Ill like to offer up a brief prayer for what happened in new york. We come to you today humble, seeking your wisdom, guidance, knowledge as we try to lead this great people. Lord, we have circumstances in new york where families are in deep pain and deep sorrow and tragedies in california and florida and others, puerto rico where families are struggling. Ask your devine guidance and comfort to First Responders and others. We ask, lord, that were worthy of your praise and blessing and that we conduct ourselves this afternoon in ways that well honor you. Ask in jesus name, amen. Appearing before the committee will be mr. Collin stretch, general counsel of facebook, acting general counsel of twitter and kent walker, Senior Vice President and senior counsel of google. We are in open session. This will only unclassified matters. We appreciate the public and media interest in this committees work. We expect proper decorum at all times. We ask the witnesses to stand and raise their right hand. Do you solemnly swear or affirm the testimony you give to this committee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you god. Thank you. You may be seated. Ill recognize myself for five minutes. Thank you for being here today to discuss a very important topic and thats russias use of your social media platforms during the 2016 election. As you know, this committee has been investigating russias involvement in the 2016 election since the beginning of this year. As part of that investigation, were examining the role that social Media Companies played in the disseminating maligned content produced and paid for by russian actors including the russian propaganda arm, the Internet Research agency. It is no secret russian actors used your social media platforms after and during the election cycle to communicate discord among our citizens. Such tactics are not new or novel but the manner which they can be employed using social media is unique. For example, lets examine some of the facebook advertisements that were identified as being created by russian actors. These images were provided to the committee in advance of todays hearing and represent a small sample of some of the images that appear on computers and mobile devices between 2015 and 2017. These exhibits are not selected for political gain but to provide a clear example of what we seek to discuss. These exhibits some of the most viewed russian created facebook advertisements in 2015 to 2017. Exhibit 1, if youll put that up. Is an ad entitled being patriotic. It was created on june 23rd, 2015, and received approximately 530,000 ad impressions and 72,000 ad clicks. It costs approximately 330,000 rubles. Exhibit 2 was created on december 10th, 2015. And received approximately 531,000 ad impressioned and 30,000 ad clicks. It cost approximately 2,100 at Todays Exchange rate. Exhibit 3 is entitled south united. It was created on october the 14th, 2016. And received approximately 40,000 ad clicks. This cost approximately 1,300 at Todays Exchange rate. Exhibit 4 is an ad entitled back the badge. It was created on october 19, 2016, and received approximately 1. 3 million ad impressions and 73,000 ad clicks. This cost approximately 1,900 in Todays Exchange rate. Finally exhibit 5 is an ad entitled woke blacks. It was created on december 1st and received approximately cost approximately 1,000 in Todays Exchange rates. I ask unanimous consent that all exhibits and material offered in todays hearing be entered in the record. Without objection so ordered. All three copies have a public responsibility to ensure that the content carried on your platform is not produced by foreign adversaries seeking to harm our society and democratic process. I submit this is not easy in a democracy where free speech is guarded by our constitution. Americans must always be free to pick and choose which stories to read, click or retweet. We must not let Technology Foreign enemies to spread this information with the intent to divide us. I thank you for your efforts your companies have recently made to address the harmful russian influence on your platforms and the transparency which you have made those changes. I hope todays hearing will help the public understand the extent to which russian actors use your platforms during the 2016 election. We also help your testimony will shed light on the relative impact of this hostile influence compared as to other legitimate messaging campaigns during the same period. And how your companies distinguish between malign activities and free speech. To include whether these differences filter content and russia democracies as opposed to china and russia. We expect you will address your companys specific plans moving forward to help ensure such activities do not occur again on your platforms. I look forward to a productive hearing. I will recognize the Ranking Member mr. Schiff for five minutes with any opening comments. Thank you, mr. Chairman. In march of this year our committee had its first open hearing and then fbi director comey revealed that hed opened a Counter Intelligence investigation involving Trump Associates and the russians. Then we knew next to nothing about the russians use of social media to attack Hillary Clinton. The Technology Companies themselves only recently have identified the reach of that facet of the kremlins campaign. Today we will see a sample of those ads and ask the social Media Companies what they know about the extent of russian extent of social media, what they intend to do about it to protect our country from this malign influence in the five. I posed the question whether the Trump Campaign colluded with russia in any aspect of its influence operations. In essence did the russians offer to help the campaign and did the campaign accept. And if the Trump Campaign did accept explicitly or implicitly, what did the russians do to make good on that understanding . We now know as a result of the guilty plea by Trump CampaignForeign Policy adviser gorge papadopoulos that the russians approached the Trump Campaign as early as april of 2016 to inform them they were in possession of dirt on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of stolen emails. This timing is significant because it means that the Trump Campaign was informed of russias involvement with the stolen emails even before our country was aware of it. But mr. Papadopoulos was not the only Trump Campaign figure the russians approached. Nor would his lies to federal agents be the last example of Trump Associates making false statements about their interactions with the russians. We now know that the uppermost levels of the Trump Campaign were also informed that the russians had dirt on clinton and that it was offered to the campaign in what was described as part of the putins government effort to help mr. Trump. That offer appears to have been accepted when the president s son said that he would love the assistance and suggested that the best timing would be in the late summer. And in late summer the russians would begin dumping dirt on Hillary Clinton. The president and his son would later deceptively claim the meeting with the russians in trump tower was about adoptions. It is not clear from mr. Papadopouloss plea whether the russians communicated the would not involve the direct provision of the stolen emails to the campaign, but their publication through wikileaks and moscows own cutouts. What is clear is this. The kremlin repeatedly told the campaign it had dirt on clinton and offered to help it and one top official, the president s own son accepted. Apart from publishing stolen emails, the russians always used social media to assist the Trump Campaign. Whether the russians and the campaign coordinated these efforts we do not yet know but true the russians mounted what could be described as an independent Expenditure Campaign on mr. Trumps behalf. Russian ads on twitter promoted stories about Hillary Clintons allegedly poor health. Discord in the u. S. By inflaming passions on a range of divisive issues. The russians did so by weaving together fake accounts, pages and communities to push politicized content and videos and to mobilize real americans to sign online petitions and join rallies and protests. They also bought ads like these, the first ad behind me, black matters was brought to us from our friends in st. Petersburg. The second ad garnered over 135,000 facebook followers. The russians bought sufficient ad space for it to appear almost 145,000 times across facebook accounts, that it expressed an interest in donald trump stopping illegal immigration, conservativism, federal states of america or the republican party. Russia exploited real vulnerabilities that exist across Online Platforms and we must identify, expose and defend yourselves against covert operations in the future. The companies here today must play central role while preventing cyberspace from being misused by our adversaries. I thank you, mr. Chairman and yield back. We will now turn to our witnesses. We have your Opening Statements for the record. Written prepared statements. Do any of you care to make an oral statement to the committee at this time . If so, youll have five minutes. Chairman, Ranking Member shift and members of the committee, twitter understands the importance of the committees inquiry into russias interference in the 2016 election and we appreciate the opportunity to be here today. The events underlying this hearing have been deeply concerning to our company and the broader Twitter Community. We are committed to providing a service that fosters and facilitates free and open democratic debate and that promotes positive change in the world. We are troubled by the reports that the power of twitter was used for the purpose of influencing the president ial election and undermining public faith in the contract process. The abuse of our platform to obtain manipulation for election system a new challenge and one that we are determined to meet. Today we intend to show the committee how serious we are about addressing this new threat by explaining the work we are doing to understand what happened and to ensure that it does not happen again. At the time of the 2016 election, we observed and acted on instances of automated and malicious activity. As we learned more about the scope of the broader problems we resolve to strengthen our systems Going Forward. Elections continue all the time. So our First Priority was to do all we could to block and remove malicious activity from interfering with your users experience. We created dedicated teams within twitter to enhance the quality of information our users see and to block malicious activity whenever and wherever we find it. Those teams continue to work every day to ensure twitter remains a safe, open, transparent and positive platform. We have also launched a retrospect tiff review to find russian efforts to influence the 2016 election through automation, coordinated activity and advertising. While that review is still under way, we have made the decision to share what we know today. In the interest of transparency and out of appreciation for the urgency of this matter. We recognize that our findings may be supplemented, discover more facts and gain a greater understanding of these events. My testimony details the methodology and current findings of the review and detail. We studied tweets from the period september 1st through november 15th 2016. We did find automated and coordinated activity of interest. We determined that the number of accounts we could link to russia and that were tweeting election related content was comparatively small, around 1 100th of a . 1 3 of election related tweets came from russian linked automated accounts. We did, however, observe instances where russian linked activity was more pronounced. And we have uncovered more accounts linked to the russian based Internet Research agency as a result of our review. We also determined advertising by russia today at seven small accounts violated the policies in effect at the time or that have since been implemented. We have banned all of those users as advertisers and we will donate the revenue to Academic Research into the use of twitter during the election and for civil engagement. Last week we announced industry leading changes to our advertising policy. We are also enhancing our safety policies. Sharpening our tools for stopping malicious activity and increasing transparency to promote public understanding of all of these areas. Our work on these challenges will continue for as long as malicious actors seek to abuse our system and we will need to evolve to stay ahead of new tactics. We have heard the concerns about russian actors use of twitter to disrupt the 2016 election and about our commitment to addressing this issue. Twitter believes that any activity of that kind, regardless of magnitude, is unacceptable. And we will agree to do as much as we can to do better to prevent it. We hope that our appearance today and the description of the work we have undertaken demonstrates our commitment to working with you, our Industry Partners and other stake holders to ensure that the experience of 2016 never happens again. Cooperation to combat this challenge is essential. We cannot defeat this threat alone. As with most Technology Based threats the best approach is to combine information and ideas to increase our understanding. Working with the broader community, we will continue to learn, to test, to share, and to improve so that our product remains effective and safe. I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you, sir. Mr. Stretch. Chairman, Ranking Member schiff and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to appear before you today. My name is collin stretch. Since july, 2013, ive served as the general counsel of facebook. We appreciate your hard work to investigate russian interference in the 2016 election. Id like to start by echoing the comments of the chairman earlier regarding the events in new york yesterday. We extend our deepest condolences to the victims of this horrific attack and to their families. Were doing everything we can to assist Law Enforcement with its investigation. At facebook our mission is to create technology that gives people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. We are proud that each of you uses facebook to connect with your constituents and we understand that the people you represent expect authentic experiences when they come to our platform to share and to connect. We also believe we have an Important Role to play in the democratic process and a responsibility to protect it on our platform. Thats why we take whats happened on facebook so seriously. The foreign interference we saw during the 2016 election is reprehensible. That foreign actors hiding behind fake accounts abused our platform and other Internet Services to try to sew division and discord and try to undermine our election process is contrary to our values and everything we stand for. Our goal at facebook is to bring people closer together. These foreign actors sought to drive people apart. In our investigation, which continues to this day, we found that these actors used fake accounts to place ads on facebook and instagram that reached millions of americans over a two year period. And that those ads were used to promote pages which in turn posted more content. People shared these posts, spreading them still further. Many of these ads and posts are inflammatory. Some of down right offensive. We know that much of this content is particularly hurtful to members of the Facebook Community that engaged with this content believing it was authentic. People should believe content on facebook is authentic. And should not have to worry that they are being exploited in a cynical effort to prey on painful fault lines in order to assume discourse in the country. The ads were a very small fraction of the overall content, but any amount is too much. All of these accounts and pages violated our policies and we removed them. Going forward we are making significant investments. Were hiring more ad reviews, doubling or more our security engineering efforts, putting in place tighter ad content restrictions. Launching new tools to improve a transparency. Were building artificial legs to locate bad actors. Were working closely with industries to share information on how to identify threats so we can all respond faster and more effectively. And were expanding our efforts to work more closely with Law Enforcement. We know bad actors arent going to stop their efforts. We know well all have to keep learning and improving to stay ahead of them. We also know we cant do this alone. Thats why i want to thank you for this investigation. We look forward to the conclusions you will share with the American Public and i look forward to your questions. Walker, do you have a statement . I do. Thank you. Chairman conaway, Ranking Member shift, thank you for the opportunity to be with you. My name is kent walker. At google, responsible for trust and safety. Ive worked at the intersection of law,