Address the problem. Without objection, the chair may declare a recess at any time. I want to go through our usual housekeeping matters. Todays session will be conducted on an unclassified basis. All participates should refrain from discussing any classified or other information protected from public disclosure. Second, the committee is conducting this virtual hearing in compliance with House Resolution 965. It is being broadcast live on the committees website. Because of the threat posed by the covid19 pandemic remains ongoing, were proceeding with this hearing remotely in order to ensure the safety of our witnesses, members, staff and public. While we wish we could return to all standard inperson events, health and safety protocols dictate we find alternate means of carrying out our oversight obligations. Okay. So let me remind members of a few remote hearing procedures. First, consistent with the regulations, the committee will keep microphones muted to limit background noise. Members are responsible for unmuting themselves seeking recognition or recognizing for five minutes. Because there are sometimes delays for muting or unmuting i would ask witnesses to ensure the last speaker has finished. Second, members and witnesses must have their cameras on at all times. If you need to step away from the proceeding please leave your camera on. If you encounter technical difficulties, contact Technical Support and our staff will work to get you up and running as quickly as possible. Finally, consistent with best practice i will recognize members for their five minutes in order of seniority with others with the commencement of the hearing and thank you as we from se proceed under these extraordinary circumstances. It takes place behind closed doors and we have the responsibility to take public testimony from those outside the u. S. Government and inform the government about growing trends that could endanger the nation in both the short term and the long term. Building on prior unclassified hearings today, we examine the risks posed by misinformation, conspiracy theories and infodemics online. These are now transnational and they can originate overseas or here at home and once theyve taken root and begun to circulate, our foreign adversaries can amplify baseless, misleading or inflammatory claims. Over the past several years, a disturbing picture has e merged in the form of statebacked media and online trolls is real and substantial and we cannot ignore the threat from within this grows more pernicious every day. The online ecosystem and unwitting audiences that the kremlin so ably exploited remain vulnerable to unscrupulous homegrown actors who cede and spread falsehoods of their own. If left unchecked there could be irreversible damage, not only to our nations discourse, but to how we as a society discern fact from fiction. Misinformation and the conspiracy theories predate, and propel content and misleading claims and outright lies far and wide and at the speed of reality. Leading social media platforms have made changes since 2016, but theyve want changed the platforms that expose users or even recommend to them often extreme, sensational or emotionally charged content. Theal go rhythmic engines that keep us scrolling and clicking are optimized with attention and theyre sometimes even for their own designers to understand that theyre effective for their mission keeping people on their platform as long as possible. Streaming untrue content often engenders the strongest engagement creating Fertile Ground for conspiracy theories and misinformation to cross the internets fringes and to the mainstream. This has all come to a perilous head in a set of evolving conspiracy theories. Its presepps echo antisemitic tropes and amplify White Supremacy all while positiving the allpowerful kabal of evil elites who traffic children and must be defeated, imprisoned or killed. Associated lockdowns and preventive measures to protect the health of our communities, the movement has witnessed a huge spike in visiblity and followers. The notorious pandemic video which was rife with false, conspiratorial themes and misinformation about covid19 had 8 million views prior to the removal from social media. It is uncompany bent hincumbent believe that a bloody reckoning awaits their perceived foes. A recent west point report warned about potential escalating terroriststyle attacks driven by qanonstyle beliefs and some of its affiliates have already engaged in realworld, violent acts. An armed man drove hundred of miles whether to investigate if a pizza parlor in d. C. Was Holding Children captive in a basement and there was no basement, no captives and no injuries despite someone firing a weapon. A woman was arrested after attacking two people in waco, texas, believing them to be child traffickers. A man believing that he was part of the that the mob boss was part of a deep state which the movement demonizes for its alleged plotting against the president. The same wanted to carry out a citizens arrest and the president has targeted including myself. In response to the openly violent and hateful rhetoric of qanon, social Media Companies began to response. Youtube announced a platform wide prohibition regarding the Conspiracy Theory is since july, facebook and twitter have had groups of accounts and such forceful responses are made more difficult when conspiracy theories are partially egged on by the president of the United States. Just this week, he twice retweeted a Conspiracy Theory alleging that Osama Bin Laden was still alive and president obama had navy s. E. A. L. S killed as a part of a coverup. Such a polluted online landscape remains ripe for adversaries. Conspiracy theories and misinformation about voting and the pandemic are part of a Disinformation Campaign originating overseas this election cycle. Americans are voting right now in the midst of a pandemic. It could take days or weeks to count all of the votes after election day and that period will be especially susceptible to conspiracy theories and misinformation especially if amplified by maligned foreign actors which could potentially cast doubt on the legitimacy of the outcome and doubt the freedom and democracy. It evokes the oversight mandate of congress in this committee. Social Media Companies bear some responsibility, but the private sector a lobe cannlone reverse these trends. We must be cleareyed, but Conspiracy Theorys can have followers commit acts of domestic terror. Each one of us has responsibilities to restore trust and genuine expertise in authoritative information and do not share misleading claims knowing how quickly they can catch fire. To build bridges between the widening chasms that exist on both online and offline so we can try to occupy the same shared reality once again even if we have different views of how to share that reality into a Brighter Future and to step outside of our own personal information silos that have vulcanized us as a society where we no longer seem to agree on the same set of facts. I want to thank the witnesses for joining us today and i look forward to an enlightening and important discussion of these issues. So lets move to opening statements. We will go alphabetically by last name. First, dr. Joan donovan, Research Director at the Harvard Kennedy school Shorenstein Center on media, politics and public policy. Second, miss nina jafrng wiks which is the disinformation fellow at the center. Miss cindy otis, Vice President at the althea group ask finally miss melody smith, head of analysis at graphica. Welcome again to all of you. Our thanks to your participation and your work and dr. Donovan, let me begin by recognizing you for five minutes. Thank you for having me and its a pleasure to be here in my house testifying for you all and thank you, chairman schiff for organizing this hearing. I think it is a very important topic. This summer junk news operations and Disinformation Campaigns and propaganda spun up by foreign and domestic operatives targeted people seeking information. Information about the election, the pandemic and the protests. As the Research Director at Harvard Kennedy school Shorenstein Center, i lead a team that is analyzing media manipulation and Disinformation Campaigns for their effects on society. Today ill speak about the sector shouldering the true cost of misinformation at scale. In january 2020 facebook published a very important statement and i quote, in the absence of regulation, facebook and other companies are left to design their own approximately sees. We have based ours on the prince pale that people should want to hear those from the people who wish to leave them warts and all. End quote. Policies like this push Corporate Responsibility on to the public and other professional sectors. Facebook goes on and the paid advertising, though, will have to abide by quote, unquote, Community Standards, but what happens when political and media elites coordinate to blanket social media with falsehoods. In this case, it is not necessary to spread lies to millions because all they need is the platform to work exactly as designed. Who then is responsible for explaining why a consumer was exposed to certain falsehoods. Who is responsible for making public corrections when falsehoods are identified . Yesterday we saw facebook and twitter refuse to let their services be used to distribute leaked materials. Over the past year, Platform Companies have taken similar actions on white supremacist manifestos and covid19 misinformation, too. It will take some time for moderation to become part of the design of social media, just as it took a decade for media manipulators and disinformers to scale their attacks. Recently, facebooks former director of monetization tim kendall gave testimony before congress that suggested a new policy framework for assessing social medias negative effects on society. Kendall compared social media to the Tobacco Industry because both focused on increasing the capacity for addiction by slowly modifying their products over time. The legislation about smoking had to move beyond the rationale that it was an individual choice and accept that Secondhand Smoke had Public Health effects. For some time, family, Insurance Companies employers and businesses paid the price for smokings ill effects on society. Our Research Team has identified four impact zones that are charged with cleaning up after the damage caused by unmoderated, unmanaged misinformation language conspiracy. Journal firsts have had to adapt to the next four years on social moodia and have developed a muss information bit and it is a drain on newsrooms and which could be better than sustaining area of impact is the Public Health and ped cal professional are officials like the w. H. O. Doctors should not have to about come online influencers to correct misinformation pushing medical cures and bogus medical advice. When conspiracies link up with medical misinformation it could be especially difficult to advocate for the truth. Third, civil society. We are now in a position where racialized disinformation is a seasoned tactic of domestic and foreign influence operations. Racialized disinformation refers to campaigns that either impersonate the communities of color or use racism to boost polarization on wedge issues. Randy collins dexter recently testified on these issues in june where she highlighted that tech company his hidden behind calls to protect free speech at all costs without doing enough to protect those with hate speech,en citement and harassment on social media. Lastly, Law Enforcement personnel and First Responders are unfairly shouldering the burden of rumors and lies that are being spread. Where flash points for violence are permeated by calls to action on social media including the tragic events in kenosha. Law enforcement are at a serious disadvantage amid doing their jobs, but spreading like wildfire online. Ill close by just saying rather than hold on to technonoftalia when social media was not this harmful. Sometimes it is worth asking what would it take to uninvent social media to chart what we want, a web that promosts safety and democracy, thank you. Thank you. We will now go to miss jankovics. Chairman schiff and distinguished members of the committee, it is an honor to be before you today on the exploitation by malign actors. This is a threat that is dismantling democracy. As americans right now exercise their democratic rights it is critical the nation is informed about how disinformation might blunt their voice and their vote. I came to study disinformation through the lens of russian influence operations. My work has led me to an unsettling conclusion. Not only have the u. S. Government and social media platforms all, but abdicated their responsibility to stop the threat of foreign disinformation, domestic disinformation now runs rampant. It is amplified in the media, online, in the halls of congress and from the white house itself. It does our adversaries work for them, leaving us vulnerable to continued manipulation and leaving our democracy imperiled. Today i will outline three trends that exemplify the modern information space. The first is the increased use of information laundering to deliver foreign disinformation. Today, malign actors like russia are increasingly amplifying their narratives by using authentic local voices or organizations to conceal the origin or lend legitimacy to a maligned narrative. Perhaps the most well known information laundering and one that this committee knows intimately is the nexus of conspiracy theories related to ukraine and Vice President joe biden. These unsubstantiated and misleading narratives promoted by selfinterested and corrupt individuals seeking power and personal gain were endorsed by the president s advisers, treated as fact by portions of the media and legitimized within the halls of congress. Individuals that served as a source for these theorys have since been discredited, sanctioned and revealed to have active connections to Russian Intelligence Services and yet this week we are still talking about these theories. The use of local actors and information laundering makes cracking down on disinformation through content moderation alone much more difficult given First Amendment protections. This is why disinformers take advantage of social platforms and incentive structures to seed maligned narratives and contribute to todays second trend. Conspiracy convergence. When adherence of one theory are exposed to and encouraged to spread others. This year as americans searched for answers about the coronavirus pandemic, closed spaces online have become a grou ceding information. Conspiracies run rampant around platforms and crosspollinate between communities and indoctrinate new members and in in particular is a problem on facebook groups. Facebook has made changes to soften this phenomenon, but they leave aside the most pernicious source of disinformation. Highfrom file accounts to which facebooks Community Standards seemingly do not apply. President trump pushes content including falsehoods about the safety and security of mailin balloting which is expressly against facebooks turns of service to nearly 30 million users on his page alone. Unlike what facebooks policies might imply, Disinformation Campaigns do not begin and end on election day. They are built over time, trafficking in emotion and increased trust to undermine the democratic process as a whole. When our information ecosystem gets flooded with highly salient junk which keeps us scrolling and commenting and angrily reacting civil discourse suffers. Our ability to compromise suffers. Our willingness to see humanity in one another suffers. Our democracy suffers, but facebook profits. In 2019 facebook generated 98 of its revenue, a whopping 69. 7 billion from ads and finally, the third trend relevant to our brilliant allfemale panel today is that disinformation often targets women and minorities. We know that the ira disproportionately targeted black voters to suppress the plaque vote. We know the kremlin has targeted women with and today an ongoing Wilson Center project i lead has observed an increase in individual spreading demeaning and false narratives against senator kamala hair ashgs herri election day. These are meant to affect women and minorities participation in the democratic process. Every american should categorically reject them. Overall, these trends mean that foreign adversaries no longer need creativity or brute force to be successful. They need only sit back and watch, regurgitating and amplifying what issa will ready endemic to our society. 19 days before voting closes in the 2020 election, i believe we are more vulnerable to online disinformation from both foreign and domestic sources than ever before. Any of the recommendations weve discussed today need to have an underlying recognition that any government that claims to fight disinformation originating from outside its borders cannot do so while it embraces the same methods within them. Disinformation is a threat to democracy no matter what Political Party it benefits. It is long past due that we begin to address this challenge to the very foundation of our country and its values. My written testimony details the urgent changes to heal our information ecosystem. I look forward to discussing them with you later today. Thanks so much. Miss oat sntis . I am here today to l