Today we welcome representatives from the Worlds Largest social Media Companies and Online Platforms. We hear from ms. Monica bickert, head of the Global Policy management for facebook. And mr. Nick pickles, Public Policy at twitter. Mr. Derrick slater, global director of information policy at google and mr. George saline, Senior Vice President of programs for the antidefamation league. Platforms have dramatically changed the way we skmcommunica and have been used positively for likeminded groups to come together and shed light on despotic regimes throughout the world. No matter how great the benefit to society these platforms provide, it is important to consider how they can be used for evil at home and abroad. On august 3rd, 2019, 20 people were 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 website called 8chan 27 minutes prior to the shooting. 8 chan moderators removed the original post, though users continued sharing 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. I certainly hope we talk about that challenge today. Sadly, the el paso shooting is not the only recent example of Mass Violence with an online dimension. On march 15, 2019, 51 people were killed and 49 were injured in shootings at two mosques in christchurch, new zealand. The perpetrator filmed the attacks using a body camera and live streamed the footage to his facebook followers, who began to reload the footage to facebook and other sites. Access to the footage quickly spread and facebook stated that it removed 1. 5 million videos of the massacre within 24 hours of the attack. 1. 2 million views of the videos were blocked before they could be uploaded. Like the el paso shooter, the christchurch shooter also uploaded a manifesto to 8 chan. The 2016 shooting at the pulse nightclub in orlando, florida, killed 49 and injured 53 more. The orlando shooter was reportedly radicalized by isis and other jihadist propaganda through online sources. Days after the attack, the fbi director stated that investigators were highly confident that the shooter was selfradicalized through the internet. According to an official involved in the investigation, analysis of the shooters Electronic Devices revealed that he had consumed, quote, a hell of a lot of jihadist propaganda, unquote, including isis beheading videos, shooting survivors and family members of victims brought a federal lawsuit against those three social media platforms under the antiterrorism act. The sixth circuit dismissed the lawsuit on grounds this was not an act of international terrorism. With other 3. 2 billion internet users, this committee recognizes the challenge facing social Media Companies and Online Platforms. Their ability to act and remove content threatening violence from their sites. These are questions about tracking of a users online activity. Does this invade an individuals privacy, thwart due process or violate constitutional rights. The automatic removal may also impact an Online Platforms ability to detect possible warning signs. Indeed, 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 these challenges. In todays internet connected society, misinformation, fake news, deep fakes and viral online conspiracy theories have become the norm. This 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. I hope our witnesses will also discuss how their content moderation processes work. This include addressing how human review or technological tools are employed to remove or otherwise limit violent content before it is posted, copied and disseminated across the internet. Communication with Law Enforcement officials at the federal, state and local levels is critical to protecting our neighborhoods and communities. We would like to know how companies are coordinating with Law Enforcement when violent or extremist content is identified. And finally, i hope witnesses will discuss how congress can assist in ongoing efforts to remove content promoting violence from Online Platforms and whether best practices or industry codes of conduct in this area would help increase safety both online and offline. So i look forward to hearing testimonies from our witnesses. Hope we engage in a constructive discussion about potential solutions to a pressing issue. And im delighted at this point to recognize my friend and Ranking Member senator cantwell. Across the country we are seeing and experiencing a surge of hate. As a result we need to think much harder about the tools and resources we have to combat this problem both online and offline. While the First Amendment to the constitution protects free speech, speech that incites imminent violence is not protected and congress should review and strengthen laws that prohibit rules of violence, harassment, stalking, intimidati intimidation. In testimony before the Senate Judiciary committee in july, federal bureau of investigation fbi director chris wray said that the white supremacist violence is on the rise. He said the fbi takes this threat, quote, extremely seriously and has made over 100 arrests so far this year. In my community we suffered a shooting of a Jewish Community center in seattle and others. And over the last year weve seen a rise in the desecration of both synagogues and mosques. The rise in hate across the country has also led to multiple Mass Shootings including the tree of life congregation in pittsburgh and the walmart in el pass toe. Social media is used to amplify that hate. And the shooter at one high school in parkland said the image of himself and guns and knives on instagram wrote social media posts prior to the attack on his fellow students. In el paso, the killer published a white supremacist antiimmigration manifesto on 8 chan message board and my colleague just mentioned the streaming of live content related to the christchurch shooting, the horrific incidents that happened there. In myanmar the military promoted violence against muslim rohingya. These human lives were all cut short by deep hatred and extremism that we have seen has become more common. This is a particular problem on the dark web where we see certain websites like 8 chan and adding technology and tools to mainstream websites to stop the spread of these dark websites is a start, but there needs to be an effort to ensure that people are not directed into these cesspools. I believe calling on the department of justice to make sure that we are working across the board on an international basis with companies to fight this issue is an important thing to be done. We dont want to push people off of social media platforms only to then be on the dark web where we are finding less of them. We need to do more at the department of justice to shut down these dark websites and social Media Companies need to work with us to make sure that we are doing this. I do want to mention just last week as theres much discussion here in washington about initiatives, the state of washington has passed three gun initiatives by the vote of the people, closing background loopholes and also relating to private sales and extreme person laws. All voted on by a majority of people in our state and successfully passed. So i do appreciate just last week representatives from very companies in the Tech Industry sending a letter asking for passage of bills requiring extensive background checks. Very much appreciate that and your support of extreme person laws to keep guns out of the hands of people who a court has determined are dangerous in the possession of that. So this morning we look to 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 we can demploying in trying to fight extremism that exists online. Thank you, mr. Chairman, for the hearing. Thank you very, very much. Now well hear oral testimony from our four witnesses. Your entire statements will be submitted for the record without objection. We ask you to limit your comments at this point to five minutes. Ms. Bicker, youre recognized. Thank you for being here. Thank you chairman wicker, Ranking Member cantwell. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today and answer your questions and explain our efforts in these areas. My name is monica bicker and i am facebooks manager for Global Policy management and Counter Terrorism. Im responsible for our rules around content on facebook and our companys response. Id like to begin by expressing my sympathy and solidarity with everybody affected by the recent attacks across the country. In the face of such acts we remain committed to assisting Law Enforcement and standing with the community against hate and violence. Were thankful to be able to provide a way for those affected by this horrific violence to communicate with loved ones, organize events for people to gather in grief, raise money to help support communities and begin to heal. Our mission is to give people the power to connect with one another and to 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 inciting violence. Our goal is to ensure that facebook is both a place where people can express themselves, but where they are also safe. While were not aware of any connection between the recent attacks and our platform, we certainly recognize that we all have a role to play in keeping our community safe. Thats why we remove content that encourages real world harm. This includes content that is involving violence or incitem t incitement, promoting or publicizing crime or encouraging suicide or selfinjury. We dont allow any individuals or organizations who 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 advocating for terror activity, organized hate or other violence. We also dont allow content posted by anyone that praises or supports these individuals or their actions. When we find content that violates our standards, we remove it promptly. We also disable accounts when we see severe or repeated violations. We work with Law Enforcement directly when we believe there is a risk of physical harm or a direct threat to public safety. While there is always room for improvement, we already remoove per year. Our efforts to improve the enforcement of these policies are focused on three areas. First, building new technical solutions. Second, investing in people who can help us implement these policies. At facebook we now have more than 30,000 people across the Company Working on safety and security efforts. This includes more than 350 people whose primary focus is counter hate and Counter Terrorism. And third, Building Partnerships with other companies, Civil Society, researchers and governments so that together we can come up with shared solutio solutions. Were proud of the work weve done to make facebook a less hos sti tile place. We know bad actors will continue to attempt to skirt detection. And were dedicated to continuing to advance our work and share 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 appreciate the opportunity to be here today and i look forward to your questions. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Pickles . Twitter has publicly committed to improving the collective health, openness and civility of public conversation on our platform. Our policies are designed to keep people safe on twitter and they continuously evolve to reflect the realities of the world we operate in. We are working faster and investing to remove content that distracts from a healthy conversation before its reported, including terrorist content. Tackling terrorism requires a whole of society response, including from social Media Companies. Let me be clear. Twitter is incentivized to keep violent content off our platform. Communities have been impacted by instances of Mass Violence with tragic frequency in recent years. These events demand a robust Public Policy response from every quarter. We recognize that content removal alone cannot solve these issues. Firstly twitter takes a zero tolerance approach to terrorism on our service. Since 2015 we have suspended more than 1. 5 million accounts for violations of our rules related to terrorism. In the majority of cases we take action at the account creation stage before an account has even tweeted. The remaining 10 is identified through a combination of user reports and partnerships. Secondly we prohibit the use of twitter by violent extremist grou groups. Since the introduction of this policy in 2017, weve taken action on more than 186 groups globally and suspended more than 2,000 unique accounts. Thirdly, twitter does not allow hateful conduct on our service. An individual on twitter is not allowed to promote violence. Where any of these rules are broken, we will take action to remove the content and will permanently remove them from twitter. Fourthly our rules prohibit the selling, buying of transactions in weapons. Well take appropriate action on any account found to be engaged in this activity including permanent suspension where appropriate. Additional le ly collaboration our industry peers and Civil Society is critically poorimpor to addressing the threats from terrorism globally. This facilitate information sharing, technical coordination, research collaboration. Twitter and Technology Companies have a role the plo play in addressing Mass Violence. This cannot be the only Public Policy response and removing content alone will not stop those determined to cause harm. When we remove content from our platform, it moves those views into the darker corners of the internet. This content continues to m migrate to less governed platforms and services. Addressing Mass Violence requires a whole of society response. We continue to work with industry peers, government institutions, Law Enforcement, academic and Civil Society to find the right solutions. Thank you for your time today. Thank you very much. Mr. Slater. Chairman wicker, Ranking Member cantswell. My name is derrick slater. I lewould like to take a momentn behalf of everyone at grade schooling to express our horror upon learning of the tragic attacks. While Google Services were not involved in these recent incidents we have engaged on steps we are taking to ensure that our platforms are not used to incite hate speech. I will focus on three key areas where we are making progress to help people. First how we work with governments and Law Enforcement, second, our efforts to prohibit products that cause damage or injury. First, google engages in ongoing dialogue with Law Enforcement and Law Enforcement agencies to understand the threat landscape. For example, when we have a good faith belief that there is a threat to life or serious bodily harm made on our platform in the United States, the dpgoogle cyb crime group will report it. In turn that Intelligence Center quickly gets the report into the hands of Police Officers to respond. We are also deeply committed to working with kbogovernment, ande Tech Industry. Second, we take the threat posed by gun violence in the United States very seriously and our advertising policies have long prohibited the selling of weapons, ammunition and similar products that cause damage, harm or injury. We also prohibit the promotion of instructions from making guns, explosives or other harmful products. We em moi a numbploy a number o to make sure that our efforts are enforced. Third, on youtube we have rigorous policies and programs to defend against the use of our platform to spread hate or incite violence. We have invested heavily in machines and people to quickly identify and remove content that violates our policies. This includes Machine Learning technology, hiring over 10,000 peop