulnerability represents an unacceptable risk, and your companies have a responsibility to reduce that vulnerability. While were on the topic of responsibility, i want to use this forum to push back on some narratives that have been sprung up around this subject. A lot of folks, including many in the media, have tried to reduce this entire conversation to one premise. Foreign actors conducted a surgical executed covert operation to help elect a United States president. Im here to tell you this story does not simplify that easily. It is shortsighted and dangerous to selectively focus on one piece of information and think that that somehow tells the whole story. We have heard from the media how a series of, i quote, russianlinked facebook ads were specifically aimed at michigan and wisconsin during the leadup to last years president ial election, unquote. And that, quote, some of those ads targeted specific demographic groups in two states, unquote. The narrative here is that ads linked to russia were targeted in pivotal states and directly influenced the elections outcome. What you havent heard is that almost five times more ads were targeted at the state of maryland than of wisconsin. Maryland, which was targeted by 262 ads in comparison to wisconsins 55 ads. And maryland was not up for grabs. It was a state that democrat candidate carried by 26 . Of the 35 of the 55 ads targeted at wisconsin ran prior to the wisconsin primary before there was an identified republican candidate. And moreover, that not one of those 55 ads mentioned President Donald Trump by name. Or that the key election state of pennsylvania had fewer ads targeted at it than washington, d. C. Where 87 of the electorate voted for hillary clinton. Or that the three most heavily targeted states in america, maryland, missouri, and new york, were all determined by at least 18point margin and two of them won by hillary clinton. One point the media has gotten correct is that more of these geographically targeted ads ran in 2015 than in 2016. Again, before President Trump was identified as a republican candidate for president. But some of the context surrounding the more than 100,000 dollars worth of divisive ads on hot button is e issues purchased by russian actors is missing. To add some detail here, where the media has failed to do it, and put the 100,000 into a frame of reference, the total ad spend for the state of wisconsin was 1,979. With all but 54 being spent before the primary. Again, before the emergence of a republican candidate. The ad spend in the state of michigan was 823. Pennsylvania, 300. To believe the narrative that you have to accept that these sophisticated, wellresourced russian actors studied our process, assessed what states would be critical to the election result, then snuck and invested all of 300 to execute their plan in pennsylvania. 300. More than five times as much money was spend on advertising in california, a state that hasnt voted republican in president ial elections since 1988. Even with the benefit of numbers and what can be calculated and measured, this is an incredibly complex story. We can look at the amount of money spent, the number of ads purchased, and draw conclusions about priorities. We can look at the divisive content of the ads and the pages they directed people towards and the number of tweets and retweets and the manipulated search results and draw inferences about the intent of the Information Operation. What we cannot do, however, is calculate the impact that foreign meddling in social media had on this election. Nor can we assume that it must be the explanation for an election outcome that many didnt expect. I understand the urge to make this story simple. Its human nature to make complex manageable, find explanations and interpret things in ways that conform to your conclusions. But thats biased. Pointing to a state and saying that no ads ran there after the election doesnt prove intent or even motive. It just shows that no ads ran there after the election. This subject is complicated. Theres a whole new vocabulary that comes with this stuff. Impressions are different than views. Views are different than clicks. But theres one thing that im certain of. Its this given the complexity of what we have seen, if anyone tells you theyve got this all figured out, theyre kidding themselves. And we cant afford to kid ourselves about what happened last year and continues to happen today. That complexity, ill note, is exactly why we depend on you for expert insight and reliable information. 60 of the u. S. Population uses facebook. A foreign power using that platform to influence how americans see and think about one another is as much a Public Policy issue as it is a National Security concern. Crafting an elegant policy solution that is effective but not overly burdensome demands good faith and partnership between companies and this committee. Just recently, on the basis of a more complete and sophisticated analysis, the original estimate that 10 million americans were exposed to russian content on facebook was increased to 126 million. That tells me that your companies are just beginning to come to grips with the scale and the depth of the problem. Thats encouraging but know this. We do better when you do better. I would urge you to keep that in mind and to work with us proactively to find the right solution to a very constant and complaining challenge. Ill take a moment here to stress that this hearing, what this hearing is and is not about. This isnt about relitigating the 2016 u. S. President ial election. This isnt about who won or who lost. This is about National Security. This is about corporate responsibility. And this is about the deliberative and multifaceted manipulation of the American People by agents of a hostile foreign power. Ill say it again. Agents of a hostile foreign power reached into the United States using our own social media platforms and conducted an Information Operation intended to divide our society along issues like race, immigration, and Second Amendment rights. Whats even more galling is that to tear us apart, theyre using social media platforms americans invented in connection with the First Amendment freedoms that define an open and democratic society. While its shocking to think that foreign actors use the social networking and communications mediums that are so central to our lives today in an effort to interfere with the core of our democracy, what is even more troubling is the likelihood that these platforms are still being used today to spread lies, provoke conflict, and drive americans apart. Your three companies have developed platforms that have trumendous reach, and therefore tremendous influence. That reach and influence is by the enormous amount of data you collect on your users and their activities. The American People need to understand how russia used that information and what youre doing to protect them. Your actions need to catch up to your responsibilities. We have a lot to get to this morning. Im going to stop here. Again, i want to thank each of our Witnesses Today. And i turn to the vice chairman for any comments he might have. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And let me also express our concerned thoughts about the tragedy yesterday in new york. Let me get right at it. In the age of social media, you cant afford to waste too much time or for that matter, too many characters in getting a point across. So ill get straight to the bottom line. Russian operatives are attempting to infiltrate and manipulate American Social media to hijack the national conversation, and to make americans angry. To set us against ourselves and at their most basic, to undermine our democracy. They did it during the 2016 u. S. President ial campaign. They are still doing it now. And not one of us is doing enough to stop it. Thats why were here today. In many ways, this threat is not new. Russians have been conducting Information Warfare for decades. But what is new is the advent of social media tools with the power to magnify propaganda and fake news on a scale that was unimaginable back in the days of the berlin wall. Todays tools in many ways seem almost purpose built for russian disinformation techniques. Russias playbook is simple but formidable. It works like this. First, disinformation agents set up thousands of fake accounts, groups, and pages across a wide array of platforms. These fake accounts populate content on facebook, instagram, twitter, youtube, reddit, linkedin, and many other platforms. Each of these fake accounts spend literally months developing networks of real people to follow and like their content. Boosted by tools like paid ads and automated bots. Most of the reallife followers have no idea that they were caught up in these webs. These networks are later utilized to push an array of disinformation, including stolen emails, stateled propaganda like rt news and sputnik, fake news, and divisive content. The goal is pretty simple. Its to get this socalled news into the news feeds of many potentially receptive americans and to covertly and subtly push those americans in the directions the kremlin wants to go. Someone who deeply respects the Tech Industry and who is involved in that industry for more than 20 years, it has taken me quite a bit of time, and im still learning, to truly understand the nature of this threat. Even i struggle to keep up with the language and the mechanics, the difference between bots, trolls, and fake accounts, how they generate likes, tweets, and shares. And how all of these players and actions are combined into an online ecosystem. What is clear, however, is that this playbook offers a tremendous bang for the disinformation buck. With just a small amount of money, adversaries use hackers to steal and weaponize data, trolls to craft disinformation, fake accounts to build networks, bots to drive traffic. And ads to target new audiences. They can force propaganda into the mainstream and wreak havoc on our online discourse. If you look back at the results, it was a pretty good return on investment. So where do we go from here . I believe it will take all of us, you, some of the platform companies, the United States government, and the American People to deal with this new and evolving threat. The social media and innovative tools each of you have developed have changed our world for the better. You have transformed the way we do everything from shopping for groceries to growing small businesses. But russias actions are further exposing the dark underbelly of the eco system you have created. And there is no doubt that their Successful Campaign will be replicated by other adversaries, both nation states and terrorists, that wish to do harm to democracies around the globe. This is not a unique american phenomenon. As such, each of you here today needs to commit more resources to identifying bad actors and when possible, preventing them from abusing our social media ecosystem. Thanks in part to pressure from this committee, each company has uncovered, i believe, only some of the evidence of the ways russians exploited their platforms during the 2016 election. For facebook, much of the attention has been focused on the paid ads that russian trolls targeted to americans. However, these ads are just the tip of a very large iceberg. The real story is the amount of misinformation and divisive content that was pushed for free on russianbacked pages which was then spread widely on news feeds of tens of millions of americans. According to the data facebook has provided, 120 russianbacked pages built a network of over 3. 3 Million People. From these now suspended pages, 80,000 organic unpaid posts reached an estimated 126 million real people. More than a third of the population. This is an astonishing reach from just one group in st. Petersburg. And i doubt that the socalled Internet Research agency in st. Petersburg represents the only russian trolls out there. Facebook has more work to do to see how deep this goes, including into the reach that we have just found in the last 48 hours of information you provided of irabacked instagram posts, which again, if we just take for an example, 80,000 posts from irabased trolls on facebook, 120,000 pieces of content on instagram, and we dont even have the data on how much that content reached. The anonymity on twitter and the speed it shares news makes it an ideal tool to spread information. According to study during the 2016 campaign, junk news actually outperformed real news in some battleground states leading up to election day. Another study found that bots generated one out of every five political messages posted on twitter over the entire president ial campaign. Im concerned sir, that twitter seals to be upped estimating the number of fake bots pushing information. Estimated that up 15 active twitter accounts or potentially 45 million plus accounts are fake or automated. Despite evidence of significant incursion and outreach from researchers, twitter has to date only uncovered a small piece of that activity. Although i will acknowledge that in the last few days your numbers have gone from about 200 accounts to over 2 cnn 700 accounts. And again, i believe there is more on the to be. Google search algorithms continue to have problems in surfacing fake news for propaganda. Though we cant necessarily attribute to russian efforts, false stories and unsubstantiated rumors were elevated on Google Search during the recent Mass Shootings in las vegas. Meanwhile, you tube has become rts go to platform. Google has now uncovered 1,100 videos associated with this russian campaign. Much more of your content was likely spread through other platforms. But its not just the platforms that need to do more. United States Government has thus far proven incapable of meeting this 21st century challenge. Unfortunately, i believe the effort is suffering in part because of lack of leadership at the top. We have a president who remains unwilling to acknowledge the threat that russia poses to our democracy. President trump should stop actively delegitimatizing american journalism and acknowledge and address this very real threat posed by russian propaganda. I believe that congress, too, must do more. We need to recognize that current law was not built to address these threats. I partnered with senators klobuchar and mccain on what i believe is the most light touch legislative approach which i hope all my colleagues on this panel will review. The honest ads app is a National Security bill intended to protect our elections from the foreign interference woe all want to avoid. Finally, but perhaps most importantly, the American People also need to be aware of what is happening to our news feeds. We all need to take a more discerning approach to what we are reading and sharing and who we are connecting with on line. We need to recognize the person at the other end of that facebook or twitter argument may not be a real person at all. The fact is that this russian weapon has already proved its success and costeffectiveness. We can be assured that other adversaries, including foreign intelligence operatives and potentially terrorist organizations, have read this playbook and are already taking action. Its why we collectively must act. To our Witnesses Today, i hope you will detail what we saw in the last election. Most importantly, tell us what steps you will undertake for us to g. E. Get ready for the next one. We welcome your participation and encourage your commitment to addressing this shared responsibility. Thank you mr. Chairman. Thank you senator warner. Id like to notify members we will have sevenminute rounds today by seniority. Gentlemen, if i could ask you to please stand and raise your right hand. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth . Yes. Please be seated. Mr. Stretch, we are going to recognize you, then mr. Edgette, then mr. Walker. Mr. Stretch, the