Hate speech, and misinformation on the platforms. They also discussed foreign interference in u. S. Elections. This House Homeland SecurityCommittee Hearing is 2. 5 hours. The committee on Homeland Security will come to order. The committee is meeting today to receive testimony on examining social Media Companies efforts to counter online terror content and misinformation. In march, a white supremacist terrorist killed 51 people and wounded 49 more at two mosques in christchurch, new zealand. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the vic dems and their families. The motive behind the attack is not in question. The terrorist had written an extensive manifesto outlining his white supremacist, white nationalist, anti immigrant, anti muslim and baptist beliefs. His act was horrifying beyond words. And it shook the conscience. Shockingly, the terrorist was able to live stream the attack on facebook, with the video and its gruesome contents went undetected initially. Instead, Law Enforcement officials in new zealand had to contact the company , and ask that it be removed. When new zealand of dohertys called on all social Media Companies to remove these videos immediately, they were unable to comply. Even moderators could not keep up with the volume of videos being reposted. And their Automated Systems were unable to recognize minor changes in the video. So, the video spread online, and spread around the world. The fact that this happened nearly 2 years after facebook, twitter, google, microsoft and other Major Tech Companies established the Global Internet forum to counterterrorism, or pronounced give ct. It is troubling to say the least. Give ct was created for Tech Companies to Share Technology and best practices to come back to read online terrorist content. Back in july 2017, representatives of the gif ct committed on this new initiative. At the time, i was optimistic about its intentions and goals. And acknowledged that its members demonstrated initiative and willingness to engage on this issue while others have not. But after a while, and white supremacist terrorists were able to exploit social media platforms in this way, we all have reason to doubt the effectiveness of the gif ct and the companys efforts more broadly. March 27 of this year, representatives of gif ct briefed this committee after the christchurch massacre. Myself and other members of this committee have asked important questions about the organizations annual companies that have yet to receive satisfactory answers. Today, i hope to get answers regarding your actual efforts to keep terrorist content off your platform. I want to know how you will prevent content like the new zealand attack video from spreading on your platforms again. This committee will continue to engage social Media Companies about the challenges they face in addressing terror content on the platform. In addition to terror content, i want to hear from our panel about how they are working to keep hate speech and harmful misinformation off their platforms. I want to be very clear, democrats will respect the freespeech rights enshrined in the First Amendment. But much of the content i am referring to is either not protected speech, or violates the social Media Companies own terms of service. We have seen time and time again that social media platforms are vulnerable to being exploited by bad actors, including those working at the behest of foreign governments who seek to sow discord by spreading misinformation. This problem will only become more acute as we approach the 2020 elections. We want to understand how companies can strengthen their efforts to deal with the persistent problem. The fundamental level, todays hearing is about transparency. We want to get an understanding of whether and to what extent social Media Companies are incorporating questions of national security, public safety, and integrity of our domestic institutions into the business model. I look forward to having that conversation with the witnesses here today. And to our ongoing dialogue on behalf of the american people. I think the witnesses for joining us, and the members for their participation. With that, i now recognize the Ranking Member of the full committee, the gentleman from alabama, mr. For five minutes with the purpose of an opening statement. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Concerned about violent, interior related online content that has existed since the creation of the internet. This its peaked over the past decade with the growing sophistication in which Foreign Terrorists and their global supporters have exploited the openness of Online Platforms to radicalize, mobilize, and promote their violent messages. These tactics proved successful. So much so that we are seeing domestic extremists mimic many of the same techniques to get followers and spread hateful, violent propaganda. Other pressure has gone steadily on the companies to modify the terms of service, to limit posts linked to terrorism, violence, criminal activity, and most recently, the hateful rhetoric of misinformation. The large and mainstream companies have responded to this pressure in a number of ways, including the creation of the Global Internet forum to counterterrorism gif ct. There also updating the human terms of service and todays hearing is an important opportunity to examine the constitutional limits placed on the government to regulate our free speech. Advocating violent action, recruiting terrorists online is a legal. But expressing ones political views, however repugnant they may be, is protected under the First Amendment. I was deeply concerned to hear the recent news reports about googles policy regarding President Trump, and conservative news media. Googles head of responsible innovation, jen jeni recently said, we all got screwed over in 2016. The people got screwed over. The news media got screwed over. Everybody got screwed over. So, we have rapidly been like, what happened there . How do we prevent this from happening again . Close Elizabeth Warren is saying that we should break up google. That will not make it better. It will make it worse. Because, all of the Smaller Companies that dont have the same resources that we do will be charged with preventing the next trump situation. This jeni is entitled to her opinion. But we are in trouble if her opinions are googles policies. This report details a lot of claims about googles deliberate attempt to alter search results to reflect the reality google wants to promote, rather than objective facts. This report stark reminder of why our founders created the First Amendment. In fact, the video i just quoted from has been removed from youtube. That platform is owned by google. Who is joining us here today. I have serious questions about googles ability to be fair and balanced will include, there colluding with you to to silence press coverage. Regulating speech quickly becomes a subjective exercise for government or the private sector. Noble intentions often give way to biased and political agendas. The solution to this problem is complex. It will involve enhanced cooperation between the government, industry, individuals, well protected the Constitutional Rights of all americans. Appreciate a witnesses participation here today. Of the todays hearing can be helpful in providing Greater Transparency and this complex challenge. Thank you very much. Other members of the committee, reminded that under the committee rules, Opening Statements may be submitted for the record. I welcome our panel of witnesses. Our first witness, ms. Monica is the Vice President of Global Policy management at facebook. Next, we are joined by mr. Nick nichols who currently serves as a global senior strategist for Public Policy at twitter. The third witnesses mr. Derek slayton, the global director of information policy at google. Finally, we welcome miss levines johnson, who serves as the John Marshall harlan the second professor of law. At new york law school. Without objection, the witnesses full statement will be inserted in the record. I now ask each witness to summarize his or her statement for five minutes. Again, with ms. Becker. Thank you. Chairman thompson. Ranking member rogers. And members of the committee. And, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I am monica bickers. Facebooks Vice President for Global Policy management. And i am in charge of our product policy and counterterrorism effort. Before i joined facebook, i prosecuted federal crimes for 11 years at the department of justice. On behalf of our company, i want to thank you for your leadership. Combating extremism, terrorism, and other threats to our homeland and national security. I would also like to start by saying that all of us at facebook stand with the victims, their families, and everyone affected by the recent terrorist attacks, including the horrific violence in sri lanka and new zealand. In the aftermath of these acts, it is even more important to stand together against hate and violence. And we make this a priority and everything that we do it facebook. On terrorist content, our view is simple. Theres absolutely no place on facebook for terrorists. They are not allowed to use our services under any circumstances. We remove their accounts as soon as we find them. We also remove any content that praises or supports terrorists or their actions. And if we find evidence of imminent harm, we promptly inform authorities. There are three primary ways that we are implementing this approach. First, with our products. That help stop terrorists and propaganda at the gates. Second, through our people. Who help us review terrorist competent, content implement policies. Come through partnerships outside the company. Which help us stay ahead of the threat. First, our products. Facebook has invested significantly in technology to help identify terrorist concept content. Including the use of Artificial Intelligence, but also using other automation and technology. For instance, we can now identify violating textual posts in 19 different languages. With the help of these improvements, we have taken actions on more than 25 million pieces of terrorist content since the beginning of 2018. Of the content that we have removed from facebook, for violating our terrorism policies, more than 99 of that is content that we have found ourselves, using our own technical tools before anybody has reported it to us. Second, our people. We now have more than 30,000 people who are working on safety and security across facebook, across the world. And that is three times as many people as we had dedicated to those efforts in 2017. We also have more than 300 highly trained professionals exclusively are primarily focused on combating terrorist use of our services. Our Team Includes counterterrorism experts, former prosecutors like myself, former Law Enforcement officials, former intelligence officials. Together, they speak more than 50 languages and they are able to provide 24 hour coverage. Finally, our partnerships. In addition to working with Third Party Intelligence providers, to more quickly identify terrorist material on the internet, we also regularly work with academics who are studying terrorism, the latest trends, and government officials. Following the tragic attacks in new zealand, facebook was proud to be a signatory to the christchurch call to action. Which is a 9 point plan for the industry to better combat terrorist attempts to use our services. We also partner across industry. And mr. Chairman and Ranking Member mention, and 2017, we launched a Global Internet form to counterterrorism, or gif ct with youtube, microsoft, and twitter. Gif ct, the point of that is, we bring companies together from across industry to share information, and also to Share Technology and research to better combat these threats. Through gif ct, we have expanded an industry database for companies to share what we call hashes, which are basically, digital fingerprints of terrorist content, so we can all remove it more quickly and help Smaller Companies do that, too. We have also trained over 110 companies from around the globe and best practices for countering terrorist use of the internet. Now, facebook took over as the chair of gif ct in 2019. And along with our fellow members, we have this year, worked to expand the capabilities, including making new audio and tech hashing techniques available to other member companies. Especially the Smaller Companies. We have also improved our crisis protocols. In the wake of the horrific trite christchurch attacks, we communicated in realtime across the companies and were able to stop hundreds of versions of the video of the attack, despite the fact that bad actors were actively trying to edit the video to upload it to circumvent our system. We know adversaries are always evolving the tactics them have to improve if they want to stay ahead. And though we will never be perfect, we have made real progress. We are committed to tirelessly combating extremism on a platform. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today. I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you. Chairman thompson, Ranking Member rogers, members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear here today to discuss these important issues of combating terrorist online and. Keep the victims turn your mic on, please. Is that better . Thank you. We keep the victims, their families and the effective communities of the attack at christchurch and around the world in our minds as we undertake this important work. We have made the health of twitter a top priority. To measure access and how successfully we encourage healthy debate, conversations and Critical Thinking on the platform. Conversely, hateful conduct, terrorist content and deceptive practices detract from the help of the platform. I would like to begin by outlining three key policies. Firstly, twitter takes a zero tolerance approach to terrorist content on a platform. Individuals may not promote terrorism, engage in terrorist recruitment, or terrorist acts. Since 2015, we have suspended more than 1. 5 million accounts for violations of rules related to the promotion of terrorism, and continue to see more than 90 of these accounts suspended through proactive measures. In the majority of cases, we take action at the account creation stage, before an account is even tweeted. The remains 10 is identified through a combination of user reports and partnerships. Secondly, we prohibit the use of twitter by large extremist groups. These other as defined in our rules is brutal, whether by the statements on or off the platform, promote violence against civilians or use violence against civilians to further the cause, whatever the ideology. Since the introduction of the policy in 2017, we have taken action on 184 groups globally, and really suspended more than 2000 unique accounts. Thirdly, twitter does not allow hateful conduct on it service. An individual on twitter is not permitted to promote violence or directly attack or threaten people based on protective characteristics. When any of these rules are broken, we will take action to remove the content and we permanently remove those who promote terrorism of large extremist groups from twitter. As you have heard, twitter is a member of the Global Internet forum to counterterrorism, a partnership between youtube, twitter, facebook and microsoft, that fertilitys information sharing and Technical Cooperation across industry, as well as providing essentialist support from our companies. Blood a number of lessons from the christchurch tech. The distribution of media was manifestly different from how i asked her other terror organizations worked. This reflects a change in the wider threat environment that requires a renewed approach and focus on Crisis Response. After christchurch, an array of individuals online sought to continuously re upload the content created by the attacker. About the video in the manifesto. The board of infinite ecosystem presented then and so presents a challenge we cannot avoid. A range of Third Party Services were used to share content, including some forms and websites that of long hosted some of the most egregious content available on my. Our analysis found that 70 of the views of the video posted by the christchurch attacker came from verified accounts on twitter, including news organizations and individuals posting the video to condemn the attack. With committed to learning and improvement 60. Every entity had a part to play. We should also take apart from the social examples we have seen on twitter around the world as users come together to challenge hate and challenge division. First of all i pray for orlando. After the christchurch attached, hello brother reporter terrorist narratives and offer a Better Future for us all. In the months since the attack, governments, industry, and Civil Society were united behind a mutual commitment to a safe, secure, open and