Transcripts For CSPAN Hearing On Online Foreign Influence Operations 20240712

The head of Cyber Security policy also addressed the recent decision to remove an ad for President Trump that included a nazi symbol. This is two hours. Memberst to thank our and supporting staff for helping possible. Ndays event without objection, the chair recess aty declare any time. Before we talk about merging trends, howerging to address some housekeeping matters. First, todays session will be conducted entirely on an unclassified basis. All participants should refrain from classifying any the committee is conducting this in compliance with House Resolution 965 and a Remote Committee proceeding. It is being broadcast live on the website. Like many of you, i would have prefer to hold this in washington dc but because the covid19 pandemic remains serious and widespread, there proceeding remotely to ensure the safety of our witnesses, members, staff and public. Todays important conversation is essential to our oversight of the intelligence how the Intelligence Committee is keeping this from foreign interference. Bite i hope there will be a bipartisan discussion. Colleagues have not worked with the committee. I hope they will reconsider and join us for future hearings. Whether conducted remotely or in person, these hearings are official business and integral to our responsibilities in the classified and unclassified realm. The American People have the right to expect us to do our work and induct our business in a way that prioritizes the safety of witnesses, members and staff. I want to remind our members of procedures. The committee will keep microphones muted to limit background noise. Embers are responsible for an muting themselves when they seek recognition or when recognizing for five minutes. Because sometimes there are delays, the members and witnesses should allow sufficient time for speaking to ensure the last speaker is finished talking. Witnesses and witnesses must have their cameras on at all times. If you need to step away from the proceeding, leave your camera on. If you encounter technical difficulties, our technical staff will work to get you back up and running as quickly as possible. Finally, consistent with past practice, we will recognize members for their fiveminute questions. Thank you for all your patience as we proceed under these extra neurosurgeons and is. This is the second hearing of the house Intelligence Committee held with witnesses from google, facebook and twitter. The first was in november of 2017 where we continued to piece of ther the full breath democracy one year earlier and inform the public about what we found. A breathtaking and audacious attack that took place on social media platforms used daily by millions of americans. Deposes Russias Internet Research Agency undertook the determined effort to use social media to divide americans in advance of the 2016 election. These trolls took to a broad launch aplatforms to Sophisticated Campaign to split issues already challenging our nation. Intendedearing is not to look back at 2016 as much as it is to look forward. Awayion day is five months and malicious actors including russia but also others persist in attempts to interfere in our political system in order to gain an advantage against our country and to undermine our most precious right. Techgage regularly with and social Media Companies because they are arguably best positioned to sound the alarm if and when another external actor attempts to interfere. Technicaluse of their capacity and security acumen allows them to detect malicious activity on their platforms. Second, we cannot have plea confidence that the white house will allow the intelligence to look fully and properly inform congress, if there is a foreign interference, especially if the interference appears to assist the president s reelection. That is a dangerous state of affairs, but nonetheless it reflects the reality and why theres hearing is so important. To the witnesses, as you described, a lot has changed. In many ways we are better prepared today than we were four years ago. Each of your companies have taken significant steps and have invested resources to detect coordinated inauthentic behavior and foreign interference. While there cannot be a guarantee, it would be more difficult for russia or another adversary to run the same 2016 playbook undetected. Facebook and twitter now regularly update the public, the committee and congress on their findings, as they identify , interrupt coordinated behavior and foreign interference affecting the u. S. And other nations globally. U. S. Government agencies, with the responsibility to unearth interference, coordinate and meet ray gurley with Technology Companies and with us. The companies themselves have established mechanisms to share information and indicators, both among themselves and smaller industry peers. And researchers have also taken up the mantle, to apply their skills and knowledge to detecting and analyzing malicious networks and comprehensive public reports. These are positive developments, but as i look across the landscape, i cannot say that i am confident that the 2020 election will be free of interference by malicious actors, foreign or domestic, who aspired to weaponize at your platforms to divide americans and picked us against one another, and weaken our democracy. We are learning that our adversaries are also learning as well, not only russia, honest investments in the ira and hacking and dumping campaign aimed at the Clinton Campaign paid off and states helping to elect the kremlins favorite candidate and wide into between americans. The lesson being, influence operations on social media are cheap and effective. And attribution to specific bad actors is not always a straightforward. In march, facebook and twitter took down a network comprised of nigerian individuals operating out of west africa, who were acting essentially as cutouts for ira length parties in russia. This network was tasked with targeting u. S. Audiences with race oriented content, echoes of 2016, but also a sign of new tactics. And this week, we saw the release of a graphic report detailing a substantial network of accounts attribute into russia, which the researchers dubbed secondary infection. While Neither Network succeeded on the scale of the 2016 efforts, generating viral content, they showed that russian linked actors remain determined with a and malicious social media activity targeting u. S. Politics. Secondary infections Operational Security was reportedly very good. And their deployment of convincing forgeries should worry us all. Other countries have watched and learned from russia and in the mail will seek to replicate them. The takedowns of coordinated behavior have demonstrated china, iran and other nations are using similar techniques aimed at international and domestic audiences, and they may choose to ramp up foreign influence operations in the future. The question is, will your companies be able to keep up . Technology has evolved, including the rapid advent of deepfake technology, the subject of a hearing by the Committee Last year. Deepfakes and manipulated media could be weaponized by malicious actors to up and an election by laundering false images into the information stream of social media and traditional media outlets. While age of your platforms has begun to it adopt policies around deepfakes and manipulated media, it remains to be seen whether they are sufficient to detect and remove malicious media at speed. Once a visceral First Impression has been made, even if proven false later, it is nearly impossible to repair the damage. I am also concerned because the nature of your platforms is to embrace and monetize virtuality. The more sensational, the more divisive, the more shocking and emotionally charged, the faster it circulates. A Youtube Video can be viewed by millions in the span of hours. A policy that only identifies and acts upon misinformation, whether from a foreign or thomistic source, after millions of people have seen it is only a partial response at best. I recognize that the scale of moderation is daunting and as we get closer to november the stakes will only grow. Make no mistake, foreign actors and president s alike are testing the limits of manipulated media right now. And finally, i am concerned because of an issue i raised in 2017, and repeatedly since. I am concerned about whether social media platforms, like youtube, facebook, and instagram and others, willingly or otherwise, will optimize for extreme content. These technologies are designed to engage users and keep them coming back, pushing us further apart and isolating americans into information silos. Ultimately, the best and only correct of measure to address the problem of misinformation and foreign interferences, ensuring that credible, verified information rises above the disinformation and falsehoods, whether about the location of polling places or the medical consensus surrounding covid19, it remains paramount that all sectors of our society, including Technology Companies with us today, are postured to disrupt those attempts to influence our political and societal discourse. Americans must decide american elections. With that, i want to thank and welcome our witnesses for joining us. We will proceed with a five minute Opening Statements going in alphabetical order. Nathaniel glacier, head of Security Policy at facebook is first. Then nick pickles from twitter. And finally, the director of Law Enforcement and Information Security at google. Mr. Glacier, we will begin with you. You are recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. I appreciate the opportunity to be her virtually. I am the head of Security Policy at facebook. My work is focused on addressing the adversarial threats we face every day to the security and integrity of our products and services. I have a background in Computer Science and law in before facebook i prosecuted cybercrime at the department of justice and i served as director of policy at the National Security council. These are incredibly challenging times. That is why it is more important than ever that people can have authentic conversations on are platforms about the issues that matter, whether it is covid19, racial and social justice, family and economic concerns or the upcoming elections. But we also know that malicious actors are working to interfere with these conversations, to exploit our societal divisions, to promote fraud, influence our elections, and delegitimize social protests. My team is built to stop these bad actors. And we are working tirelessly to do so. Facebook has made significant investments to protect the integrity of elections. We now have more than 35,000 people working on safety and security across the company. Nearly 40 teams focusing specifically on elections. And we are also partnering with federal and state governments, other tech companies, researchers and Civil Society groups to share information and to stop malicious actors. Over the past three years, we have worked to protect more than 200 elections around the world. We have learned lessons and we are applying them to protect the 2020 election. We have taken a variety of steps to support the security of the electoral process, including launching facebook protect, a program that helps to secure the accounts of elected officials, candidates and their staff. Increasing ad transparency. Investigating and stopping in authentic behavior. We have removed 50 separate networks in 2019 alone. And stopping posts, so that people understand where their news is coming from. Yesterday, we began walking ads in the u. S. From statecontrolled outlets to provide an extra layer of protection against foreign interfluence in the public debate ahead with the election. In addition, we know that misinformation and influence operations are at their most in information vacuums, so we combine our enforcement efforts with ensuring that people can access authentic, Accurate Information about major civic moments, like the Global Pandemic or voting. This is why we are creating a new Voter Information Center to fight disinformation and encourage people to vote, and to make sure they have accurate and uptodate information from their local, state and federal election authorities. Because authenticity is the cornerstone of our community, we have invested in combating in authentic behavior with coordinated networks. For example, we disabled approximately 1. 7 billion fake accounts between january and march of this year, over 99 of them we identified proactively before we received any report. These were removed within a very short time after they were created. We have also created tools to identify fake accounts targeting civic issues. In addition, so far this year we have taken down 18 coordinated networks seeking to manipulate public debate, including three networks originating from russia, two of them from iran, and two in the u. S. We shared information with thirdparty researchers to enable their own assessments and we release monthly reports to highlight actions we are taking. We have also been proactively hunting for bad actors trying to interfere with the important discussions about inequality happening around our nation. As part of the effort, we have removed isolated accounts seeking to impersonate activists, and two tied to hate groups. Finally, we are also working to stop misinformation and harmful content related to the pandemic spreading on our platform. On facebook and instagram, we removed covid19 related misinformation that could contribute to harm, such as posts about fake tears. And we continue to work with our independent Fact Checking partners to debunk false claims and connect people with information from authoritative resources. We are proud of the product we have made to protect discourse on our platforms, but there is always more to do. We are up against determined adversaries and we will never be perfect, but we are committed to the vital work to stop bad actors and give people a voice. I look forward to answering your questions. Chairman schiff mr. Pickles, you are up. Members of the committee commit thinking for the opportunity to appear before you. Our role is to serve the public conversation, never more important than in elections, the cornerstone across the globe. Our Service Gives people the ability to share what is happening and provides insight into our diverse perspective of Critical Issues in realtime. We are humbled by the way our platform is used by those seeking to speak out against injustice, to hold those in power accountable and to provide change. Interference in elections is real and evolving. Since 2016, we have made a number of investments to address challenges and we have taken lessons from the 2016 election, and those around the world. Im grateful for the opportunity to discuss our progress and i will begin by focusing on the policies we have in place. Twitter has addressed threats to the integrity of elections. Under our civic and hungry policy, an individual may not use twitter to manipulate and interfere in elections or other civic protests. This includes posting or sharing content, or misleading people about when, where or how to bridge abate in a civic protest. We recently expanded this policy to include civic events, for example the census, in addition to elections. We prohibit the use of Twitter Services in a manner intended to artificially amplify or threat in organization. We prohibit fake accounts and others. We prohibit trade secrets, or posts that could put people in harms way. In addition to the new rules, or advertising policies also play an important part in the protection of public conversation. Twitter does not allow political advertising. It represents an entirely new challenge in civic discourse, that the structure today may not be prepared to handle, particularly machinebased optimization like messaging and microtargeting. Secondly, twitter does not allow news media entities, controlled by state authorities, to be on twitter. This was taken in regard to russia, based on their activities during the 2016 election. Last year, we expanded the policy to cover all statecontrolled media entities globally come in addition to individuals who are affiliated with those organizations. While our policies are vital to protect the conversation, we also want to be proactive in helping people on twitter find credible information by providing them with additional context. This approach is informed by feedback by those people that use twitter. We opened up a Public Comment period and we heard two clear points. Twitter should not determine the length of tweets, and they should provide context. We prioritized interventions regarding the information based on the highest potential for harm and are currently focused on three areas of content. The manipulation media, elections and civic integrity, and covid19. Where it is not regard rules, and these three areas we may label tweets to help people come to their own views by providing additional content. These labels may link to curated set of tweets posted by people including factual statements, opinions and perspectives, and ongoing public conversation around the issue. We have apply these labels to thousands of tweets around the world, with these three policy areas. Finally, i want to outline how twitter is empowering the public. In 2018 launched a public archive of the material we had removed as part of our work to tackle platform manipulation. It is one of the resources used by experts around the world, now spanning 15 countries, including nine of media and millions of tweets. The use of the archive by stakeholders highlight the importantance of information sharing. It is critical in preventing hostile actors from interfering in public conversation. In certain circumstances, Government Agencies do have access to twitter and we are grateful for the continued partnership with the federal, state and local agencies, in particular the fbi and the u. S. Department of Homeland Securitys Election Task force. We also work in collaboration with the National Association of the secretary of state and the election directors. We also partner with Civic Alliance and National Voter registration groups to amplify critical content. We want people to have confidence in the integrity of information found on twitter, especially with respect information relevant to elections. We know that the threats and challenges are evolving and we continue to invest in our efforts to address these threats by hostile actors and hostile environments. We look forward to working with the committee on this vital issue. Chairman schiff thank you. Members of the committee, thank you for allowing me to join you today. I am the director of Law Enforcement and Information Security at google. Google created its Search Engine in 1998 with a mission to organize the worlds information and make it accessible. As we cope with a Global Pandemic and are once again reminded of the injustices that continue to remain in our society, our role in helping people access information is more important than ever. Today, i will be focusing on three main areas. First, our efforts to combat election related interference. Second, how we are empowering people with authoritative information. And third, how we are improving transparency and accountability. I will start by highlighting our continued investigative and preventive work to combat election related interference. As we previously reported in the committee, our investigation into the 2016 elections found relatively little viable Foreign Government activity on our platform. Entering the midterms, we continued to improve our ability to detect and prevent election related threats. And engage in information sharing in the private sector and the government. While we saw limited misconduct linked to statesponsored activity in the 2018 midterms, we continue to keep the public informed. We recently launched a quarterly bulletin to provide Additional Information about our findings concerning coordinated influence operations. This joins other public recording across products, as we shed light on what you are seeing. Looking ahead to the november elections, we know that covid19 pandemic, widespread protests and other significant events can provide fodder for a nationstate dens information campaigns. We remain steadfast in our commitment to protecting our users. Second, we have continued to improve the integrity of our products. Our approach is built on a framework of three strategies. Making quality count in our ranking systems, giving users more context, and counteracting malicious actors. Ranking algorithms are an important tool in our fight against disinformation. Ranking elevates information that are her algorithms determine the most authoritative, above information that may be less reliable. Similarly, our work on youtube focuses on identifying and removing content that violates our policies and elevating authoritative content when users search for breaking news. At the same time, we find and limit the spread of borderline content that comes close, but just stops short of violating our policies. The work to protect google products is no small job, but it is important. We invest heavily in automated tools to tackle a broad set of malicious behaviors, and in people who review content and help improve these tools. We apply many of these strategies in response to the covid19 pandemic and have developed ways to connect users to authoritative government information. Similarly, we worked to remove misinformation that poses harm to people and undermine efforts to reduce infection rates. On you to come policies prohibit content that promotes medically unsubstantiated treatments or disputes the existence of covid19. We also reduce recommendations of borderline content. Third, google has made election advertising far more transparent. We not require advertisers purchasing u. S. Election ads to verify who they are in disclose who paid for the ad in the ad itself. We launched a report with a searchable and library as well. Microtargeting the election as was never allowed on google systems, but targeting election ads is no further limited to general geographic location, age, gender and context where the ad will appear. This aligns with practices in media such as tv, radio and print. Finally, this april we announced that we will extend Identity Verification to all advertisers on our platform with a rollout beginning this summer. We cannot do this important work alone. Preventing platform abuse, combating disinformation, and protecting elections requires concerted efforts and collaboration across the industry and with governments. We will continue to do our part, seek to improve and correct our mistakes and learn from them along the way. In order to better protect the collective digital ecosystem. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss these issues. Chairman schiff thank you to all of our witnesses for your statements. We when i begin the questions. And i will recognize myself to begin the questioning. If i could begin with a question for you, mr. Salgado. I think the conventional wisdom among observers of the tech sector, people in academia and others, is that google is probably the least transparent of the major Technology Companies, contrasting for example twitters establishment of a database to make available to researchers and the public what it finds in terms of inauthentic activity on its platform. There is no such equivalent in terms of disclosures by google. Are you contemplating a change in terms of making Data Available to the public and researchers that would facilitate analyses of a foreign or even domestic efforts that inauthentic content, and how do you respond to the criticism that google keeps its head down and avoids attention . Richard i hope that is not the perception but if it is, it is a misperception. We have been very transparent. Particularly on youtube. We have a transparency report that details quite a bit about the accidents actions that are taken. Including on comments, not just the videos. We have launched a bulletin that will be published quarterly that goes into influence of operations. The transparency into that is important to us. The relationship is important to us. Theave certainly engaged in debate with Public Policy makers on these important issues. It is important that we dont see the volume that the others in the industry see but we are talking about what we see in fighting it and taking it seriously. Would you be supportive in establishing the kind of database that twitter said that it is establishing to share more what that those lines is. If you look at the ad transparency report, you will ads, theetails of content of it, how much was paid, where we see our products deeply involved, we have done just that. T focuses on youtube we can take it back and see if it is something useful in that arena. Let me ask about facebook and twitter. Can you tell us what youre seeing on a couple issues of great concern to us . Applaud twitter for putting those labels on the president ial suites regarding absentee voting but i am concerned that the foreign powers may be amplifying that misinformation about whether odin voting by absentee is safe. Are you seeing any foreign manipulation or amplification . Are you seeing efforts by foreign powers to exploit divisions as they did in 2016 around black lives matter . Or now, regarding the pandemic . In terms of both of those issues, i can reassure the committee that we have not started on platform and ablation in any of those areas. You are right to draw the connection is we have seen a change in tactics. This in part is a result of the success weve had in clamping down on the platform operations. Around the covid and geopolitics. And transferred into statecontrolled media and how it transferred into the geopolitical sites. We are seeing the public use with or without an account. Those entities and government accounts are engaging in the geopolitical conversation. Weve seen some crossover from chinese actors comparing the Police Response in the United States are recent protests with Police Response in hong kong. That shift to overt state acting is something weve observed and it reminds us of the challenges we face. We have to keep one step ahead of and how we change that behavior. I agree particularly with something he just said, we see the tactics and the space evolving. And actors trying new efforts to get around the controls put in place. We havent seen coordinated inauthentic behavior on the part of governments, particularly targeting voting systems are how to vote in the United States. Its something we are monitoring. One of the tools in this context is ensuring people we have people have Accurate Information on how to vote safely. Part of the reason we launch the voting Information Center and why we announced it yesterday feeds directly into our security strategy, providing that Accurate Information is one of the best ways to mitigate those types of threats. You also asked about coordinated into inauthentic behavior with protests. We have seen some cases of fraudsters and spammers trying to make money off public debate around the protest. Trying to sell nonexistent tshirts to attendees, we seen people try to run financial related scams. We have not seen foreign actors engage in inauthentic behavior around the protests and we are proactively hunting for that. And share that information with the committee. Rep. Schiff jim himes. Thank you mr. Chairman and thank you all for being here. I want to ask a question that i feel has been infant insufficiently addressed. Ive read the testimony and im glad everybody is doing so much work to try and identify the sort of thing. Im pretty convinced when this republic dies it doesnt happen because the russians broke in to ohio Voting Machines or they managed to buy ads on facebook or twitter, it happens because our policies become so toxic, so polarized that we dont recognize each other anymore. There is a foreign nexus because all it takes if we if every single American Household is filled with toxic explosive gas, all it takes is a match from russia or iran or north korea or from china to set off a conflagration. I read the wall street journal article about the work inside facebook and i was very troubled by the apparent unwillingness of facebook to an a very public and specific way come to terms with the notion that its algorithm, which is what worries me, in terms of the security of this country, this algorithm promotes polarization, division and anger. You keep using the Word Community and authentic, i hear it over and over again. Those are value neutral words. There is nothing good or bad about authentic or community. 1984 olympics were held in sarajevo, it was close to coming together and it was wonderful and then in the 1990s injected some authenticity, some antimuslim bias on the part of the serbs, created new communities, murderous serbian nationalists and created new communities. So the real threat to me feels like facebooks underlying Business Model on algorithms which promotes engagement, but engagement means its like me driving a highway and watching a car crash. I cant not look at it. Thats what scares me the most. Ive got two minutes and 20 seconds. I really want to understand what facebook is specifically doing and to some extent this pertains i think to twitter, youtube, etc. What is facebook doing to not be the of the destruction of the American Republic . Understanding how to ensure not just authentic, but positive and collaborative public debate is absolute critical, i completely agree. What we have found is people on our platform dont want to see click bait, they dont want to see the type of divisive content youre describing. If we were to show only that, they wouldnt come back. Thats why we down rank content that qualifies as click bait, thats why we take steps to not recommend groups that are repeatedly sharing information the cross the cross a certain line. Thats why weve refocused the debate around the platform. To content from friends and family, content that centers around discussions and public conversation, not the type of divisive narrative youre describing. Im in politics and in the political realm, id like to see this back behind the studies underlying that people dont like divisive and dont like click bait. Its a thing because people like click bait. I know there is a difference when i walk into a room with people who think like i do and present nuances and complications and shades of gray, its a pretty boring meeting and im a pretty boring guy. When i walk into a room and present things as good versus evil, as the system is rigged against you, that is an energized room and so what you are telling me in the political realm is not resonating with me. I get it, you guys want excitement, thats what draws me to facebook, but i want to understand specifically and i understand it means less profit, but what is facebook going to do to be more constructive in your words . Congressman, the interesting and important distinction weve seen, people will click on click bait, hence the name and the intent. But in the long term if they are looking for community, people who want to engage, they dont want that community to be rife with that. Thats what weve taken steps to adjust content so make sure we are not prioritizing and following that. It directly aligns with having a community and platform system that uses the want to use. Im out of time, but id like to continue this because youre just not resonating with me. If the chairman will give me 10 more seconds. Look at the president ial candidates, look at the current president , americans are drawn to people who are explosive and controversial and see the world in terms of good and evil in blackandwhite. Who remember john delaney . He was constructive and thoughtful and moderate in his approach. I end this with concern more concerned that i started because youre telling me people dont seek that kind of thing and thats just contrary to everything i observed in my own political life and of the country. Mr. Chairman, thank you for your forbearance and i yelled back. Rep. Schiff terry sewall. I also want to thank our speakers and panelists today. We know from past disclosures that foreign actors have taken advantage of our platforms to spread misinformation which undermines our democrat these can soberly influence our National Conversation towards chaos and confusion. It is therefore incumbent upon each of your companies to expose floor influence operations and disable those before this misinformation spreads. You must take steps ahead of their specific sophisticated tactics which are evolving and a better understanding in order to sew more discord. We saw twitter responded to the factcheck misleading information about mailin voting tweeted by President Trump. I represent americans Voting Rights district, the heart of which is my hometown of selma, alabama. We know marchers bled, fought and died for the rights of all americans to vote in this country. We have secured responsibility, a bigger responsibility to protect the rights of those americans to disclose actions like the one taken on twitter regardless of how powerful the person sharing the misinformation is. Propaganda designed to stifle the black vote has been part of our democracy since we were able to vote. Social media creates the potential for such Voter Suppression tactics as misinformation to spread even further. I urge all of your companies to vigorously uphold preempting misinformation whether from foreign or domestic source. My community has been the target of information about voting for generations, always bearing the brunt of institutions like yours that dont take responsibility to stop the spread of misinformation. Efforts to interfere in our elections which we saw in 2016 largely targeted black americans and other communities of color. Between the disparate impact of covid19 has had on the black community and the growing unrest over the murders of george floyd and Breonna Taylor and so many others, the Political Landscape is Fertile Ground for foreign adversaries as well as domestic aggression to undermine genuine trust and confusion in this country. I would like to submit for the record two articles, one entitled facebook and twitter suspend russian links operation targeting African Americans all social media from the Washington Post and the other, Russian Election meddling his back via ghana and nigeria from cnn. May estimate these for the record . May i submit these for the record . Without objection. Id also like to summit a report called ira in ghana. These articles tell us about a sophisticated crossplatform influence operation that targeted black community in the United States. It was exposed by cnn, facebook and university professors. Id like to ask a question of the represented from twitter, could you have found this efforts quicker and if so, what you couldve what could you have done to stop it quicker . Thank you for raising these Critical Issues. We have taken a number of campaigns around 6000 tweets Voter Suppression you are right highlighting the challenge here. As you highlighted their, industry working together working with expert researchers. Doing incredible work we saw in their reports. We need stronger partnerships, more information sharing and in in both of those areas weve made significant progress. Mr. Glacier, what would you have what would your platform have done to spot the sooner and what lessons were learned in how to create barriers for more sophisticated actors . What we saw and one of the things im proud of is this was a network our team found, exposed, worked with our colleagues in the industry and elsewhere. First, this technique is not new , its a call back to techniques russian actors have used for decades. We are seeing more and more they are returning to techniques from the 60s, 70s and 80s in an attempt to get around what we put in place. We have to be incredibly vigilant to that. One key thing we learned was the platforms are able to do a particular kind of investigation , on our platforms on the networks and conductivity on the platforms. Where they were able to go on the ground and interview individuals was an incredible powerful cause and reinforces how we need to have close ties to these communities to surface this quickly and get it down before passing the impact. Thank you mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you all for joining us this morning. You may or may not know that facebook is headquartered in my congressional district. I have had many conversations with Sheryl Sandberg and im still puzzled by the fact facebook does not consider itself a media platform. Are you still espousing that kind of position . We are first and foremost a Technology Company. You may be a Technology Company, but your Technology Company is being used as a media platform, do not recognize that . Congresswoman, we are a place for ideas across the spectrum. We know people use them to engage, that is the goal of the platform is to encourage and enable people to discuss the key issues of the day and talk to family and friends. Maybe i should ask this. When there was a video of Speaker Pelosi that have been tampered with, slowed down to make her look like she was drunk , youtube took a down on most immediately, what did facebook do and what went into your thinking to keep it up . Congresswoman, for a piece of content like that, we work with a network of thirdparty Fact Checkers, more than 60 thirdparty Fact Checkers around the world. If one determines its faults, we will down rank it and put a superstition lawn it would first see a label over it saying it is false. When we down rank Something Like that, the shares of that video rapidly dropped. But you wont take it down if you know its false . You are highlighting a really difficult balance and weve talked about this amongst ourselves. What i would say is if we take a piece of content like this down, it doesnt go away, it will exist on the internet. People who are looking for will still find it. I understand that, but therell always be bad actors, but that doesnt mean you dont do your level best to show the greatest deal of credibility. If youtube took it down, i dont understand how you wouldnt take it down but i will leave that one there where it lays. You said in your Opening Statements that you have taken down, i believe you said you taken down some networks from iran, russia, you mightve mentioned another country. Could you drill down and tell us specifically what they were selling, what it was that you found offensive that you took down where you didnt take the video nancy pelosi down. The focus of my teams work was inauthentic behavior. That is not the content being shared, the behavioral techniques these actors use to hide their identity make their content appear more popular than it is or otherwise mislead users. Last year we took down 50 networks or more than 50 networks around the world from engaging in this. This year so far weve taken down 18. Can you drill down as to what they were doing . Absolutely. A network like this will be using fake accounts in an organized group and an organized group of fake accounts to mislead users about whats behind the network. We saw a Network Based in the United States that was representing itself as a u. S. News source when in fact it was using networks of accounts run by actors overseas to write its content and reportedly pretend to be americans. We have taken down networks linked to entities out of russia that present themselves as local when in fact they are centrally controlled by another organization. We did a takedown of a network to a state Media Organization out of russia that ran seemingly independent news organizations across europe representing them selves is independent and claiming to be independent when they were all centrally controlled and driving the message directly back from the organization that was running them. Thats the type of behavior we enforce against when we see these actors engaged in deceptive techniques. We announce it publicly, we share information with third parties and make sure we have a monthly report where we detail this and i can ensure our teams here with you will have more details. The thank you. I yield back. Thank you, i yield back. Mike quigley. Thank you chairman and thank you all for participating. Tell us what is impairing that collaboration, if anything. Is there anything that makes this more difficult . Are there actors that make it more difficult or just internal measures that limit your capacity to share information to collaborate . Are there other platforms, third parties, federal, state and local officials. Anyone . Im happy to offer some thoughts. Thank you for raising this issue. The space we work in is the tension between privacy and security often. On the one hand a lawmaking palace to not store data for longer than needed, on the other hand we may not know the information is relevant at the time we remove the accounts. Actors who are trying to hide their behavior often use a variety of techniques and while we focus on the social media end of the spectrum, we often dont focus on the technical infrastructure they may use. We dont have the information straightaway. There is a tension between removing content and the data. That is holding onto data in case we know something later that would enable us to say these accounts were removed at the time we didnt realize but now we think they are. Secondly, the more government secondly, as ever fast in myone opening statement, the more government can declassify information. I think one of the striking things from the report on secondary infection was that there was 300 platforms used. There is also our responsibility on us to mentor and support our peers in the Industry Based on our skills. Governments being able to share information publicly would enable more of those who are often not part of these discussions to protect themselves. Happy to let others weigh in. Congressman, to just add, i think in the last couple of years or took among industry and our partners and government, our ability to share information has gotten much better. We had a number of cases where we got tips from for example the f. B. I. That have allowed us to take rapid action. Two things are worth considering. There have been questions about transparency and sharing data about these takedowns publicly. That type of sharing information publicly is important because it helps if understand what is Legal Framework about where you can share and cannot share is not as clear as it could be right now and that raises questions for all that firms. How do we make sure researchers and the public are aware of what is happening without impacting the privacy of innocent users who could get swept up . But is an area where he could be particularly valuabl. At the same time, as mr. Pickles noted is that the information we share here is sensitive and it needs to be handled carefully. I dont think we will ever remove the tension here but i think the clarity will help us to share more with the public and share more of our purpose. Richard . Thank you. I think the biggest struggle we have had on the information front was referred to by mr. Formidableeady, the difficulty that the Intelligence Community has in sharing classified information with the companies. I suspect as mr. Pickles suggested, there is an issue of overclassification of this, perhaps a difficulty, bureaucratic or otherwise in agencies finding ways to declassify less sensitive parts of information threats or leads that would be useful on the platforms. Other than that, as mr. Glacier point about, the information sharing among companies and the government has improved greatly since 2015 almost to the point of being unrecognizable. Legal not seeing the impediments other than the issue with declassification. Thank you all. A mr. Chairman, i yield back. Eric swalwell. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Salgado, do youtubes comments fall under the same . Olicy as googles display ads mr. Salgado i am afraid i dont know the policy enough to give you useful information on that. We have so many policies and i have to confess i am not ok, if you could follow up with a letter on that. Have you ever taken down one news america videos . Mr. Salgado i am not sure i can give you a answer about a specific destiny meant how about fox news . Have to check. D there is a lot of removals you can see on our to report. The New York Times reported haveconspiracy news sites spent 1 million on ads with youtube. Does that sound accurate . Mr. Salgado i dont know the figure, i understand that it may ory ad. Dvertiser h oan, one news network, and others are spending collectively 2 million in revenue this year. You . That seem accurate to mr. Salgado i would have to check with the team to come up with accurate figures. Could you walk me through how a creator like one america news been i thinkh has called out by most credible News Agencies as propagating russian materials, how could they get paid by google when they create a video that people watch . Can you explain how they would actually make money in addition to running ads . Mr. Salgado there are, of course, two different products you are talking about here. One is an offering where you can advertise, you can pay to have appear on asement blog post or website of other publishers. Then there is the ability to actually monetize the content that you upload. For example, to youtube. There are policies as you refer to earlier on on both of those, around who can advertise and advertised. There are also policies on what content are we willing to actually run advertisements on . Rep. Swalwell will google have a policy for vaccine misinformation on youtube . Mr. Salgado there will be policies that address on ads in particular, that it can cause Public Health damage, deceptive ads. There is a range of policies all publicly available to look at by anybody. Rep. Swalwell this is an unclassified briefing, but i do you know, have any of how recently have any of you met with the f. B. I. About misinformation . I dont want any details about the case or the country just when was the last time he had a conversation about something you saw . I will start with mr. Salgado . Mr. Welsh these are routine conversations. I will not say that they are but itrily weekly, starts to approach the conversational cadence that we have. I am trying to be open about this and not be too classified about it. To meet with the local office here in california. We also have a regular cadence of meetings. It is actually rather routine at this point. Rep. Swalwell thank you. Mr. Pickles . Mr. Pickles our engagement with the f. B. I. Is highly regular whether it be phone call or emails. We have formal meetings on a monthly basis. The dialogue is often needed. If the f. B. I. Have concerns about a specific to tour issue, we have dialogue. We do not wait. Rep. Swalwell mr. Gleicher, i ask because this committee has worked on information that would put it a duty to report on social Media Companies if they see foreign interference on their platform but it has not become a lawyer the senate. T passed could you tell us about your interruptions with the f. B. I. When you see misinformation . Mr. Gleicher certainly, mr. Congressman. Actually have a periodic monthly meeting with the f. B. I. And other government partners that we all participate in at a strategic level to talk about the threats we are seeing and make sure we are aligned and effectively. Her in addition whenever we see foreign interference, we share information about that with Law Enforcement. For example, we announced our latest monthly report of all the takedowns we have done last week or the week before. We would have shared information ahead of time with our Law Enforcement partners to make sure they can follow up if there is something particularly that implicates foreign interference in the u. S. Rep. Swalwell thank you, chairman. I yield back. Chairman schiff thank you. Have mr. Heck. Rep. Heck thank you, mr. Chairman and thank you to panelists for being here. We appreciate the updates on growing out efforts of the learning experiences of the last few cycles. I choose not to spend my time however on the issues of the election interference per se nor this information but more along the lines of what mr. Himes was pursuing. The exchange, mr. Gleicher, with you, would lead me to ask a variation of what the retaliate intended question variation of what my intended question was. Himes,also add, like mr. Your question did not resonate with me. Civic discourse in america has degraded, that is inarguable. It is also equally selfevident platformsocial media that we are here talking about amplifiedfied have that degraded civic discourse. Something you have all profited off. Again, do youyou not set any responsibility for this, and if you dont, for the love of god, tell me your logic for not accepting any responsibility. Mr. Gleicher let me just say a couple of things, the first of which is, politicians arent exempt. Our tradecraft has fully utilized these tools to our benefit. To suggest otherwise would the hypocrisy that would be hypocrisy. It reminds me a little bit if somebody had a bullhorn to amplify communication and they put it like best put it right into your ear and kept using it until you got d eaf. For you not to accept responsibility as the bullhorn maker seems a stretch. The fact is that civic discourse degraded. Mr. Himes has set forth the extreme threat this service to our country. The fact is that you amplify and First Amendment areiderations which really important notwithstanding, do you not accept some responsibility for this . Mr. Gleicher, lets start with you, sir. Congressman, we have critical responsibilities to make sure our platform is authentic and also an open as collaborative as possible. Heart of what you are identifying is how humans interact in public discussion. Is why we have thought about how we promote, what we promote and what we recommend to address these challenges. I also think that the rise of social media platforms and the internet has led the voices to be heard at volumes they never have before. The most difficult challenge is apart. Peel them how do you mitigate the challenges you are struggling with . Without also undermining the incredible perfusion of new voices that have heard in public debate . Have looked at and done a number of changes to tackle this. I would never suggest we can solve this problem alone. Part of this is how humans engage. Have anforms opportunity and responsibility to do anything they can to encourage and enable the best discussions. But i would never suggest we can solve this problem, congressman. Rep. Heck i am reminded of what dr. King said, the moral arc of the universe spin steward justice. In this case it is not spinning to were just as fast enough. There is not one person on this told 1000asnt been times by their staff, stop reading the comments. They ask us to stop reading the comments because they are so unbelievably uncivil and personal. It is character assassination and demonization. And it manifests itself in this polarization, exhibit a of which is, there are no members of the Minority Party sitting in on this. So polarized has our political culture become. Toxic. T is that it is the fact is that it is a threat. The fact is that you are the bullhorn manufacturer. The fact is that you are not moving fast enough. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I yield back. Thank you, mr. Heck. Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Mr. Krishnamoorthi a couple ofo direct questions first to mr. Pickles. Back when the protests were going on in minneapolis, the president put out a now infamous tweet calling the protesters bugs and making a reference to that when quotation the looting starts, the shooting starts. At twitterhat you took the right approach in putting a label on that particular post. Can you tell us a little bit about why you did that . Mr. Pig goes this is a policy we launched last year. We announced that in situations where public figures who are verified on twitter will make a statement that we feel the preservation of the tweet allows essential public scrutiny and debate, we would strike a balance and rather than remove , which we fear would stop the debate, is allow the content to remain on twitter. Sorry, why did you say it breaks your roles . Mr. Pickles in the case of this specific to eat, we thought it violated our rules for in citation of violence. When we applied the label, we actually stopped people retreating it as well retweeting it as well. Rep. Krishnamoorthi i cannot for the life of me understand why you folks allowed that post to stay up for as long as you and not issue any kind of similar comment or put a label on the post as twitter did. I would like you to have a chance to respond to our you dont think that was glorification of violence, or that it was proper material for a post on your site . Mr. Gleicher congressman, thank you for the question. I personally found the post to be abhorrent. The view is widely shared. My team does not make content decisions. But as mark has made it clear, we frame our approach anchored in freedom of expression and respect for the democratic process. Krishnamoorthi how does this show respect for anything. The reason why you reacted the way you did and called it abhorrent is it completely eviscerates civil discourse. Let me ask another question. What is the Internet Research agency, what if they took that post input, i dont know, a million bots on it and decided to say to everyone in the united and sponsored ads, that when the looting starts, the shooting starts . So go start shooting . What would you do in that instance . Mr. Gleicher congressman, we have policies around content and around behavior. Any activity that uses fake accounts to amplify something would come down. Rep. Krishnamoorthi what if there was no fake account . What if it was an authentic account from the Russian Federation . , ok,t was a state actor and they did not do anything to modify the post that donald trump put up, but just put money and sponsored ads behind the post and said, we are the Russian Federation, see what your own president is doing you to do. What would you do in that instance . Mr. Gleicher given the hypothetical there it is a little hard to say. What i can tell you is we have particular policies around ads. For example just yesterday, we began talking ads from state media, including from russia, coming to the United States ahead of the election. For example, a state media agency from russia would not be allowed to run ads in the u. S. Rep. Krishnamoorthi what if it was a private actor . There is a thug in russia who , denny heck knows whatell, i forgot his name if that guy puts a billion dollars behind it he is not a state actor are you saying you would prohibit him from doing congressman, . Mr. Gleicher congressman, he and his organizations are banned from our platforms. We have enforcement on behavior and also on actors. The Internet Research agency, given the activity they have engaged in, they have no place on facebook. If they try to come back, we would identify them and remove it. Rep. Krishnamoorthi i will just close with this, which is that that post was so abhorrent, which, as you said, not i did but i find it abhorrent that you would have allowed it to stay up. I see that mr. Zuckerberg is dancing around this post. S is exactly why people civil discourse right now. Thank you. Chairman schiff thank you, mr. Krishnamurthy. Val demings. Repprepresentative demings thank you, mr. Chairman. We just want to feel better. , i want to start with you, you said your Mission Statement in 1998, dont get me wrong, we were really excited about this new platform to communicate and share information would make it universally accessible and useful. You said the integrity of your. Roduct continues to improve could you give me a few examples of how the integrity of your product has continued to improve , the integrity, and if you were rewriting that Mission Statement today, what would it say . What would you add or take away from it . Mr. Salgado if a that question. I guess to the integrity of the products part, there are so many examples. Theod way to go into it is google search. So wellknown. And the constant improvement in or all the rhythms to improve the results you get when you type in a search query. Making sure the authoritative and most relevant information is what appears at the top. It. Se algorithms to do it is also informed through real people who check the results, make sure that things are coming out as you would expect, and we are able to adjust algorithms. A constant tweaking of algorithms to improve the search experience the book rely on. Rep. Demings if you were to give yourself a letter grade, what would it the, from 1998 until now . Mr. Salgado you know, the way search is, i suppose expectations in 1998 are very different than they are in 2020. We have had google around so long and people just expect it to work. Yetave had billions of his your results are right there like you are the only person using it. When you think about that, i think we are in a solid a category and i am not an easy greater. And it continues to improve i am not an easy grader. And it continues to improve. People are very concerned about the covid19 pandemic. So, in the search products, we have made it much easier for users to find good, authoritative, medical information liable for their queries on covid19. It also can be flexible product that notes what is really important to a vast number of people who are using it. Rep. Demings ok. Let me move on. Thank you for that. Mr. Gleicher, i believe you said voices are being heard now that have never been heard. Before. But i also believe that more chaos and this information is being heard or seen like never before. I do believe that all of your platforms, it is a vehicle by which this information, racism, hatred, six is this sexism or hasother kind of ism traveled the most. You believe as you strive to get information out, do you have a moral obligation number one, you have a moral obligation, yes, no and . If you feel you do, what do you see the moral obligation as . Mr. Salgado, we can start with you. But i would like to hear from everybody. Mr. Salgado i think we have moral and ethical obligations to our users. We have a great focus on making sure that the data we hold for our users is secure, their accounts are secure. As awful lot of the election interference we saw in 2016 and even the different information influence operations we are seeing today implicate google mostly in the phishing attempts we are seeing in our accounts. Onre is a good deal of focus google in that respect to make sure accounts remain secure. Users, with little action on their part, can remain confident that their accounts are protected, and at the same time, try to educate users on reppo demings so you believe the number one priority is the security of the product because your centering more around that. Mr. Salgado really what we have staff found historically is that really, what we have found historically, most of the involvement, the bulk of the activity that we saw with the use of google platforms like google accounts and gmail to create accounts on other services that were then used for disinformation campaigns, making sure that we were it were to identify those accounts particularly where they may be compromised accounts misused for those purposes, to help build a misinformation infrastructure on other Companies Platforms is important. It helps the whole ecosystem takedown. But you are right, there are other touch points. Those include to a much lesser degree than we see with other companies, platforms like youtube and even to some extent, search, to keep this information off of them entirely. And as i mentioned in my verbal statement, where it starts to lines,se to the policy that we make it less discoverable and dont recommend it to the viewers. Rep. Demings mr. Chairman, i am not sure where i am on time. . O i have time to get an answer schiff you do . Mr. Welsh congresswoman, this is the fundamental tension we are all struggling with. Collectively if you look at social media platforms, they are the number one platform for public debate on a whole range of issues. Whenever you see public debate happening, bad actors will participate and try to use that to spread racism and division, to target public debate in all these ways. Rep. Demings do you have a moral obligation, and if you feel you do, what is it . Mr. Gleicher congresswoman, we have an essential responsibility and obligation to do everything. E can to combat that that includes ensuring voice for people on the platform so they can speak, and also addressing harm as it emerges on the platform. We have a team i collaborate with that focuses on dangers organizations and hate groups. Groups that promote violence or glorify violence. Investigate, and remove them from the platform. We actually just removed two networks linked to a couple of those groups earlier this week. We have teams that hunt proactively for actors who are hiding their identity and using that inauthenticity to drive division and drive racist narratives. One of the things we have seen is that not just foreign actors, but the mystic actors, when they actors, but domestic when they can operate with impunity, they will drive more of this harmful and divisive content. Rep. Demings thank you. Next witness . Thank you. Tweet exists to serve the public conversation and we have a responsibility to promote the health of that public conversation. That is why we changed our policies because we recognize this may not be something that democracies are equipped to deal with. Rep. Demings the answer was do you have a moral obligation to take misinformation down or hold them accountable . That is the big thing about twitter. It is a public platform. Moment offfer a optimism, since march, we have tweets. 251 million two i we as a company are focused on being proactive. We are focused on protecting the conversation. Focused on transparency. To inform people. And over all, that work is having a positive impact. But the value of twitter to give people a voice and allow people to express themselves in these difficult times we think is important. Rep. Demings mr. Chairman, thank you so much for your indulgence. Thank you all. Chairman schiff peter walsh. Rep. Welch thank you very much. One of the things i think is a focus on this is what mr. Hines brought up and that is what is happening to public debate in public discourse. [inaudible] the president is able to say things that are really quite terrible to many of us. In truth, truth has been a casualty of public debate. The fact is that very constructive things. People have gathered on black drives black lives rather matter rallies. Then you have political actors who are using it to undermine. Verything each of your companies are trying to deal with that. Mr. Zuckerberg testified before the energy and commerce committee, mr. Dorsey testified. And each company is trying to make some rules and regulations that it follows to try to bring some order to this. But at a certain point, the question is not what each individual company does or each executive does, it is whether there are laws that can pose obligations. And what has been perceived as a very important to your platforms is the decision that congress made some time ago to not hold you to responsibility of a publisher, or publishers of regular newspapers, who have to exercise editorial judgment. And you do, but you are not civilly obligated to. I want to ask each of you what recommendations you would make further legal changes that would impose some obligations on each of your platforms that are similar to the obligation a publisher has about content. I will start with mr. Gleicher from facebook. Mr. Gleicher thank you for the question. Um, in my world i am focusing on our security and tackling the challenges we face, and what i can tell you is from my team and it teams in this area, the shield created by section 230 is essential for us to do our work. We have seen threat actors try to target us in response to consistent enforcement we have taken. Sen. Welch let me interrupt. Here is the dilemma, i know you are trying to do this in good faith, but the bottom line is in congress or wherever that has public representation authority, we cannot keep up with a each one of these things that comes your way. You are doing your best, bet at a certain point we are always chasing after the fact. Would it be your view that section 30 has to be sacrosanct, which in fact it leaves the final authority to u. S. Opposed to the people who have been elected representatives of americans . Mr. Gleicher congressmen, there is a healthy and important debate right now about how to adjust to the reality we are facing. Sen. Welch that is what i am asking. Mr. Gleicher we will comply with the law if Congress Wants to make changes. My hope and what i could contribute, i hope that as we evaluate that we do remember the importance of the shield to the ability to protect his voice, and we preserve that. Sen. Welch how about you . First, let me start by saying this was an instrument that has protected the whole internet. In my role, when i heard from governments around the world, how did the United States build this . The answer is section 230. The rest of the world is looking to emulate the United States with our domination and success in this area. Sen. Welch i understand that, but we are seeing the downside now. The rest of the world is looking to emulate the uniteds them United Statess domination and success in that area. Section 230, everyone acknowledges the importance of it giving us the opportunity to build. But the downside we are all seeing is on the legal side with all tech platforms. Mr. Pickles we are having this discussion right now. Its a range of discussion. My concern firstly is just to remind everybody that criminal law is not protected by section 230. So the concerns that the content is criminal is not in here. Secondly, people say we want to stop moderation, and the same answer is offered. It is essential to investigate, i think. But the consequences of changes that could be damaging for competition, damaging for innovation, and damaging for our ability to promote and protect free speech. Thank you. My time is up. I yield back. Thank you, mr. Welsh. A couple of things i wanted to follow up on. Its interesting that in 20, the last time we had representatives of your companies in, it was your general councils. It was not till the second round of questioning that we got to the issue of social responsibility and how these platforms might be serving to divide the public. When i asked about that in 2017, a member of the council for facebook said the jury was still out on whether the platforms were having the effect of dividing the public. I dont know if the jury is still out, but i think they have come back and it is reflected in the degree to which you have gotten questions about that issue. So let me follow up with a question of my own on that subject. Can you describe for us, because your algorithms are so opaque to the public, to what degree do your algorithms prioritize engagement or attention as opposed to prioritizing things like friends, family, truth, or accuracy . To what degree are your algorithms currently amplified on the basis of attention and engagement and since this problem became apparent, has that prioritization been downgraded to less of a priority . Congressman, i can say, and i know we have made a number of changes to prioritization to address this kind of risk. My role is not in algorithms, so i cannot speak in detail about it. But i want to make sure we get you the most accurate response. Mr. Schiff can you answer the question, does your algorithm give priority more than any other to engagement and attention . Mr. Gleicher we prioritize a range of factors, not a single one, but i could have the team follow up on that. Mr. Schiff i realize there is a lot that affects your algorithm, but is that the number one factor . Mr. Gleicher let me follow up with the detail on that. Mr. Schiff last question, how do you assess your working relationship with the fbi and the ic, their willingness to share information with you, and your willingness to share information with them when it comes to performance on your platforms . Mr. Gleicher the collaboration with industry and government is much, much better than it was in 2017. We have found the fbi to be forward leaning and ready to share with us. The best case study for this was the 2018 midterms when you saw government and Civil Society coming together. The fbi gave us a tip about a network of accounts they identified were linked to russian actors. We were able to investigate and take action within a number of hours. I do think the points raised earlier about classification are important, and it is not we dont necessarily need all of the classified details. There would not be a good way for us to consume that. But being able to act quickly is an important value and i know that is something our partners and government are working on. Mr. Schiff any other comments from your colleagues . Mr. Pickles the contrast from 2016 to where we are now is night and day. As we discussed earlier, the dialogue is regular and valuable. So i would like to express gratitude to everyone working on these issues. The collaboration is critical to our success, hard work, and investment and it is a force multiplied, so we are grateful for that cooperation. I agree with everything that has been said. I would add only that we have been able to be very nimble when we need to ensure that we are able to pivot immediately, not that we have all the answers, but we were able to ask the right questions of the government, which has been very receptive to this topic. The same was true with the protests. It has been a nimble, quick process. To address changes quickly. Mr. Schiff thank you. Thank you to all of our witnesses. You have answered your fair share of questions and addressed a fair number of concerns. A lot of these issues are really hard. I tend to be a First Amendment absolutist. I really dont want facebook challenging what is true and what is not true. I get that these are really hard issues. I keep coming back to the algorithm because i believe i have some obligation as a citizen to be involved in active citizenship. If we have to rely on citizens to be critical thinkers, we should probably throw the towel in. But the algorithm is different. I see what you want me to see. I would rather have a big bowl of doritos than eat my vegetables. So i get worried when you say i would like you to elaborate this and then i have one more question for you. I thought i heard you say that people on facebook are not actually drawn to the explosive or controversial, that your word was constructive. Theres a may 20 6 wall st journal article in which there seemed to be a real profound debate inside facebook. Mr. Gleicher thank you. I agree this is an incredibly challenging issue and there is more work to be done. The nuance i was highlighting, certainly, people are drawn to click bait. They are drawn to explosive content. It is the nature of click bait to make people want to click on it. But what we have found is that people dont want a platform or experience that is just click bait. They will click it if they see it, but they dont want it prioritized. They dont want their time drawn into that. We are trying to build an environment where that is not the focus. Where they are having the conversations they want to have. But i agree with you that people seek out that type of content wherever it is. One of the key factors is who your friends are, the pages and accounts that you follow and the actions you engage with. People have direct control over them because they are choosing the people they want to engage with. I would like to ask you a specific question. What concerns me about the algorithm is that there is a way of thinking humans use that is rational and deliberate, looking at substantive information and looking at pros and cons, and then there is the way of being a human, emotional, anger, tribal. And i think those are different parts of our brain, and i do think in a rational, analytical environment, the First Amendment is justifiable. But i am profoundly concerned, as the chairman said, about an algorithm that may be churning up this anger and tribalism. So my question is about transparency. Would facebook be willing to make not just the attributes but the algorithm publicly available but the effects of the algorithm. Personally, i would like to know how i rate on facebook. I dont track it that well. I look at political stuff. How open is facebook to sharing with the public what the algorithm looks like and more importantly, what the behavioral outcomes are, because if you can show data that says people look at facebook and are exposed to new ideas and critical thinking, wow, im going to be happy with that. But if it shows the people go to very dark places, i have a different response. Transparency is important here. The algorithms we are talking about, the decisionmaking is incredibly complex. Showing that information in a way thats consumable and meaningful is extremely important. The two things i would offer, the first is, when thinking about the way humans make quick decisions, one of the most important pieces is whether they have context to make assessments. And one of the challenges of the internet generally is that it has historically been a context stripper. So one challenges how to provide more context to users so they can make those assessments, whether it is with Fact Checkers, statecontrolled media entities, and others. I would be happy to talk more about that. One piece of research that is interesting, and harvard team has done some Interesting Research on polarization and the impact both on social media and in traditional media, and has some interesting conclusions, including that for certain people, it broadens and pierces bubbles, and for others, it reiterates them. I would be happy to talk more about that. Thank you. I will yield back my time. Mr. Schiff you have a question. I do. Thank you all again for being here. This is a complicated issue and we are all struggling to make sure it is there. To the point that you all are media outlets, the Pew Research Center found that 44 of americans use facebook, twitter, and instagram for information for the 2016 president ial campaign. Among people 1829, 35 use social media as their primary source of political news. So you can understand why we are concerned that what is put on your platforms is factual. I want to point out that all of you are men. At this hearing. And there was a recent study that looked at the 2020 Democratic Party president ial primary. The study is entitled shepersisted, women, media, and politics in the modern world. It showed that female candidates are attacked more often by fake news accounts, that interviews with female politicians are news is mostly negative and mostly about character. The top news about, harris was that she was not authentically progressive, american, or black. Elizabeth warren lied about her ethnic heritage. Attacks on women tend to fall in three categories, untrustworthy, emotional, and dumb. Within these is a high volume of sexualized content, specifically women sleeping their way to the top. I can tell you personally that i endure a lot of that on the platforms. Its pretty disgusting. So, all three of you are men. I want to know how you are going to address this issue for the 2020 election. Mr. Gleicher thank you i would say i have seen as well the increased targeting of women, particularly online, and the way in which prominent women experience this. We have teams focused on coordinated harassment and how we can tackle it. One of the things my team focuses on in particular is cases where we see individuals singled out using either networks of fake accounts or networks of obsessive behavior. Deceptive behavior. Ms. Spier how many women do you have on your team . Mr. Gleicher its about 30 of my team. One of the things i have found that applies to women and the Minority Community as well, the actors who target using these techniques target minority communities and people they believe they can victimize. So, it is extremely important that our team be diverse so we can have the creative responses we need and put ourselves in the shoes of the people being targeted. What do you do when female candidates are targeted this way . How do you address it . Mr. Gleicher it depends a little bit on the exact threat. We are Building Tools that first allow people to not have to see some of these threads. But that comes from the individual, not from you. If you dont want to see something, you can click it off, but how about the fact that it gets communicated throughout the platform and it gains traction. If it is negative, it gains more traction, based on the algorithm. Mr. Gleicher if we see direct threats of violence, we take that down, and we have done that a number of times. If content violates our standards, we take action. I think also thinking about how to change the product to empower people and to disincentivize this type of stuff is an important piece is well. If we are only removing things we see, we will always be in sort of a whack a mole world. We need to keep doing that and we have a responsibility to keep doing that. We also need to change the environment to make this type of thing harder and give people more tools to protect themselves. Ok, well i am going to share this report was Sheryl Sandberg in hopes that you will do more. Mr. Gleicher thank. The other representatives, please. I know my time is expired, mr. Chairman, but i would like to hear from the other two. Mr. Salgado thank you for raising this topic. It is something i feel passionate about. In terms of my team, i am the only man. We have remarkable people, majority female. This issue is particularly important for journalists of color who face additional levels of abuse and harassment. You are absolutely right to highlight that if we wait for you to report the content, we are failing. More than half the content we remove is without a user report. If something we see is toxic or sharing private information, we have made it easier to highlight that private information has been posted. That means we can move faster. Our action rate has increased more than 100 on private information posted. We have to do more. That is why working with Civil Society and building strong relationships i will absolutely tell you there is more to do in this area and it is something we remain deeply committed to working on. Thank you. Mr. Salgado for google, it is similar. About 50 of my leadership is female. This is a huge problem. We have seen this going back to gamer gate where we women and minorities are targeted online. At google, the changes we have made for comments on google videos has been pretty successful. We have also had some Great Success in automated removal of comments on Youtube Videos that violate our policies. Most of it is automated. A high 90 percentage of removal on those comments has been automated, but user reports remain very important. Its a matter of effective, quick enforcement of the policy, not a lack of willingness, but the enforcement of policies that exist and recognizing its important and treating it as one of the areas we need to improve. Thank you. Thank you mr. Chairman for indulging me on that. Mr. Schiff thank you. Eric swalwell. Mr. Swalwell i am seeing on the news right now that this morning, facebook took down President Trump adds that related to symbols the nazis had used to designate prisoners in concentration camps. Red triangles were used in an ad by donald trump and Vice President pence, and it was viewed in fewer than 24 hours by just under a million people. I want to allow facebook to address this. But also, what will you do with the spread thats already out there with this hate symbol . What sanctions will you take against the trump campaign, because this is not the first time an ad has been taken down. I believe it is the third time. Mr. Gleicher we do not allow symbols that represent hateful ideology unless they are put up with context. We obviously want to allow someone to contentment. Anywhere that symbol is used, we would take that same action. We are consistent in enforcing whenever our systems identify those symbols. When we identify Something Like this, we look for other instances of where it might appear so that we can remove it automatically. If there is something we miss, because we are not perfect, if someone were to bring it to our attention, we would take action there as well. Mr. Swalwell how many symbols would a platform have to run before the page is taken down . Mr. Gleicher what i can tell you is if we see repeated instances of violations, repeated instances of this information, we take increasing actions. I dont have the details on these specific thresholds, but i would be happy to have the team working on this followup. Mr. Swalwell have accounts been taken down because of repeated efforts to put this information out there . Mr. Gleicher i would be happy to followup with you for that specific detail. Mr. Swalwell do you know the answer . Mr. Gleicher i dont know the answer off the top of my head. Mr. Swalwell one of my fears is that the misinformation we see right now, one of the most perilous times is going to be between election day and inauguration day. I think the president with his rhetoric, characterizing mailin ballots as fraudulent and implying that undocumented americans will be voting in the election, i believe if the result does not go the way he wants, he is seeding what will be frivolous lawsuits and assaults on the election. My fear is that all three of your platforms will be used not only by the president , but by outside metallers to try to amplify discord and confusion in our country, and i just want a pledge from each of you as to what you will do if that is indeed the case, if the president does not accept the results and is welcoming or cultivating outside interference and what is supposed to be a peaceful transition of power. Mr. Pickles, we will start with you. Mr. Pickles two import things. First of all, our rules apply globally. We will take action on any user that breaks our rules and on any fake accounts, foreign actors, domestic actors. You have our absolute commitment that we will enforce our rules impartially around the world. Mr. Swalwell thank you. Mr. Salgado at google, we are committed to enforcing our policies. We will continue to improve those policies. Mr. Gleicher congressman, we will continue to enforce policies consistently around the world and at any time. I think you highlighted a really important point. We have teams running red team exercises and threat ideations within the company and with colleagues outside the company that, at a time of greatest risk, what are the biggest threats . We have always known that the time after the election is a critical one. It takes time to count vote by mail ballots, so there may be a time of uncertainty after the election that will be critical. We are focused on the time after the election with just as much laser focus as the time immediately before. Mr. Swalwell i am afraid a storm is coming and we need you to be ready. I yield back. Mr. Schiff thank you, mr. Swalwell. Mr. Heck and then mr. Welsh. Mr. Heck insofar as mr. Hein has preemptively channeled my thoughts, i will forgo my round and just thank you for your presence today. Mr. Schiff mr. Welsh, would you like the last question. Mr. Welch thank you for an excellent hearing. I want to join in thanking our witnesses for testifying under these extraordinary circumstances. You andfollowup with on your respective questions that youve taken back. Once again, my thanks to all of you for your participation. Thank you to the members and staff as well. With that, we are adjourned. Click cspans washington journal, every day, we are taking your calls, life, on the air on the news of the day and the discussing policy issues that impact you. Policeup, the former commissioner on efforts to reform policing in the u. S. The cochair of the poor peoples campaign. 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He has unfiltered congress coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court and Public Policy event. You can watch cspan Public Affairs programming on television, online and be part of the National Conversation cspan. See fit created as a public. Ervice and brought you today on thursday, the Supreme Court wilting yes trumpet Administration Efforts to rule against the daca program. The Doctor Program was created during the Obama Administration in 2012. It permits 650,000 noncitizens to stay and work in the United States while waiting for a decision on their legal status. We will not show the oral argument that takes place in november. Took place in november. N case 18 587, the department of Homeland Security the university of california and the related cases. General francisco. Mr. Chief justice, and may it please the court, in 20, the dr. Ircuit held that daca and the expansion of daca were likely unlawful. In the face of those decisions, the department of Homeland Security reasonably determined that it no longer wished to do wish to retain