And the spread of media platforms. This is a session posted at George Washington university and the british sport committee. The first time a House Committee podcasted a session outside of the u. K. This is two hours. This is part of our meeting inquiry into this information and fake news. We heard in the previous session from the Tech Companies and would be joined by people who are leading the investigation and research into the issues we were discussing in the first session, and committee of questions directly but also through as session goes on certainly welcome an immediate observation that you have on the evidence we received from Tech Companies. I wanted to start this first with david carol. In the session with facebook, there was a reference made to an investigation that the u. K. Information Commission Office is conducting and this is your case. So i thought perhaps you could tell us something about it and my understanding is you made an application to cambridge that they hold about you that was linked to the election, election period in america in 2016, and that because at some point on that date must have been within u. K. Jurisdiction of the u. K. Information Commissioner Office is looking into that and this is really interesting area. Im sure that well be interested to followup with Information Commission back in the u. K. About this. But we welcome as you can give bus about this case and what youre trying to achieve. Sure, we will thank you for the opportunity to address the committee and to share information about this transatlantic investigation. So, back in february of 2017, i was advised that i could make a subject access request under the u. K. Data protection act to the Company Cambridge analytica because of the reports theyve been hired by various campaigns during the 2016 campaign season. And that right affords someone to if you have data thats being processed that it can be provided to you. And then received the data from the Parent Company group, at the end of march. It was accompanied by a letter indicating that they were compliant and trying to be compliant to the u. K. Data protection act. And some description of how it was collected but nothing specific. \ excel spread sheet that contained voters information that was accurate. A tab of election returns relevant to my voting district and then a panel called models which was an ideological model that tried to predict and analyze my political beliefs that compromised Ten Political topics that were ranked in order. It also tried to compute my partisanship separate and tried to compute to participant and i decided to post this on twitter on the day that i received it. While redacting my personal information, and then i soon was able to get a solicitor to represent me in the u. K. To challenge the compliance to u. K. Data protection act. We believe that the disclosure was not complete. And may not be compliant. And also the same time i was advised to file with the commissioner Information Office which i did on july 4th, 2017 , which is a little pathetic prophetic. That was ability to contribute to their Ongoing Investigation as to voters and Analytics Companies with reference to the elections in the 2016 season. So theres at least one u. S. Citizen who has filed with the ico and we have received updates recently that of the investigations far more complex than they anticipated. They had hoped to provide a report at last fall. But as they dug deeper into it, it became more and more complex. So theyre still working on it few we have received followup that the investigation is coming along. And it certainly has been useful to provide this information also to the Senate Select committee on intelligence and others here in the u. S. To ours trying to figure out the Companies Role in 2016 election. But the key idea is that u. S. Voters data appears to have been processed in the United Kingdom and this was probably unprecedented. Why do you think that happened . Simply because of the construct of the Company Cambridge and its groups. That data has been purchased outside of america are there any rules around the location of where they store and process relating to politics in america . Interestingly it doesnt seem like u. S. Law was potentially violated here. It exposes how there arent sufficient u. S. Protections for u. S. Voters and and how u. S. Citizens dont have the same right that u. K. Citizens and citizens used to enjoy being able to get data controllers to disclose data held on them when they become a data subject. So this experience has illuminated a lot of things but one of the things that is most stark for us is that the u. S. Has inadequate protections in this regard. And this is data that theyre holding on you. Do you know where that data is acquired from and able to defend that when you get access to it . There was no indication of where they obtained data and thats part of the insufficient disclosure. We should be able to know where did they get the data, how do they process it . What do they use it for . Who they share it with, and also, do we have a right to delete data and stop processing it in the future . You heard what some facebook said in earlier sessions about the right to request data deletion and whether or not you see your facebook act and that account and that Facebook Developers are required to give up any data they acquire from facebook users who request that. Do you think that in reality is a straightforward as that . Well i have myself downloaded my facebook data as they described. And it certainly by no means is a complete disclosure of all of the data that facebook has on a user so but i also know that the company has pledged to try to be compliant with general Data Protection regulations and will be launching new controls and new disclosures for users to try to be compliant with that new privacy regime. So i look forward to seeing if users are able to actually get a complete profile when they download it their data in the near future. Thank you. If i could ask as well bring in colleagues you were heard what was said in the Previous Panel i think particularly what was said regards to their policies on on not the stake information but lie. Do you think its irresponsible for them to have attitude surely a platform from Twitter Police had had no obligation to take down this this information disinformation . I mean, this really does get to the root of the question and this is, obviously, what you were saying and it was interesting back there american colleague behind me, First Amendment. The truth is the scale of this and the issue where many people believe there is not an obvious truth, it makes it much harder. I think this issue where we know something is 100 inaccurate, how do we talk about that . Because i think at the moment this gets to the question of definitions when we are talking in this huge spectrum, we cant start thinking about regulation. We cant stop talking about intervention if were not clear about what we mean so i think this idea of whats misleading and question of partisan a much of the content of hour our press every day thats published could be argued is misleading in some way. So while it is hard to hear twitter say what theyre saying because from a particular example we want to it say that seems wrong. I think we would be in very dangerous territory to start saying this is clearly something that needs to be taken down and it isnt and who does that . I wish we didnt live in that world but we do. We go to the pub and say different thaings gossip that makes human it is humans and makes us feel uncomfortable but i cant imagine to start to say that we live in a world where we can make those decisions i dont want them to make those decisions. There are there are lies, you know, an debate looking at information used very clear, and your analysis from Academic Work demonstrates different scale of fake news but theres most extreme end things that we know are a lie but dangerous not any for that information to spread uncorrected. But for it to be spread anonymously as well. There has been legal readdress because of tweets that shared or posted on twitter because we know who they are. But if who it is more concerning when people use protection of anonymity to spread lies about other people. No, and it makes us feel very uncomfortable in that way. Because twitter allows without a real name policy it makes us feel very uncomfortable but people who have good reasons but not using their real name but we have to think through twitter talks about as selfcleaning oven. They argue that many journalist would correct the lies very quickly. How can when journalist and Civil Society and Fact Checkers work on that, but the flag it and say this is false, but a way to connect alternative pieces of information to that. Seven we have a heated debate about what is true or false thats around original piece of , for the moment theyre completely separated so i think thats something that we need to look out from a technical point of view. Quick question still i have to ask one question that you made. You said, you know i dread to think where we may start on this. Where we start is where we are and establish norms for people who have the power to affect a the outcome of elections by what they choose to print and what they choose to withhold, so what i am saying is, is there a sustainable argument which explains why people who run an Online Platform consider themselves to be legally to those who run an offline platform i. E. Newspaper. This is we havent heard it yet. I agree with you frustration is they say were with a publisher no youre a platform. The truth is they are in the middle, theyre a hybrid form of communication and what i would like to say and i did hear that this morning that we would like to be part of a conversation around what new form of regulation might look like. Because i dont think we can take the board model we cant regulate speech and twitter the way we do the bbc thats not workable but i dont think we should say theres nothing in that space and my frustration is all of these conversations were not actually getting to what does this new hybrid form of regulation look like and thats where we need to get and we need to quite quickly i would argue. I think some of the evidence this week from Tech Professionals and academics is that the moment for some regulation is passed. The social media platform will be taking it seriously. Certainly not as seriously as they take that commercial objectives therefore only option left is some kind of state intervention maybe like touch and gotten on to the fact that this net is now closing arranged ound them . With our would like to say is if there are any Solutions Rather than sitting on the trenches i sit on the european fake news the conversations in europe are different to the conversations the u. S. , but i dont think we should have state intervention that potential he is kneejerk and a reaction to the realities and challenges that come from this platform and scale, i want them to be a part of the conversation so it can have an honest look at it. Within think 2018 would be where we are today, and we should be the ones making the decisions. I agree, but we didnt see much evidence. But the ideal opportunity for at least an indication that, that thought process is going on was surely going to be this morning. They wanted to be part of the conversation but didnt see them coming up. My question is relating to the line on electoral issues and regulation. I was very interested in with facebook in particular was saying about the different rules that they are beginning to introduce. I think they conceded that the past elections have shown that the capacity for the lot to be broken because of failing to disclose information. Was your reaction to those proposals that they made and how does it fit with u. S. Electoral law . If we talk specifically about elections, are we talking about what candidates and campaign they push out . If we look at the russian around interference it was about post nothing to do with obvious political issues they were cultural and social issues my concern is if we have an honest policy ad that says all of the candidates and campaigns is have to be transparent but it doesnt look over here or o stuff that is causing problems. My fear is that we create bound which do nothing because real problem. Those boundaries and same way is were talking here if electionings and were talking about political con content we look at pin interest and visual, information, this isnt just about politics but thats something too we need to be careful about. People can live about where their location is, and we cant independently verify their location that was surprising to , me. That is obvious with twitter, because they dont have an address. That can have an impact, and in the u. K. As well as national of localthe importance spenders is important. Even most basic level i could post now to facebook to say youre in washington, d. C. And i could override that say were in antarctica for every platform to override and say wherever i am and make it up. That is basic location issues on platform to think much more carefully about and privacy implication the idea to override my location is problematic. What about the question of access to the platform that they have. They seem to think that fact that they were looking at it, they would put the information up. How are they complying by their own rules . I would hope they recognize they need independent auditing of not just what is on the platform now but the steps they are taking so the new fact check picks up what is tagged. There are ways they can make that data anonymous, so they should have waste where we can sample data and content, and the same with public broadcasting in europe, to audit the output, there should be a way we should do exactly the same way on social platforms, and that seems to be the low hanging fruit. Moment, all the conversations we are having is because of excellent journalist some of the examples you give today are about journalist onto to the platform and searching, and have limited access to the data. Imagine what we could find if we had relaxes, and itll want to give that up, but we are past the point that theyre going to give us that information. We is to that data, i would argue. Back told like to go the points this morning about algorithm secrecy and inherent biases. And looking at that against transparency and trust and understanding of what is happening when they go on platforms. Is the you think solution, where is the balance that could be found between those two competing interests . Is there an obvious are simple solution . At most, users dont understand the , so even if we are talking about use and Media Literacy curricular, that has to include teaching how to evaluate algorithms and how to understand what you see on amazon or netflix or facebook has been decided by an algorithm and how does the outdoor them get about and how it is great by a certain person and how their biases my chip that. As to be part of the teaching we get to people. And also in terms of the platforms themselves, there is an excellent work on the town center in columbia, in 2014, talked about transparency and with the framework i look like for transparency. Why was a create and what are the metrics for that algorithm, and how we can have more insight into the algorithm and think about frameworks of actually looking at algorithms irrespective of the platform. Be transparent across these particular aspect and elements, and that is the key. We talked as evidence as black boxes, and how do we get into those black boxes in a consistent way. The Business Model is based on secrecy, isnt it . They would talk about the secret source, and it would talk about that, but when it impacts people with the information they receive, they come up with a framework which i believe isnt about chant a competitive edge, it is saint can we talk about the algorithm and why was designed in the first place and what the metrics are and if this is the highest quality of information as quickly as possible. They are commercial companies and we have to understand that, but the influence of how they have become the dominant source of information globally need that they have to be held to understand that responsibility. All three company said that yes we see this as our responsibility. Thank you. Think the likes of google, facebook, twitter, fear policymakers. Want to create a bipartisan argument around the conflict a fake news and the impact of president ial elections. What do you think consumers and would be most effective course of action with the acute problem of this information more under control. What do they fear from you and from our regulations . [laughter] they fear they will not be what they profess to be which is technology or Media Company and fear theyre held to account for the content they say they are merely facilitating and not producing. And i think that most poignant observation is they have this very strange powerful hybrid identity as Media Companies that are also the dont create any of the contents, but yet should be and must be to their own inadequate levels, accept some responsibility for promulgating. The fear to require their data and fear there will be government regulators overseeing their businesses and it they will not be able to be independent mega corporations with the mega revenue that they now generate. What do you think is most effective . Conversations like this are effective and if you feel the they are feeling the heat in a very powerful way. They are also feeling the heat in a very powerful way from journalistic community, from the Publishing Community and i thought it was interesting hearing them tag about how talk about how theyre working with publishers to help them generate revenue. Well, talk to the publishers. But what is very powerful and very prevalent now is to make this conversation as stark as it is, to put on the line what is on the line, which is whether we are going to have an informed or deformed public discourse. And public process. And whether these companies are contributing or subtracting from the Democratic Health that we value. Can paintink that we and in stark enough terms, we have to bring them to the table and invited them to the table in ways theyre going to lead a conversation and not just be dragged through it. Do you think they understand that they have skin in the game . Some. They are going to extort are links to hire new people, to take a harder look at they are going to have to take great links to hire new people, take a hard look at what they are doing. Ive heard from people in the Journalism Community who say wow , its a government with different culture, culture of engineers and technocrats. The idea of larger editorial social concerns is a sort of Foreign Language in many cases. And that is more than a minor point. I will open the story panelist. I will open this to any panelist. In much of the First Amendment, there is no First Amendment in other countries, these are American Companies which are acting on a global scale and have their impact. My british and european perspective, what we see is Large Companies which produce large profits for large numbers of people impacting the very fabric of our society and potentially in a deeply negative way, particularly in the relationship when you have rush on your borders of europe in that regard. Do think, therefore, that effectively that dichotomy is it therefore the situation that effectively if there is to be any form of regulation or stepping up of requirements for consumer data in europe, the companies such as facebook, google, twitter will have to effectively up their game globally because they still want to trade in those countries . It away from takes american base in that perspective, it means they would have to do something. I would say that is absolutely one of the Biggest Challenges is the degree to which anything thats going to happen the Digital Space is global at this point. And we were in the world and have very different ways of viewing and applying lower not applying law to it. As a legal session, one of these conferences that was the apron center at yale come all the folks who were from a legal perspective said that is going to be the greatest challenge is us figuring out how were going to have any kind of global approach to this that can cut across the boundaries, but it has to exist. Of the contents, but the audiences, that is constantly and crosssplatform country and across the seas. Is the case here in the u. S. , one of the greatest tensions is between a very, very longstanding valid support for freedom of expression and freedom of the press and if we compare that to 30 Different Countries that we survey, the u. S. And many of these areas remote expression are outside with a global media would be. Now, americans are feeling that whaton of that of against is misinformation, rehab two thirds of u. S. Adults agree across political lines that made up news is causing a great deal of confusion about the basic facts around current events. That is where the tension exists now. Whether its regulation or any solutions, we now have nine in 10 u. S. Adults who are some of their news online, which means it is those who are more or less connected to the news of a regular basis and aware of whats actually going on in current events, more or less digitally savvy in terms of how to actually make their way and parse through the kind of information they see. And who are more or less politically driven and politically motivated. Anything else . I want to comment very briefly on something you said where we talked about it was quite a long question. Of the damage this causes in society and i do think we need to be very careful here. Is bad obviously, what information, subversive information, in one place is Vital Information another. These remarkable platforms provide Vital Information, not just in the sense of our politics, but in health and medicine and all kinds of things. I think we just need to factor that in and define these terms which are so vitally important. Is a really good point. Do you think, therefore, that we need to talk about less about the User Experience in the Consumer Experience which whatever platform talked about and talk more about Consumer Rights and approach from that direction . A freedom right, something that is about freedom in that respect. Is that the way in which effectively we can sort of square the circle, so to speak . I think any perspective is going to raise a lot of challenges around what gets included in certain types of information or not as clear was talking about how the spectrum of different definitions. If we put what would be completely made up news and perspectives, the study we did recently, there was a case study of stories that were linked to on twitter about immigration and 42 came from what we would be calling around this table identified News Organizations, most of which were legacy, theyre not just a digital native and very few that identified with any a la that was named on a fake news list, and the same if we look at the of established News Organization of the Trump Presidency during the first 100 days, we saw very different assessments of the actions of the presidency, based on the audience makeup of that particular outlet. Theres a lot of different kinds of misinformation and whether a user or consumers or consumer is going to think about my right to one type of content versus my right to another type of content can get very complicated as well. Anything to add . In regards to the Consumer Rights aspect, it is significant and we saw it play out with the Russian Investigation here in the u. S. And facebook and twitters response to the socalled Information Operation and it actually came from in some ways citizens applying pressure to the companies to disclose if they were exposed to foreign propaganda. And so by the pressure of citizens to the lawmakers, who then pressure the companies in the hearing to ask would you tell american citizens if they engaged with foreign propaganda that was impersonating their own citizens, and then therefore, facebook and twitter have made some steps to tell people if they have been exposed to this. It begins to move us towards the direction of our we debating about censorship or are we debating about privacy rights and disclosure rights, the right to know who is behind things in the same applies to the issues of who is paying for advertising so the transparency of advertising and are we pushing the platforms to a dock the same kind of know your customer principles that are required in the finance industry to prevent things like Money Laundering . If we have similar highstakes disclosure issues at both the business side and the consumer side, it just calls for further demand for transparency. Another question is what do advertisers think of this debate right now . What to the advertisers think and what measures can they bring to bear on these companies to ensure that when they are paying the money over, they are getting what they actually paid for . The advertisers have a significant economic incentive ofbe sold accurate metrics the audiences they are buying. Theres a tremendous business pressure on the company is to have accurate audience measurements, which is another force to weed out bad actors in the system who are defrauding the advertising ecology by impersonating fake clicks or tolifying figuring presence achieve the whole industry out of its own revenue. Significanta incentive there, but the question is, why is that sufficient to eradicates this huge amount of think counts already . Facebook says a rose about one million accounts a day and twitter is constantly removing accounts. The antifraud incentives arent even significance to liberate this problem. So obviously, we need to do more. Problem, soate this obviously, we do more. Ofsay one of the use facebook or twitter account and i wanted to use that account to retweet i mentioned this in the first hearing on the nearly primarily breaking copyright. That would come down in minutes. , delete, on my account etc. It is i could decide to put around his lie about person out there in public and get another account going to retweet it and try to get out there as much as possible and that could just say there . Stay how is that possibly fair . The copyright issue is huge and it was a great question, and their answer was we have the technology to do that. We should create a database of known inaccurate content, we need that your footprints we can compare against it and we should be actually starting to agree the databases, but there is a financial reason why i why they move much quicker on that. But individual is primarily not going to sue. Going back to advertising, a financial asset of the sweater is one of the main motivations people making this kind of content. If you talk to brands if they were here on this one the Biggest Challenges, the fear of having their only brand advertised against one of these terrible sites. January, february, 2018 and the fact that we havent seen significant shifts on this of the most brands and say we dont trust we are advertising on the visit us for quality is kind of astonishing and you would believe that that financial incentive would have put more pressure. That i havent seen it. I try to understand whats actually going to move the needle and the finance cant, what will . Are they not moving any losing any money . Is a hugely complex problem in the amount of stuff that uploaded every day, i worked with a researcher who showed me a list of new urls being treated this week its all over facebook. The fact that we cant stop the stuff that it resembled a new debates get started, at the scale that is i watering. It is frustrating to say why are we still here, but its mostly the scale of this challenge and not having the conversational ability to do it to scale. Remembering to a certain extent where all this stuff is, its all new stuff. Guys 25 years ago who were sitting in sheds coming up with these incredible platforms that we now accept as every day. There was a big mogensen cry of freedom when they arrived. And suddenly we have things like the arab spring happening and he gave every individual a voice, and this can be a bad thing. I dont know about you guys, i sat here and watched people who were blinking in the sunlight, they werent expecting to be where they were today, and is not where they came from. My impression is that the very thought of editorial control, the five basic tenants of journalism. Truth and accuracy come independence, fairness and impartiality, humanity, accountability, those things werent in their minds, they are media, they are not journalists. We are expecting to imposed a journalistic sort of regime upon them. First of all, lead teacher impressions of do you concur with me on that i would like to get your impressions on if you agree with me on that, and how to we regulate that . They are not expecting it as far as i saw. It is certainly the case that none of the social media platforms were begun with news in mind. None of them started this news platforms from the role social platforms, even twitter was about conversing with friends and news was something that found its way to each of these forms as people spend more and more time there and companies wanted to keep them there and part of what people want it was the news to find a what was going on. Not the wayely things were initially structured around being a news provider, per se. Because iteresting was a bureau at cnn when aol merged with time warner and we have these very visionary conversations about imaginative people to just get the weather anytime they wanted . And then we started seeing some instant messaging and the speed of this. Present was with cnn, when cnn was created, when a well was the first platform, people have stars in their eyes, but they had no idea of the Critical Mass and the power of the sheer volume of correspondence and the impact that has. And mary to that was nowhere in this process was a journalistic set of principles imposed on the creation of that ecosystem. Journalismay done the right way has gatekeepers, and those gatekeepers open and shut the gates before information goes out, not after the information is out. Done right. And theres a system of accountability and there is a finite number of people, and there is an org charge. There is no order to the social media process. Ive always pushed back against those who talk about crowdsourcing and citizen journalism. Citizen reporters, maybe 3. 8 camera something and say heres what happened is one thing, but the journalistic, true journalistic training and mindset is not something that just grows randomly. And that is part of the gigantic disconnect that we now have. We do not have a system of checks, balances, accountability gatekeepers and that is the Culture Shock i was talking about a moment ago. The question that springs to mind is what is the way forward . In discussions this week we have been having that these companies should be working with the academic world more and that would give them control and would give them guidelines. How would you guide them . Actively we agree with what youre saying. Started the somethings really believed that technology was going to make the world a better place. At the spent more time pub with journalists, they wouldve realized that the world is stark and messy and being a journalist requires you to make tough decisions everyday about what the impact of bubbles and decisions are. Modeling, ithreat think a lot of these companies havent actually sat in a dark room together and said what is the worstcase scenario here. I dont think they are sharing data enough, i dont think they are thinking through what this might look like. I do think theres an element of yes, bring in academics, but we didnt think about how the same topic travel across the same platforms, they are sitting in their silos. We had to say this should be sharing data with one another about how the same content is traveling across erie traveling across. We need to visit about what is the worst that could happen actually think through what might happen and how do we respond in real time, and not how to years later we can have a bunch of inquiries. We should be ahead of the curve and thinking what is happening close messaging apps, virtual reality, augmented reality. If we regularly today what happened two years ago, we are in trouble. What you saw today, do you think that they are going to become entrenched, or are they up for change from the evidence you saw a earlier today . Change,of era for nothing cannot it do this because they are terrified of opening up, they have lawyers internally are terrified about open up and i think they were together around terrorism and extremist content i think there are frameworks that they can Work Together on, but theyre not quite sure how to take the steps from where they are to where they need to be. Its a pretty huge step in my fears relation is going to get in front of that i wish we could do the other way around. We arrived here. Thank you. I just wanted to explore very briefly what steps from a Consumer Protection point of view might reasonably be taken to get the social Media Companies to open up as to how they are able to target people. I just welcome thoughts from the panel, sort of opening up the. Ox not sure i have exactly the right answer on that based on our research. One step that News Organizations have taken is definitely around transparency with an understanding that by being more transparent with their readers and audiences and users, their likelihood of gaining trust and respect and having them come back and create a relationship is going to be greater, when News Organizations the other conferences that are happening a lot is around trust. The loss of trust that News Organizations feel, etc. And in many of those conversations, a lot of steps those organizations are taking is around transparency and sharing more about what they know and dont know. The distance into the same kind of transparency were talking about here. But it does go towards creating a relationship and a sense of trust with your user. My experience pursuing my own voter data has showed me thethand the importance of british and European Data of action model, this idea legal subject and a legal controller which forms the basis of creating transparency. We heard this morning that facebook was quick to acknowledge that it has to abide by the u. K. Data protection act and as i mentioned, they are going to be adopting the use gdp are. These models show how Consumer Rights can be expressed through rules and also shows how these rules apply transnational he. Y. Transnational i was able to take advantage of british law and the requirements of gdpr will force companies to abide by that. Even within that, the significance of being able to understand what your data that you get means, and how does it shape your experience and how can it be understandable piece of data in the interface that is understandable. Algorithmicthe accountability problem, it is really well connected to the data transparency problem in that how is my newsfeed being shaped by my behavior, and how is my behavior on other websites affecting the things that im seeing . I dont think consumers have a strong understanding that all the websites they are visiting have their facebook identity attached to it, and that allows people to retarget that on facebook. With all that, for example, the Internet Research agency probably use this technique to retarget americans across platforms. We just dont have a general consumers dont have a clear understanding about how their data is used in various ways, sometimes against them. Thats worth pointing out in all of this, it places more responsibly on the part of the consumer, and we dont have all members of the population that are proactive as david is in looking at his information in figuring out whats going on there. Just in terms of the priority the privacy settings people are allowed to set, turning on or off certain things, what is the population of the the percentage of the population authoritative aims of doing those things, or taking the time to understand the data about themselves and how it will be used. I am fond of saying we are facing an information situation not unlike the same situation we face. There is an amazing amounts of food available to you and its all labeled, but you believe what they want to eat and we have an obesity problem in the world that is getting really bad. Because the junk food. We have brain food and we have junk food and if we consume this kind of thing too much, we have very serious consequences. I think consumers have to be engaged and they have to be educated in a much more profound way and that needs to be built Company SocialMedia Companies in traditional Media Companies need to a knowledge that i need to develop a series of guidelines, many News Organizations have that. They have ethics codes and various practices that spell out specifically from a consumer perspective one of end result should be an layout levels of accountability along the way. , because played out theyve lived it, what happens when really bad things happen and that has not yet happened on social media. We are on the verge with media technologies, where i can take one of your soundbites i can change your words and put out a piece of video that will lead you are saying something that you never said it. And now we create a holding reality and that goes beyond just social Media Companies. This is starting, not ending i think the first thing we need to do is create partnerships how they be imposed with him these companies to be thinking about these things in a much more detailed way, and coupled with andresearch that few pew others are doing so that we be brought into these over cultures corporate cultures. Is by best thing to say an ad on facebook. You see how you target those ads, you see peoples eyes popped. As a Literacy Campaign to get people to understand how the data is being used, we need to come up with those ways to get people understand whats happening. I imagine the companys default mindset is we dont charge for this, were giving it away for free. If you dont like it, pop out. Thats not good enough. True, whenbsolutely people are not saying, theyre giving up data, people dont understand that. If people understood that properly, they could make an actual choice about whether they want to be there and what are the longterm applications of these companies having our personal data and 80 its the first year is not at damaging but once you start getting older, the amount of data they have on you starts to be put together in ways that could potentially be very damaging. Thank you very i wanted to on, which the misinformation spread by social media sites is having a knock on effect on conventional broadcast and media, in terms of the fact that it is almost teaching people not to trust anybody. So where do you go for your truth and what does real bona fide journalists do to combat this . This was raised with us by Mark Thompson at the New York Times in particular. Is is the most concerning thing of all, that we have created our culture of doubt around any information, wherever it comes from and the public. It said by politicians who point the finger and scream fake news and we need to define our terms and be very disciplined about that. Never refer to journalism is an enemy of the people. Not only is that not a hopeful, its very damaging not helpful, its very damaging. It created an echo chamber and a copycat effect in some areas of traditional media. Very careful to be and we are talking about traditional media. The word media is a very plural word and there are very many and very distinct differences. In the united states, i would make a distinction between talk tv and talk radio and certain in talk radiohere Talk Television and talk radio, the volume is particularly loud and where these kinds of false opiniondrive kind of an focused discussion that has the effect of confusing vast numbers of viewers and listeners. As the distinction between opinion and information. And what is correct and whats not. You cana plummet talk about it, a plummet in and a further bifurcation along ideological lines of trust in year,and just in the last its getting worse. Year, its getting worse. Concern we all should have as Public Officials is how do you reach a public, how do you make sure they have the basic information they need to participate in a democratic process where they are called and to decide things elect you and make those decisions based on information and fact . A twitter storm was caused, and my local press picked that up a cousin got so many hits. They didnt check out the actual facts of the story. Say its the fake news they are picking up and they are reiterating it. Its very hard, especially in the world of realtime news, whether it is radio or cable something, to ignore that is happening and playing out in real time in front of you, even if its wrong. And then you have the well that is generating this much traffic. You have a very distorted kind. F the you assuming need to perfect the language to a different place where we are telling people very the tweak was, what the controversy is around it. That is an increasingly difficult thing to do, to be first and fast. Something that concerns me slightly is the legislature or the regulation, not to cause another problem, because would it not be right there would be other players waiting to come to the space. That must be a danger as well. Something Julian Knight said, whatever we do in europe we can do it for the best of intentions. So we have to be careful that we can be very clear about what we are trying to protect. To your point about the media, i think one question we are not thinking through enough, if you are a if you are an information agent, the one thing you want is amplification by the mainstream media. They are planting false information and has been since 2014 that they would recess it takes now. Ultimately the point of what many information agents is trying to do is simple he cause confusion. About getting any country to a point where you cant trust anybody anymore. My theory as we are getting there pretty quickly. Get focus on how we fact check a particular claim or ruler or rumor. Thank you. Just a very quick couple of questions. When you that your subject access request return, where the dates accurate . The voter information registration was perfectly accurate. The information about the electric returns in my district were mostly complete but not fully complete. Model wasolitical subjective, so do i think it was accurate . There are aspects that are disturbingly accurate. There are aspects that are impossible to understand. Of the legal challenge and ico complaint is it is important to be able to understand how this political model was generated so i can understand then how it was used to target me for messages. When this data is being collected because of online is just the Voter Registration data, for example, the assumption that it will be a fair reflection of who we are and what we do, because it is being generated by our actions online and that makes it more accurate . The company says it uses our commercial behavior to link it to our voter file and make these political models. Thats why become so important to understand the sourcing. If it is the websites we visit, the products we buy, the Television Shows we watch that is used to determine the election, the issues we care about most, people dont understand their commercial behavior is is affecting their political life. The issue for me is how did cambridge get that information . From these platforms, hows it possible to extract the information if you dont have access to Facebook Accounts or twitter accounts or whatever . Its my understanding the committee could purchase commercial data from commercial data brokers and ad Tech Companies and from media ratings agencies and then use out reidentify and reconnect the commercial data back to voter profiles. Thats a thing we are trying to ascertain to the ico and legal challenge. Researchers from the university of cambridge, who developed some of the methodology and techniques did use facebook data fromns to gather users who signed up for their application, and thats how they collected facebook likes and used facebook likes to predict and things like political affiliation, gender, sexuality, whether their parents got divorced, etc. We have some understanding of a of how these things are used that we that concludes this panel. Thank you for your evidence. Very informative