Transcripts For CSPAN Facebook Google Twitter Executives Testify On Social Media Regulations 20240712

For almost 25 years, the preservation of Internet Freedom has been the hallmark of a thriving Digital Economy in the United States. The success has largely been attributed to a light touch Regulatory Framework and to section 230 of the communications decisions the act, the 26 words they created the internet. There is little dispute that section 230 played an early role ofthe Critical Development Online Platforms. It provides protection from liability to remove and moderate content that take what their users consider to be obscene, filthy,cinius, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable. This shield has been pivotal in protecting Online Platforms from but it has also given these internet platforms the ability to control, cycle, and even censor content in whatever manner. The time has come for that free pass to end. 230, 24 years of section much has changed. The internet is no longer in emerging technology. Companies before us today are no longer scrappy startups operating out of a garage or a dorm room. They have in this our economy culture in Public Discourse. The applications they have created are connecting the world in unprecedented ways far beyond what lawmakers could have imagined three decades ago. These companies are controlling the overwhelming flow of news and information that the public can share and access. One noteworthy example occurred just two weeks ago after subpoenas were unanimously approved. , the countrysst fourthlargest newspaper ran a story reviewing communications between hunter biden and a ukrainian official. That hunterlleged biden facilitated a meeting with his father, joe biden, who was then Vice President of the United States. Most immediately, both twitter and facebook took steps to drop access to the story. Facebook, according to its policy communications manager, began using its distribution of pending arm thirdparty check fact check. Twitter went beyond that, blocking all users including the House Judiciary Committee from sharing the article. Twitter even locked the New York Post account entirely, claiming the story included hacked materials and was potentially harmful. It is worth noting that both twitter and facebooks a version materials has not always been so stringent. For example, when the president s tax returns were illegally leaked, Neither Company acted to restrict access to that information. Similarly, the now discredited dossier was widely shared without Fact Checking or disclaimers. This apparent double standard would be appalling under normal circumstances but the fact that selective censorship is occurring in the midst of the 24 election cycle dramatically amplifies the powers wielded by facebook and twitter. Recently generated its own controversy when it was revealed that the company threatened to cut off several conservative websites including the federalist from their ad platform. Relyno mistake, for sites heavily on advertising revenue for their bottom line, being blocked from Google Services were being the monetized can be a death sentence demonetized according to google. , the offense was posting user submitted comment sections that included objectionable content. Googles own platform, submittedhosts user comment sections for every video uploaded. It seems that google is far more zealous in policing conservative sites than its own youtube for the same types of offensive and outrageous claims. It is ironic that when the subject of Net Neutrality arises, Technology Companies have warned about the grave threat of blocking or throttling the flow of information on the internet. Meanwhile, these same companies are actively blocking and throttling the distribution of content on their own platforms and are using protections under section 32. Is it any surprise that voices on the right are complaining about hypocrisy or even worse, antidemocratic election interference . These recent incidents are only the latest in a long trail of censorship and suppression of conservative voices on the internet. Reasonable observers are left to wonder whether these firms are obstructing the flow of information to benefit one political ideology or agenda. Concern is that these platforms have become powerful arbiters of what is true and what content users can access. The American Public gets little insight into the decisionmaking process when content is moderated and users have little recourse when they are censor or restricted. I hope we can all agree that the issues we will discuss today are ripe for examination and action. Ive introduced legislation to clarify the Liability Protections and increase the accountability of companies who engage in content moderation. The act would make important shield,to the liability make clear what type of content moderation is protected. This legislation would address the challenges we have discussed while still leaving fundamentals 230. Ction although some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle would characterize this as a truly partisan exercise, there is strong bipartisan support for reviewing section 230. In fact, both president ial candidates, trump and biden have proposed repealing section 230 in its entirety, a position i have not yet embraced. I hope we can focus todays discussion on the issues that affect all americans, protecting a true diversity of viewpoints and free discourse central to our way of life. I look forward to hearing from todays witnesses about what they are doing to promote transparency, accountability, and fairness in their content moderation process. I cannot thank each of them for with each of them enough in the scheduling of his testimony. I have turned to my friend senator cantwell for her opening remarks. Well the state of washington in my Senate Office here in washington, d. C. , the various ecosystems of the state of washington which we very much appreciate. I bring that up because just recently, the seattle area was named the number one economy in the United States, the most stem workforce in the United States of economy. The issue about how we use the Information Age to work for us and not against us is something that we deal with everyday of the week and we want to have discussion and discourse. I believe that discussion and discourse today should be broader than just issues of privacy that our committee has addressed, the issue of how to make sure there is a free and competitive new market. I know that today we are not calling in the nad publishers association, asking them why they havent printed or reprinted information that you allude to in your testimony, that you wish was more broadly distributed. To have the competition in the news market is to have a diverse of voices a diversity of opinion and in my report just recently released, we showed that true competition really does help information both for our economy and for the health of our democracy. So i do look forward to discussing these issues today. What i do not want todays hearing to be is a Chilling Effect on the very important aspects of making sure that hate speech or misinformation related areealth and Public Safety allowed to remain on the internet. We all know what happened in 2016 and we had reports from the fbi, our intelligence agencies, and a Bipartisan Committee that concluded in 2016 that russian did, masquerading as americans, use targeted advertisements, intentionally falsify news articles, self generated content, social media platforms in order to attempt to feed tens of millions of social media users in the United States. The director of national intelligence, then former said then warning lights are blinking red, the infrastructure that serves our country is literally under attack. I take this issue very seriously and i have for many years. The is, making sure as special counsel mueller indicated, 12 russian Intelligence Officers hacked the dnc for various information hishing attacks. So when we have a Committee Hearing and former bush Homeland Security director decides, i asked him pointblank because there were some of our colleagues who were saying, you know what, everybody does election interference. So i asked him if election interference was something that we did for should be encouraging. That he agreed interfering with infrastructure or elections is completely offlimits and unacceptable. That is why i believe that we should be working aggressively internationally to sanction anybody that interferes in our election. So i hope today that we will get a report from the witnesses on exactly what they have been doing to clamp down on election interference. I hope that they will tell us what kind of hate speech and misinformation they have taken off the books. It is no secret that there are various state actors who are doing all they can to take a at democracy, to try to say that our way of government, that our way of life, that our way of freedom of speech and information is somehow not as being awe have made it beacon of democracy around the globe. I am not going to let or tolerate people who continue to our election process, vote by mail system, or the ability of tech platforms, security companies, our Law Enforcement, and the corrected community to speak against misinformation and hate speech. We have to show that the United States of america stands behind our principles and that our principles do also transfer to the responsibility of communication online. Note, weleagues will have all been through this in the past. That is why you, mr. Chairman, at,i sponsored the hacked to help increase the security and Cyber Security of our nation and create a workforce that can fight against that. That is why i joined on the deter act especially in establishing sanctions against Russian Election interference and continue to make sure that we build the infrastructure of tomorrow. So i know that some people think that these issues are out of sight and out of mind, i guarantee you they are not. There are actors who have been active for a long time. They wanted to destabilize Eastern Europe and we became the second when they tried to destabilize our democracy here. I want to show them that we, the United States, do have fair elections, we are going to be that the can of democracy. So i hope that as we talk about the witnesses and the progress they have made in making sure that this information is not allowed online, that we will also consider ways to help build and strengthen that. That is to say, and some of those were testifying today, what can we do about , reporting, analysis, and yes, i think youre going to hear a lot about algorithms today. And the constant oversight that we all want to make sure that we can continue to have the diversity of voices in the United States of america, both online and offline. Chairman,to say, mr. I am concerned about the vertical nature of news and information. Today i expect to ask the fact that iout the believe they create a chokepoint for local news. The local news media have lost 70 of their revenue over the last decade and we have lost thousands, thousands of journalistic jobs that are important. It was even amazing to me that the sequence of events yesterday had me being interviewed by who wasat a newspaper funded by a joint Group Foundation and probably facebook funds to interview me about the fact that the news media and such asts have fallen on decline because of the loss of revenue as they have made the transition to the digital age. Somehow, somehow we have to come together to show that the diversity of voices, that local donerepresents needs to be with fairly when it comes to the Advertising Market and that too much control in the advertising foott puts it f puts a on their ability to move forward and grow in the digital age. Just as other forms of media have made the transition, we want to have a very healthy and dynamic news media crop united they did america. So i plan to ask the Witnesses Today about that. Go intoe had time to depth on privacy and privacy issues but mr. Chairman, you know, and so do other copies of the committee, how important it is that we protect American Consumers on privacy issues. That we are not done with this work, that there is much to do to bring consensus in the United States on those important issues, and i hope that as we do have time or in the followup to these questions, that we could ask the witnesses about that today. Make no mistake, gentlemen, thank you for joining us, but this is probably one of many, many, many conversations that we will have about all of these harnessut again, lets the Information Age as you are doing, but lets also make sure that consumers are fairly treated and that we are making it work for all of us to guarantee our privacy, our diversity of voices, and upholding our democratic principles and the fact that we, the United States of america, stand for freedom of information and freedom of the press. Thank you. Sen. Wicker thank you, certainly you are correct that this will not be the last hearing with regard to this subject matter and i also appreciate you mentioning your concerns which i share about local journalism. Point, we are about to receive testimony from witnesses. Before we begin that, let me remind members that todays hearing will provide senators withseven minute rounds, a round of seven minute questioning rather than the usual five minutes. At seven minutes, the gavel will lets say a few seconds after seven minutes. So, this hearing could last some three hours 42 minutes at that rate. Extensive andn lengthy hearing. Members are advised that we will hear closely to that seven minute limit and also shortly before noon, at the request of water witnesses, we will take a short 10 minute break. With that, we welcome our panel of witnesses, thank them for their testimony and ask them to give their Opening Statements. Summarizing them in five minutes, the entire statement will be added at this point in the record and we will begin with mr. Jack dorsey of twitter. Us, and we have contact with you . Mr. Dorsey yes, can you hear me . Sen. Wicker yes, thank you for being with us. You are now recognized for five minutes. The dorsey thank you for opportunity to speak about twitter and section 230. My remarks will be free so we can get to questions. Section 230 is the most important law protecting internet speech. In removing section 230 we will remove speech from the internet. Eight Internet Services two important tools. The first provides immunity from liability for user content. The second provides Good Samaritan protections for content moderation and removal, even of constitutionally protected speech as long as it is done in good faith. Faith ispt of good what is being challenged by many of you today. Some of you dont trust we are acting in good faith. Thats the problem i want to focus on solving. , how do weke twitter ensure more choice in the market . Were are three solutions would like to propose to address the concerns raised. Thatocused on services moderate or remove content. , newcan be expansions legislative frameworks, or a commitment to industrywide selfregulation practices. Is requiring a services moderation process to be published. Other cases reported in reviewed. How are decisions made . What tools are used to enforce . Policy answers to questions like these will make our process more robust and accountable to the people we serve. The second is requiring a straightforward process to appeal decisions made by humans rather than algorithms. This ensures people can let us know when we dont get it right, so we can fix any mistakes and make our policies better in the future. Of the content people see today is determined by algorithms. Very little visibility into how they choose what they show. Which of the first step in making this more transparent by building a button to turn off her home timeline algorithm and to get started, we are inspired by the market approach suggested in 2019. Ephen wolfram enabling people to choose algorithms to rank and filter the content is an incredibly energizing idea that is in reach. Processg one moderation and practices to be published, two, a straightforward process to appeal decisions, and three, best efforts around algorithmic choice. They are all achievable in short order. As critical as we consider these solutions, we have minds for new set of an independent developers. That ensures a level Playing Field that increases probability of competing ideas to help solve problems. We must entrench the largest we must not entrench the Largest Companies any further. Thank you for your time and i look forward to a productive discussion to dig into these and other ideas. Sen. Wicker thank you very much, mr. Dorsey. Mr. Call on you are recognized for five minutes. A powerful force for good. Drastically improve information whether it is connecting americans to jobs, getting critical updates to people in times of crisis, or helping a parent find and answer questions like how can i get my baby to sleep for the night . At the same time, people everywhere can use their voices to share new perspectives, express themselves, and reach broader audiences than ever before. Wherever you are a barber in mississippi or a home renovator or building a successful business right from your living room. The internet has been one of the most important equalizers. Information can be shared and knowledge can flow from anyone to anywhere. The same low values to entry also make it possible for bad actors to cause harm. Is toompany Whose Mission make information universally accessible and useful, google is deeply conscious of both the opportunities and risks the internet creates. Im proud of the Information Services like search, gmail, maps and photos provide thousands of dollars per year in value to the average american for free. We feel a deep responsibility to keep the people who use our products safe and taken care of and have long invested in innovative tools to prevent abuse of our citizens. Privacy,omes to keeping information safe, treating it responsibly and putting you in control, we continue to make privacy improvements like the changes announced earlier this year to keep less data by default and the creation of comprehensive privacy laws. We are equally committed to protecting the quality and integrity of information on our flat and supporting our democracy in a nonpartisan way. That is just one timely example. Our information panels on google and youtube inform users about how to vote and register. We have taken many steps to raise highquality journalism from sending 24 billion visits to news websites globally every month, to a recent 1 billion investment in partnerships. Since our founding, we have been deeply committed to the above expression. We also feel a responsibility to protect people who use our products from harmful content and to be transparent about how we do that. Dont we disclosed clear guidelines for our products and platforms. We recognize that people come to our services with a Broad Spectrum of perspectives and they are dedicated to Building Products that are helpful to users of all backgrounds. Let me be clear. Approach our work to do otherwise would be contrary to both our business interests and our mission which compels us to make information accessible to every type of person, no matter where they live and what they believe. Of course our ability to provide access to a wide range of information is only part of it because of existing legal frameworks like section 230. The United States had offered section 230 early in the internet history and has been foundational to the tech sector. It protects the freedom to create and share content while supporting content platforms and services of all sizes. We appreciate that this company has put great thought it out platforms have content and we look forward to having these conversations. As you think about how to shape policy in this important area, i would urge the committee to be very thoughtful about any changes to section 230 and to be very aware of the consequences those changes might have on businesses and customers. At the end of the day, we all share the same goals. Accessing information for everyone and responsible collections for people and their data. Forupport legal frameworks these goals and i look forward to engaging with you today about these important issues and answering your actions. Thank you. Sen. Wicker thank you very much. Members should be advised at this point that we are unable to make contact with mr. Mark zuckerberg. We are told by facebook staff attemptingalone and andonnect with this hearing that they are requesting a fiveminute recess at this point to see if that connection can be made. Is a most Interesting Development but we are going to accommodate the request of the to see ifmployees within five minutes, we can make contact and proceed. At this point, i declare a fiveminute recess. [gavel strikes] i called hearing back into order. Less than five minutes, we has excess. Mr. Zuckerberg, i am told that we have both video and audio connection. Are you there, sir . I am. Uckerberg yes, sen. Wicker you are now recognized for five minutes. Welcome. Tok zuckerberg i was able hear the other Opening Statements. I was just having a hard time connecting myself. Sen. Wicker i know the feeling, mr. Zuckerberg. Mark zuckerberg members of the committee, millions of americans every day use the internet to share their experiences and discuss issues that matter to them. Setting the rules for online discourse is an important challenge for our society and there are at stake that go beyond any one platform. How do we balance Free Expression and safety . How do we define what is dangerous . Who should decide . I dont believe that private companies should be making so many decisions about these issues by themselves but facebook, we often have to balance competing equities. Sometimes the best approach from the safety perspective is not the best for privacy or Free Expression. We work with experts across society to strike a balance. We dont always get it right, but we try to be fair and consistent. That people have their different ideas and views about where the lines should be. Say that weten dont remove enough content and republicans often say we were moved to much. I expect we will hear some of those criticisms today. The fact that both sides criticize us doesnt mean that were getting this right, but it does mean that there are real disagreements about what the limits of online speech should be. I think that is understandable. People can reasonably disagree about where to draw the line. That is a hallmark of democratic society. Especially here in the u. S. Where there are strong First Amendment traditions. It strengthens my believe that when a private company is making these calls, we need a more accountable process. We issued quarterly reports, launched an independent Oversight Board that can overturn our decisions, and submitted audits of our content reports. But i believe congress has a role to play too to get people conference that the process is carried out in a way that balances societys equally held values appropriately. Right now the discussion is focused on section 230. Some say that ending 230 would solve all problems. Others say it would end the internet as we know it. From our perspective, section 230 does two basic things. First, it encourages Free Expression which is fundamentally important. 230, platforms could essentially be held liable for everything that people say. They faced much greater pressure to take on more content to avoid legal risk. Second, it allows platforms to moderate content. 230, but once conveys liability for basic moderation. Theres a reason why america leads in technology. Section 230 helped create the internet as we know it. It has helped them ideas get built and our companies to spread American Values around the world and we should maintain this event but the internet is also evolving and i think the congress should update the law to make sure it is working as intended. Place to start would be making content moderation systems more transparent. Another would be to separate good actors from bad actors by making sure that companies cant hide behind section 230 to avoid responsibility for intentionally facilitating illegal activity on their platforms. We are open to working with congress on these ideas and more. Will bringchanges truth to the spirit and intent of 200 30. There are consequential choices to make here and its important that we dont prevent the next generation of ideas from being built. This year is about content policy, but i also want to cover election preparedness. In six days, we are in the midst of a pandemic in their ongoing threats to the integrity of the election. Since 2016, facebook has made Major Investments to stop foreign interference. Weve hired more than 35,000 people to work on safety and security. Weve disrupted more than 100 Networks Coming from russia and iran, china and more that were misleading people about who they are and what they are doing including earlier this week. This is an extraordinary election and we have updated our policies to reflect that. We are showing people reliable information about voting and results, and we have strengthened our misinformation policies. We are also running the largest voting Information Campaign in u. S. History. We estimate that weve helped more than 4. 4 Million People registered to vote, and 100,000 people volunteered to be pulled workers. Candidates on both sides continue to use our platforms to reach voters. Are rightly focused on the role that Technology Companies play in our election. Im proud of the work that weve done to support our democracy. But is a difficult period i believe that america will emerge stronger than ever and we are focused on doing our part to help. You veryer will thank much, mr. Zuckerberg and thanks to all of our witnesses. I think were supposed to set the clock to seven minutes. Somehow we will keep time. There we are. Well, thank you all. Let me start with mr. Dorsey. Dorsey, the committee has compiled dozens and dozens of examples of conservative content being censored. And being suppressed fire platform over the last four years. I entered these examples into 1 when theon october Committee Voted Unanimously to issue these subpoenas and thank you, all three again for working with us on the scheduling. Illuminating the necessity for actually exercising the subpoenas. Your platform allows foreign dictators to post propaganda, typically without restriction. Yet you routinely restrict the president of the United States. Heres an example. In march, a spokesman for the Chinese Communist hearty falsely accused u. S. Military of causing the coronavirus epidemic. He tweeted cdc was caught on the spot, when did patient zero begin in the u. S. . How many people are infected, what are the names of the hospitals . It might be the u. S. Army who brought the epidemic to wu han. And on and on. After this was up for some two months, twitter added a fact check label. After being opportune month. However, when President Trump tweeted about how mailin , a broadre vulnerable statement that i subscribed to and agree with and a statement that is in fact, true, twitter immediately deposed a fact check label on that week. Mr. Dorsey, how does a claim by Chinese Communists that the u. S. Military is to blame for covid remain up for two months without a fact check and the president s tweet about security of mailin ballots get labeled instantly . Mr. Dorsey first and foremost, as you mentioned, we did label that tweet. We consider severity of potential offline harm and we act as quickly as we can. We have taken action against tweets from World Leaders all around the world including the president and we did take action on that tweet because we saw it, we saw the confusion it might encourage, and we labeled it accordingly. Sen. Wicker you are speaking of the president . Mr. Dorsey yes. The goal of our labeling is to provide more content, to connect the dots so people can make decisions for themselves. Weve created these policies recently. We are enforcing them. There are certainly things that we can do much faster. Generally, we believe that the policy was enforced in a timely manner. Yet, you seemnd to have no objection to a treat by the Chinese Communist party saying the u. S. Army brought the epidemic to wuhan . Mr. Dorsey we did, and we labeled that. It took you two months to do so, is that correct . Im not sure of the exact time frame. We can get back to you. You are going to get back to us about how the tweet from the Chinese Communist party falsely accusing the u. S. Military causing the epidemic was left up for two months with no comment from twitter while the president of the United States making a statement about ballotareful about security with the mail was labeled immediately. Tweet hear from mr. Ajir pai, the chairman of the federal Communications Commission a jit p ajit pai. Four tweets bye , whichnian dictator twitter did not place a public label on. All four of them glorified violence. The first says this, and i quote each time, the zionist regime is a deadly, cancerous growth and a testament to the region, it will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed. That is the first. The second, the only remedy until the removal of the zionist resistance. M, or again, left up without comment by twitter. Ree third, the struggle to f palestine is jihad in the way of god. I quote that in part for the sake of time. Number four, we will support and assist any nation who opposes and fights the zionist egime. I would simply point out that these tweets are still up. Mr. Dorsey. How is it that they are acceptable to be there . I will ask unanimous consent to enter this tweet from ajit pai. How is mr. Dorsey how, mr. Dorsey, is that acceptable based on your policies at twitter . Mr. Dorsey we believe its important for everyone to hear from Global Leaders. And we have policies around World Leaders. We want to make sure that we are respecting their right to speak and to publish what they need. But if there is a violation of our terms of service, we want to label it. Sen. Wicker they are still up, do they violate your terms of service . Mr. Dorsey we did not find those to violate our terms of service because we consider them part of the speech of World Leaders in concert with other countries. Each against our own people or a countries on citizens, we believe is different and can cause more immediate harm. Very, very telling information, mr. Dorsey. Thank you very much. Senator cantwell, you are ready. Cantwell for them to center peters just because of the timing for him i am deferring to center peters because of senator peters because of the timing for him. Peters i appreciate your default to me, i certainly appreciate that consideration a great deal. I want to thank each of our panelists today for being a witness and i appreciate all of you accommodating reschedules so we can have this hearing. My first question is for mr. Zuckerberg, and i want to start off by saying how much i appreciated the opportunity last night to speak at length on a number of issues and as i told you last night, i appreciate this books facebooks to killto foil the plot our governor, governor witmer. The individual in that case apparently used facebook for a broad recruiting effort, but they actually planned the specifics of that operation off of your platform. My question is when users reached the level of radicalization that violates your community standards, you often will ban those groups which drive them off to other platforms. Those platforms tend to have less transparency and oversight. The issue that i would like you to address, for those individuals that remain on your farform, they are often down the path of radicalization, they are definitely looking for an outlet. I understand that facebook has recently adopted a strategy to redirect users who are searching , for example, for election this information, but it doesnt seem that policy applies to budding violent extremists. Mr. Zuckerberg, the you believe that your platform has a responsibility to offramp users who are on the path to radicalization by violent Extremist Groups . Thanks for the question, i think this is very important. My understanding is that we actually do a little of what you are talking about here. , fore are searching for example, white supremacist organizations, we treat them as terrorist organizations. Not only are we not going to show that content but i think we tried to highlight information that would be helpful and i think we try to work with experts on that. I can follow up and get you more information on the scope of those activities and when we invoke that, but i certainly agree with the spirit of the question that this is a good idea and something that we should continue pursuing and perhaps ban. Comments,ciate those on the Ranking Member on the Homeland Security committee. What we are seeing is a rise in violent Extremist Groups which is very troubling and certainly we need to work very closely with you as to how to disrupt those kind of radicalizations, are using folks that your platforms so i appreciate the opportunity to work further. Night,alked about last you asserted that facebook is proactively working with Law Enforcement now to disrupt some of these realworld, violent ofempts that stem from some those activities that originate on your platform. Could you tell me, specifically, how many threats you have proactively referred to local or state Law Enforcement prior to being approached for a preservation request . Mr. Zuckerberg senator, i dont know the number off the top of my head. So i can follow up with you on that. But it is increasingly common that our systems are able to detect when there is potential issue and over the last four years in particular, we have built closer partnerships with Law Enforcement and the Intelligence Community to be able to share those kinds of signals. Maybe the attempted kidnapping, i think it was about six months ago. That is part of their routine and how we operate. Peters discovery tools and recognition algorithms that your platform use for potentially extremist content based on the user profiles of folks, we seek to understand why membership in these Extremist Groups is rising and i would hope that your companies are right now engaging in some forensic analysis of membership or once you take down an Extremist Group, you take a look at how that happened on your platform. Certainly to better inform us as to how to disrupt the spike of recruitment into Extremist Groups. My question for you is that in 2016, you said, and this was apparently an internal facebook document that was reported to the wall street journal, that said that 64 of members of violent groups became members because of your platforms recommendation. Report that that was reported in the wall street journal said our recommendation were the problem. That is clearly very concerning. I know you have made changes to your policies, you have made changes to some of the algorithms that existed at that time. Have you seen a reduction in your platforms facilitation of Extremist Group recruitment since those policies were changed . Mr. Zuckerberg senator, im not familiar with that specific study but i agree with the concern and making sure that our recommendation systems for what groups people are given the isortunity to join certainly one important factor for addressing this issue. We have taken a number of steps here including disqualifying groups from being included in our recommendation systems at all if they routinely are being misinformation or if they have content violations for a number of other criteria im quite focused on this, i agree with where youre going with that question. I dont have any data today on the realworld impact of that yet. Senator peters i appreciate you agree with that, you dont have the data just at the top of your head, or it doesnt exist . Mr. Zuckerberg certainly the former. Potentially the latter as well. Timeobably takes some after reading changes to be able to measure the impact of it. Whatm not aware of studies are going on. This seems like the type of , not that one would want just internal facebook researchers to work on, but also potentially a collaboration with independent academics as well. You, mr. Er thank zuckerberg and senator peters. Senator thune has graciously deferred. , you arener recognized for seven minutes. Thank you for sharing your time or at least differing your time to me. Rring your time to me. And thank you for being here. Mr. Dorsey, i am going to direct these questions to you. Do you believe that the holocaust really happened, yes or no . Mr. Dorsey yes. So you would agree that someone who says the holocaust may not have happened is spreading misinformation. Mr. Dorsey yes. I appreciate your answers but they surprised me and probably a lot of other americans. After all, irans ayatollah has done exactly this, questioning the holocaust. And yet his tweets remain on flagged on twitters platform. Moderate agree that your platform makes sense in certain respects. We dont want the next terrorist finding inspiration on twitter or any platform for that matter. But you also decided to moderate certain content for influential World Leaders. Can you name any other instance of twitter hiding or deleting a treat tweet . Mr. Dorsey not off the top of my head but we have many examples across World Leaders around the world sen. Gardner . Would you be willing to provide a list of those . Mr. Dorsey absolutely. Sen. Gardner i know we established that content moderation can combat terrorism but twitter has chosen to approach combating misinformation as well. It is strange to me that you flag the tweets from the president that have not hidden on ayatollahs tweets Holocaust Denial or call to wipe israel off the map. You cannot recall other tweets from World Leaders, i would appreciate that list. Question tomy next the front, does twitter maintain a formal list of certain accounts that you actively monitor for misinformation . Mr. Dorsey no, and we dont have a policy against we have a policy against misinformation in three categories which are manipulating media, Public Health, specifically coded, and covid, and election interference and Voter Suppression. That is all we have policy on for misleading information. We do not have policy or enforcement for any other types of misleading information. Sen. Gardner so somebody denying the murder of millions of people or instigating violence against a country is not categorically falling into any of those three misinformation or other categories . Mr. Dorsey not misinformation but we do have other policies around violence, some of the trees that you mentioned may fall ballot. But for misinformation, we are focused on those three categories only. Sen. Gardner somebody who denies the holocaust happened is not misinformation. Is misleading information but we dont have a policy against that type of misleading information. Sen. Gardner millions of people died and that is not a violation of again, i just dont understand how you can label the president of the United States, have you ever taken a tweet down from the ayatollah . Mr. Dorsey i believe we have. We certainly have labeled tweets and i believe we have taken one down as well. Sen. Gardner you said you dont have a list, is that correct . Mr. Dorsey we dont maintain a list of accounts we want. We look for reports and issues brought to us and then we way it against our policy. Sen. Gardner reports from your employees . Mr. Dorsey from the people using the service. Sen. Gardner and they turned that over to your board to review, is that correct . Mr. Dorsey well, so, in some cases. There are numerous examples of blue checkmarks that are spreading false information that are not flagged. Twitter must have some kind of list of accounts that are maintained. How did you decide when to lag a tweet flag a tweet . Is there a formal threshold . Mr. Dorsey no. Sen. Gardner so twitter cant claim with your answers on the ayatollah and others, i dont understand how twitter can claim to want a world of less information while you simultaneously let the kind of content that the ayatollah has tweeted out on the platform including from other World Leaders. Americansnder that are concerned about politically motivated content moderation at twitter given what we have just said. I dont like the idea of the group of unelected elites in Silicon Valley deciding whether my speech is permissible on their platforms, and i like even less the idea of unelected washington, d. C. Bureaucrats trying to enforce some kind of politically neutral content moderation. Just as we have for it from we have to bes, very careful and not rush to legislation in ways that stifle speech. You can try to ditch google but you cannot unsubscribe from government senses. Congress should be focused on encouraging speech not restricting it. The Supreme Court has tried teaching us that lesson time and time again and the constitution demands that we remember it. Im running short on time so if we could very quickly go to another question. One of the core ideas of section shouldnt be responsible for what someone else says on your platform. Theersely, you should liable for what you say or do on your own platform. The court has not always agree with this approach, any recent wall street journal oped, section 230 has sometimes been interpreted more broadly, allowing some websites to escape liability. Zuckerberg, a simple question for you quickly, to be clear, im not talking about technical tools or operating the platform itself. Im purely talking about content. Do you agree that internet platforms should be held liable for the specific content that you, yourself create on your own platforms . Mr. Zuckerberg senator, i think that is reasonable. Sen. Gardner yes or no, mr. Dorsey, should twitter be liable . Mr. Dorsey that is reasonable as well. Reliable forgle be the content it creates . Mr. Pichai if we are acting as a publisher, i would say yes. The specific content you create. Mr. Pichai that seems reasonable. The goodfaitho removal provision in section 230, i know i am out of time, so mr. Chairman, thank you for giving me this time. Thank you to the witnesses. Wicker the Ranking Member has deferred to senator klobuchar, so senator you are now recognized. Klobuchar i want to know first why this hearing comes six days before election day, and it i believe we are politicizing and the republican majority is politicizing what should actually not be a partisan topic, and i do want to thank the witnesses here for appearing, but also for the work that they are doing to try and encourage voting and to put out the correct information when the president and others are undermining vote by mail, something we are doing in every state of the country. Second point, republicans failed to pass the honest ads act and the white house blatantly blocked the bipartisan Election Security bill that i had with senator langford as well as several other republicans and it is one of the reasons i think we need a new president. Third, my republican colleagues in the senate, many of them i work with very well on, but we have had four years to do something when it comes to privacy, local news, a subject that briefly came up and so many things. I will use my time to focus on what i consider a blueprint for the future. I will start with you mr. Zuckerberg. How many people log into facebook every day . Mr. Zuckerberg senator, it is more than 2 billion people. Sen. Klobuchar and how have how much money you made over political advertisements . Mr. Zuckerberg i do not know, it is a relatively small part. 2. 2klobuchar it is billion, those are your numbers and we can check them later. Facebookquire employees to review the content of each of the political ads that you sell . In order to can ensure that they comply with the law and your own internal rule . Allzuckerberg we require political advertisers to be verified before they can run ads. Reviewbelieve we do advertising as well. Sen. Klobuchar does a real person read the ads, yes or no . Mr. Zuckerberg i imagine that a person does not look at every single add. A combination of Artificial Intelligence systems and people. We have 35,000 people who do content and security review for us. That is achar straightforward question. I think the algorithms hit in, because i think the ads are instantly placed, is that correct . Mr. Zuckerberg my understanding of the way the system works is computers and Artificial Intelligence scan everything, and if we think there are potential violations, the ai system will act or flag it to the tens of thousands of people who do content review. Sen. Klobuchar you could have a real person review like all the other traditional media organizations do. When john mccain, i, and senator warner got the honest ads that we got pushed back and you were against it, and then we just got this set of hearings and you are for, i appreciate it. Have you spent any of the money, i know you spent the most money over lobbying last year. Have you spent any of the money trying to change or block the bill . Mr. Zuckerberg no, in fact i have endorsed it publicly and we have implemented it into the system even though it has not become law. Klobuchar have you done anything to get it passed, because we are at a roadblock on it . I do appreciate that you voluntarily implemented some of it, but if you voluntarily implemented the part of the act ou fully disclose the people being targeted by political ads . We haveerberg industryleading transparency and part of that is showing which audiences in broad terms ended up seeing the ads. Getting the right resolution right resolution on that is challenging without it being a privacy issue, but we have tried to do that with as much transparency as we can. Klobuchar i do not mean to interrupt you but we have such limited time. The last thing we will ask you platform,eness on the and i know there has been a recent study that shows that part of your algorithm that push people towards more polarized content, left, right, whatever. One of your researchers worn Senior Executives that we exploit human brains attractiveness to divisiveness. More time on the platform and the Company Makes more money. Does that bother you what it has done to the apollo our politics . Mr. Zuckerberg i respectfully disagree with that characterization now of how the system works. We design our systems to show people the content most meaningful to them which is not trying to be as divisive as possible. Most of the content is not political, it is things like making sure that you can see when your cousin had her baby. Sen. Klobuchar i am going to move on to google. But i am telling you right now that that is not what i am talking about, the cousins and the babies. I am talking about conspiracy theories and all the things that senators on both sides of the aisle know what i am talking about, and it has been throughout days. Notle, mr. Pichai, i have liked your response to the lawsuit and what has been happening. I think we need a change in competition policy, i hope i will be able to ask you more about it at the Judiciary Committee, and i think your response is not offensive, but defiant. You control almost 90 of all Search Engine queries, 70 of Advertising Markets. Do you not see these practices as anticompetitive . Senator, we see robust competition in many categories of information. , we are innovating, lowering prices and all the markets we are operating in. We are happy to engage in this discussion further. Sen. Klobuchar one of your employees suggested that google was not dominant and add text, it was one of Many Companies in a highly competitive landscape. And yet google has 90 of publisher at server markets of its doubleclick acquisition, but does the market sound highly competitive when you have 90 of it . Mr. Pichai many publishers can use many tools. Has grown significantly in the past two years. , wemarket inventory share are happy to take feedback. We are trying to support the publishing industry, but we are open to feedback. Thank you. Forward to our next hearing. I appreciate you convening that hearing, which is an important followup to the sub commuting hairy hearing. Many of us here today, and many of those that we represent are concerned about the possibility of political bias and discrimination by large internet platforms. Others are concerned that even if your actions are not skewed that they are hugely consequential for our public debate, yet you operate with limited accountability. Byh distrust is intensified the fact that the moderation practices used to suppress or amplify content remain largely a black box to the public. What were the public explanations for taking down and suppressing content seem like can seem like excuses. Witho exceptional secrecy which platforms protect their algorithms and content moderation practices it has been impossible to improve one way or another whether political bias exists. Users are stuck with anecdotal information that seems to confirm their worst fears, which is why i reduce i have introduced two bipartisan bills bubblet and filter give users act to insight and how algorithms might be amplifying or suppressing information. I look forward to continuing that discussion. My democrat colleagues suggest that when we criticize the bias against conservatives that we are sometimes working the refs, but the analogy assumes that it is legitimate to think of you as refs, and it assumes that you three ceos get to decide what political speech gets amplified or suppressed. It assumes that your the arbeiters of tru of truth. Yes or no, i would ask this of each of the three of you, are the democrats correct that you guys are the legitimate referees over our political speech. Mr. Zuckerberg . Mr. Zuckerberg senator, i certainly think not and i do not want us to have that role. Sen. Thune mr. Dorsey, argue the wrath . Are you the ref . Mr. Dorsey no. Pichai . Ne mr. Mr. Pichai we make content moderation decisions, but we believe in maximizing freedom of expression. Sen. Thune i will take that as three nose and i agree with that, you are not the referees of our political speech which is why all three have to be more transparent and fair with content moderation policies and selection algorithms. At the moment it is largely a black box. There is real mistrust among the American People about whether you are being fair or transparent, and this extends to concerns about the amplification and suppression decisions that your platforms make on election day and the postelection period if the results are too close to call. I want to underscore for my democratic friends who keep using this really bad referee andogy, google, facebook, twitter are not the referees over our democracy. Actnd question, the pact includes provisions to give users due process and an exclamation when akon when content they post is removed. This is a yes or no question, do you agree that the user should be entitled to due process and an explanation when content they post has been taken down . Mr. Zuckerberg . Mr. Zuckerberg i think that would be a good principal to have. Sen. Thune mr. Dorsey . Mr. Dorsey absolutely. Affair we have a fair and straightforward appeals process. Mr. Zuckerberg, and mr. Dorsey, your platforms knowingly limited the visibility of this New York Post article about the contact content on Hunter Bidens abandoned laptop and many in the country are concerned how often the suppression of major newspaper articles occurs online and, i would say, mr. Zuckerberg, would you commit to provide for the record a complete list of newspaper articles that facebook suppressed or limited the distribution of over the past five years along with an explanation of why each was suppressed or the distribution was limited. Mr. Zuckerberg i can certainly follow up with you and your team to discuss that. An independent Fact Checking program, as you are saying. We try not to be arbiters of what is true ourselves, but we have partnered with Fact Checkers around the world to help assess that to prevent misinformation and viral hoaxes from becoming widely distributed and, i believe that the information that they fact checked in the contact that they fact checked content that they fact checked is public so there is already a record of days. Sen. Thune could you do that as applies to newspapers and that would be helpful. Mr. Dorsey could you commit to doing the same . Mr. Dorsey we would absolutely be a open to it and we are suggesting going a step further, which is aligning what you are introducing the pact act which is more transparency around our process, content moderation process and the results and outcomes, and doing that on a regular basis. I do think that builds more accountability and lends itself to more trust. Quickly, i very often hear from conservative and religious americans who look at the public statements of your companys, the geographic concentration of your companies, and the political donations of your employees which are 80 to 90 to democrat patel politicians, and you can see why this lack of ideological diversity among the executives and employees among the company could be problematic and may be contributing to distrust among conservatives and republican users. I guess the question that i would ask is, and mr. Zuckerberg , my understanding is that the person that is in charge of Election Integrity and security at facebook is a former joe someoneaffer, is there closely associated with President Trump in the same role at facebook . And how do you all respond to that argument that there is an insufficient balance in terms of the political ideology or diversity in your companies, and how do you deal with the lack of trust that creates among conservatives. Let us see if we can have brief answers. I think having balance is valuable and we tried to do that. I am not aware of the example of you say of someone in charge of this process who worked for biden in the past, so we can follow up on that. Followup for the rest of the answer on the record. Mr. Dorsey. This is why i believe it is important to have more transparency around our process and practices. And, it is independent of the viewpoints that our employees hold. Need to make sure that we are showing people that we have objective policies. Mr. Mr. Pichai. In these teams there are people who are liberal, republican, libertarian, and so on. We talk widely with thirdparty organizations and we build up our policies, as the ceo i am committed to running it without any political bias and i am happy to engage more. Sen. Wicker the Ranking Member has deferred to senator blumenthal, you are recognized. You blumenthal thank chairman and Ranking Member, i want to begin by associating myself with the very thoughtful comment made by the Ranking Member as to the need for broader consideration of issues competition and local news. They are vitally important, and also with comments made by my colleagues, senator klobuchar, about the need for antitrust review and i assume we will be able we will be examining these topics before the Judiciary Committee. You know, i have been an advocate of reform for section 230 for literally 15 years. When i was attorney general in connecticut, i raised this issue of the absolute community that immunity that seems inappropriate. I welcome the bipartisan consensus of that there that there needs to be constructive review. But frankly i am appalled that my republican colleagues are hoping this hearing holding this hearing days before an election when they seem to want browbeat the platforms to try to help them favor. President trumps the timing seems inexplicable, ref, ino game the effect. I recognize that the analogy is not completely exact, but that is exactly what they are trying to do. Namely, to bully and browbeat these platforms to favor senator President Trumps tweets and posts. And, frankly, President Trump has broken all of the norms and he has put on the platforms potentially dangerous and lethal misinformation and disinformation. I will hold up one of them. This one, as you can see pertains to covid. We have learned to live with it, he says, just like we are learning to live with covid talking about. In most populations, far less the fact that shell driven are almost that children are almost immune to the disease. Elections, egghe problems and discrepancies with problemsallots big with discrepancies in mailin ballots. Fortunately the platforms are acting to label and take down these kinds of posts, my republican colleagues have been silent. They have lost their phones or platforms,s, and the in my view have voice int lost your midsentence, richard. Let us suspend for a minute until we get blumenthal sen. Can you hear me now . We can hear you now. Start back one sentence before, we had you until then. Sen. Blumenthal , about those dense information just about tion, and disinforma now we have this hearing that is designed to intimidate and browbeat the platforms that have information for what it is. We are on the verge of a massive onslaught on the integrity of our election. President trump has indicated that he will potentially nterfere by posting disinformation. Alreadyians have interfered in our elections. We have all received briefings that are literally chilling about what they are doing, and have issuedcsis public alerts that foreign actors and cyber criminals are informationpread dis. They are making 2016 look like childs play with what they are doing. And the President Trump republicans has a plan which involves disinformation and misinformation. The russians have a plan. I want to know whether you have a plan, facebook, twitter, president plan if the ons your platforms to say the day of the election that fraudis rigging, or without any basis in evidence, thettempts to say that election is over and the voting the counting of votes must stop, either on november 4 or someday subsequent. Onould like this question whether or not you have a plan, a yes or no. We do. Our policy is related to all of the areas that you just mentioned. Candidates or campaigns trying to delegitimize voting or the election, candidates trying to prematurely declare victory, and candidates trying to spread Voter Suppression material that is misleading about how, when, or where to votes, so where we have taken a number of steps on that front. Can we take mr. Mr. Pichai mr. Pichai next and then mr. Dorsey. Mr. Pichai senator, we have been planning for a while, and we rely on raising up our new sources through moments like that. Partneredt closely with the Associated Press to provide you the most Accurate Information possible. Plan,rsey we also have a isour plan and enforcement pointing to information and specifically state Election Officials. We want to give the people using the service as much information as possible. Thank you. Senator cruz. Sen. Cruz i want to thank you for holding this hearing. The three witnesses we have before this committee collectively pose i believe the single greatest threat to free speech in america and the greatest threat we have to free and fair elections. Yesterday i spent a considerable amount of time speaking with mr. Zuckerberg and mr. Pichai. I have concerns about behavior the behavior of both of their companies. Facebook is at least trying to make some efforts in the direction of defending free speech, i appreciate them doing so. , i agree with the concerns that senator klobuchar raised. I think google has more power than any company on the face of the planet, and the antitrust concerns are real, the impact of google is profound, and i expect that we will have continued and ongoing discussions about googles abuse of that power and its willingness to manipulate search outcomes to influence and change Election Results. To focus my want questioning on mr. Dorsey and twitter. Because of the three players before us, i think twitters conduct has been the most egregious. Twitter haveoes the ability to influence elections . Mr. Dorsey no. Sen. Cruz you do not believe that twitter has any ability to influence elections . Mr. Dorsey no, we are one part of Communication Channels that people can take part of. Sen. Cruz when twitter silences, sensors people and blocks political speech, that has no impact on election. Mr. Dorsey people have choice of other Communication Channels. Sen. Cruz not if they do not have information. If you do not believe you have the power to influence elections, why do you block anything . Mr. Dorsey we have policies that make sure that more voices are possible. We have more abuse and harassment that makes people leave for the platform. Sen. Cruz i find your opening answer is absurd. Let us talk about the last two weeks. I have been concerned about twitters pattern of silencing individual americans with whom twitter disagrees. To two weeks ago twitter and a lesser extent, facebook crossed a fest a threshold that is fundamental in our country. Two weeks ago twitter made the decision to censor the new york of twon a series blockbuster articles alleging arctic evidence of corruption the ukrainebiden in and communist china. Twitter made the decision to prevent any user from sharing those stories, and number two, you went further and blocked the New York Post from sharing its own reporting. Why did twitter make the decision to censor the New York Post . Mr. Dorsey we had a materials policy. Sen. Cruz when was that adopted . Mr. Dorsey in 2018. The policy is around limiting the spread of cheerios that are hacked. We did not want twitter to be a distributor for hacked materials. We found that the New York Post because it showed the direct materials, screenshots of the direct materials and it was unclear how those were obtained that it felt that it fell under the policy. Sen. Cruz if it is unclear the source of a document, in this instance, the New York Post documented the source, a laptop owned by hunter biden that had been returned to a repair store. They were not hiding the source. Is it your position that twitter when you cannot tell the source blocks press stories . Mr. Dorsey not at all. Our team made a fast decision. The enforcement action however of blocking ruls in tweet urls and tweets indirect messages was incorrect. Postruz the new york is still blocked from tweeting two weeks later. Mr. Dorsey they have to log onto their account, delete the original tweet which fell under our original Enforcement Actions and they can tweet the exact same material to the exact same article and it will go through. Sen. Cruz you have the power to force a media outlet, let us be clear. Not someyork post is random guy tweeting, it is the fourth highest circulation of any circulation america. And foundedars old by alexander hamilton, and your position is that you can sit in Silicon Valley and demand of the media that you can tell them what stories they can publish and the American People what reporting they can hear, is that right . Mr. Dorsey mr. Dorsey every organization that signs up to twitter agrees to a terms of service. Sen. Cruz you are still blocking them. Right now, today you are blocking their posts. Tweet,sey , anyone can we are not blocking their post. Sen. Cruz they can post on their twitter account . Unless they genuflect and agree with your dictates. You claimed it was because of hacking materials policy. Highly dubious and clearly employed in a deeply partial way. Did twitter block the distribution of the New York Times story if you weeks ago that reported to be based on copies of President Trump tax returns . Find that we didnt a violation of our terms of service because there was a recording about the material. It was not disturbing the material. Sen. Cruz thats actually not true, they purported to publish federally published material, its a federal felony to distribute someones tax recent tax returns is their knowledge so that material was based on something distributed in violation of federal law and yet twitter gleefully allowed people to circulate that but when the article was critical of joe biden, twitter engaged in rampant censorship and silencing. Again, we changed our policy within 24 hours. Sen. Cruz dorsey they can post. Sen. Cruz you forced a political reporter to take down their post. Her dorsey within that 24 hours yes but as the policy change, sen. Cruz you can sense of the New York Post and politico and the New York Times or any other media outlet. Mr. Dorsey, who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and what the American People are allowed to hear and why do you persist in behaving as a democratic super pac, silencing views to the contrary of your political views. Lets give mr. Dorsey a few seconds to answer that and we will have to conclude this segment. Mr. Dorsey we are not doing that. Thisis why i opened hearing with calls for more transparency. Morealize we need to earn trust. We realize more accountable is needed to show our intentions and show our effort so i hear the concerns and i acknowledge them. We want to fix it with more transparency. Thank you, senator cruz. The Ranking Member has deferred to senator schatz who joins us remotely. Sen. Schatz this is an unusual hearing at an unusual time. I have never seen a hearing so close to an election on any topic, let alone something that is so obviously a violation of our obligation under the law and the rules of the senate to stay out of election hearings. We never do this and there is a very good reason we dont call people before and yell at them for not doing her bidding during an election. It is a misuse of taxpayer dollars. Its happening here and its a scar on this committee and the United States senate when we see today in attempt to bully the ceos of private companies and carrying out a hit job on president ial candidates let making sure they push out foreign and domestic misinformation and influence the election. Our Witnesses Today, you are the tech leaders and can either stand up to this moral behavior. Some of my colleagues accusing you and your employees of being biased or liberal, you have institutionally bent over backwards and overcompensated. Posted revit dinners with Republican Leaders in terms of your service, given special dispensation and even throttled progressive journalism. Simply put, the republicans have been successful in this play. During one of the most consequential elections in american history, my colleagues are trying to run this play again and it is an embarrassment. I have plenty of questions for the witnesses on section 230, on antitrust, and privacy, antisemitism, on their relationship with journalism, but we have to call this hearing what it is, it is a sham. For the first time in my eight years in the United States senate, im not going to use my time to ask any questions because this is nonsense. Its not going to work this time. This time this play my collies are running did not start today and as much is happening in the senate. It is a coordinate effort by republicans to cross the government. President trump issued an executive order designed to narrow section 230 and discourage platforms from engaging in content alteration on their own sites. After it was issued, President Trump started tweeting that section 230 should be repealed as if he understands section 230. In the last six month, President Trump has tweeted repeal section 230 five times. In addition to other tweets in which he has threatened to cut companies. A few weeks later, President Trump withdrew the nomination of fcc commissioner michael orielly. Republican commissioner oreilly questioned the fccs ability to regulate under section 230 in the statute is not unclear on this. President trump then nominated simington. Have been only bills introduced to moderate content on their site and as the election draws closer, this republican effort has become more and more aggressive. September 23, do g doj unveiled its only its own section 230 and would discourage platforms for moderating content on their own site. 1,tember 14 and october senators holly and kennedy tried to pass the republican only section 230 bills by unanimous consent. That means they went down to the floor them without a legislative hearing, no input from democrats at all, they tried to pass something so foundational to the internet unanimously without any discussion in any debate. Day, senator wicker forced the Commerce Committee without discussion or negotiation before to vote on subpoena the ceos of these companies to testify. That is why we are here today. Two weeks later on october 14, Justice Clarence thomas on his own issued a statement that appears to support the narrowing of the courts interpretation of section 230. The very next day, the fcc chairman announced the fcc would seek to clarify the meaning of section ing. Sen. Schatz committee would subpoena the Tech Companies over the content moderation. In the context of this, edition to everything, is that senators crews and maria barton promo talked about a blockbuster story from the New York Post and senator hawley is on fox in the senate floor and the Congress Committee is tweeting out a that sorttyle video of alarmingly says Hunter Bidens emails, tech censorship. On october 20 one, senator hawley reattempted to pass the bill in section 230 again without going through any Committee Markup or vote. On friday, senator graham announced to the ceos of facebook and twitter would testify before the senate Judiciary Committee on november 17. This is bullying. It is for electoral purposes. Do not let the United States senate bully you into carrying the water for those who want to advance misinformation. Dont let the specter of removing section 230 protections or an amendment to antitrust law or any other kinds of threats because you to be a party to the subversion of our democracy. I will be glad to participate in good faith by partisan hearings on these issues when the election is over. But this is not that. Thank you. Senator shatz, next to senator fischer. Sen. Fischer i am not here to bully you today and on i am not here to read any political statement before an election. To me, this hearing is not a sham. Claritye to gain some on the policies that you use. I am here to look at your proposals for more transparency because your platforms have become an integral part of our democratic process. But alsocandidates more importantly, for our citizens as well. Your platforms also have enormous power to manipulate user behavior. Content and shape narratives. Nestor dorsey, i heard your Opening Statement and you also tweeted that the concept of good faith is whats being challenged by many of these here today. Some of you dont trust and are acting in good faith and thats the problem i want to focus on helping. Mr. Dorsey, why should we trust you with so much power . In other words, why shouldnt we regulate you more . I am suggesting making the rounds around transparency and thats how we build trust. We agree we should be publishing more of our practice of content moderation. We have made decisions to moderate content. We have made decisions to moderate content to make sure we are enabling as many voices on our platform as possible. And completely agree with concerns that it feels like a black box. Anything we can do to bring transparency to it including publishing our policies, or practices, answering simple questions around how content is moderated and then doing what we can around the growing trend of algorithms, moderating more content. Toughaid, this one is a one to ashley bring transparency to. Explain ability is a field of research that is far out and i think the better opportunity is giving people more choice around the algorithms they use. This includes people turning off the algorithms completely which is what we are attempting to do. Sen. Fischer you can understand the concerns see people have when they that what many consider you making value judgments on whats going to be on your platforms. Report contentan and then you take actions. Understandyou can that people are very concerned, very worried about what they see as manipulation on your part. You say you will have more yeah, i would say with respect, i dont think thats enough just to say youre going to have that transparency there and you are not influencing people. Press isme, a free bought on both sides with what we would view in the political world as both sides when views are not able to be expressed. That does have a huge amount of influence. Mr. Dorsey i completely understand and i agreed that its not enough. I dont think transparency alone addresses the these concerns. I think we have to continue to push for a more straightforward and fast and efficient appeals process. I believe we need to look deeply at algorithms and how they are used and how people have choice on how to use the algorithms or whether they use them. Sen. Fischer ultimately, someone makes a decision. Where does the buck stop . Who will make the value judgment because in my opinion its a value judgment. Mr. Dorsey ultimately, i am accountable to all the decisions the Company Makes and we want to make sure we are providing clear frameworks that can be tested and that we have multiple checkpoints associated with them so we can learn quickly if we are doing something inapt. Sen. Fischer amplifies someny content over others, is it fair for you to have Legal Protections for your actions . Mr. Dorsey we believe so. Keep in mind, a lot of our algorithms recommending content is focused on saving people time. We are ranking things, the algorithms believe people will find the most relevant. Sen. Fischer but as your value judgment on what people find most interesting. Mr. Dorsey its based on who you follow and activity you take on on the network. Sen. Fischer mr. Zuckerberg with your everexpanding moderation policies, are you materially involved in that contents . Yes, ikerberg senator, have spent a meaningful amount of time and making sure we get our content policies and enforcement right. Sen. Fischer two section 230 to address the specific concerns regarding content moderation that you have heard so far this morning . Mr. Zuckerberg i would outline a couple. First, i agree with jack that increasing transparency and the content moderation process would be an important step for Building Trust and accountability. One thing we already do at facebook is every quarter, we issue a transparency report wherefore each of the 20 or so categories of harmful content that we are trying to address so terrorism, child exploitation, incitement of violence, pornography, different types of content. We issue a report on how we are doing, what the prevalence of that content is on the network and what percent of it our systems are able to take down before someone even has to reported to us. Precision and basically how accurate our systems are to deal with it. Getting to the point where everyone across the industry is reporting on a baseline like that, i think would be valuable for people to have these discussions, not just about anecdotes like i saw a piece of content and im not necessarily sure im i agree how was moderated, it would allow the conversation to move to data so we can understand how these platforms are performing overall and held accountable. Think it wouldi be the time involved and it wouldnt be an Immediate Response to have that conversation as you call it. I hope all three of you gentlemen can answer that question. My time is up, thank you very much. Senatore going to take cantwells questioning after which, we are going to accommodate our witnesses with a five minute recess so senator cantwell, you are recognized. Thank you mr. Chairman, can you hear me . We can now see you. Sen. Cantwell thank you you, mr. Chairman. This is such an important hearing. I agree with many of the statements my colleagues have had. That this hearing did not need to take place at this moment, that the important discussion about how we keep a dry a thriving internet economy and how we continue to make sure that hate speech and misinformation is taken down from the web is something that would probably have better been done in january then now. But here we are today and we have heard some astounding things. I definitely must refute. First of all, i am not going to take lightly anybody who tries to undermine mailin voting. Mailin voting in the United States of america is safe. The state of washington, the state of oregon have been doing it for years, there is nothing wrong with our mail in system. I think there will be secretaries of state, there will be our Law Enforcement agencies who work are but state Election Officials and others who will be talking about how this process works and how we are going to fight to protect it. I am also going to not demean an organization just because they happen to be headquartered in the state of washington. Or to have business there, that some of the claims just because of the geography of a company somehow makes it uber political for one side of the aisle or another, i seriously doubt. I know that because i see many of you coming to the state of washington for republican fundraisers with these officials. I know you know darned well that there are plenty of republicans that work in hightech firms. The notion that somehow these people are crossing the aisle because of something involving censorship, the notion that free speech is about the ability to say things and it doesnt take maybe we need to have a History Lesson from high school again yes, free speech means that people can make outrageous statements about their beliefs. I think the ceos are telling us here what their process is for taking down Health Care Information thats not true, that is a threat to the public, and information that is a threat to our democracy. That is what they are talking about. Thatt to make it clear this hearing could have happened at a later date and i dont appreciate the misinformation that is coming across today that is trying to undermine our election process. It is safe. It is the back of what distinguishes america from other countries in the world. We do know how to have safe and fair elections. One of the ways we are doing that is to have these individuals work with our Law Enforcement entities, mike kelly gary peters, made it clear that they successfully helped stop a threat on the governor of michigan and because they were working with them to make sure that information was passed on. This is what we are talking about. We are talking about whether we will be on the side of freedom of information and whether we will put our shoulder to the wheel to make sure that engine is there or whether we will prematurely try to get rid of 230 and squash free speech. I want to make sure we continue to move forward. Mr. Zuckerberg, i would like to turn to you because there was a time when there was great concern about what happened in miramar about the government using information against a muslim minority. You took action and reform of the system. September,ly, in facebook and twitter announced they had suspended at this point, i am proud that our company as well as others in the industry have built systems that are very effective at this. We cannot stop countries like russia only the u. S. Government can push back to do that. We have built up systems to make sure we can identify which faster when they are attempting to do that. I think that you give the American People a good amount of confidence leading into the election. Is it true those entities are using domestic packagers to disturb this information. I mr. Zuckerberg in some cases, we are seeing mr. Zuckerberg mr. Zuckerberg domestic interference operations as well in the system hes too involved to be able to identify and take those down as well. Networks that i cited that we took down, about half were domestic operations. Thats in various countries around the world, not primarily in the u. S. We need to make sure that we continue pushing forward aggressively on that. Sen. Cantwell i would learn i would like to turn to mr. Pichai. From is information now media organizations that it may be as much as 3050 of google broadcastershat and newsprint are losing somewhere between 30 and 50 of their revenue, that they could be getting to newspapers and broadcasting, losing it to the formats that google has as it relates to their platform and add information. Can you confirm what information youhave about this and do think google is taking ad revenue from these news sources in an unfair way mr. Pichai mr. Pichai . Senator, its an important topic. Its a complex topic. , particularlylism local journalism is very important. Ae internet has been disrupting force in the pandemic has exacerbated that post i would make the case that we believe in raising news across our products because we realize we respect journalism. We have sent a lot of traffic to publications. We shared a majority of revenue back to publishers. Here are investing in sub and products. We have committed to make the billion dollars in new licensing over the next three years to news organizations. Emergencyaded up an fund for covid through four local journalistic institutions. There are plenty of examples but the Underlying Forces which are impacting the industry which is the internet and whether it google or otherwise sen. Cantwell i dont have a clock on me so i dont know how much time i have. You are half a minute over. Sen. Cantwell you hit on the keyword, majority. You given the majority of the revenue to these broadcast entities. Yes, theyve had to make it through the transformation which is rocky but the message from todays hearing is the free press needs to be supported by all of us we look forward to discussing how we can make sure they get fair returns on their value, thank you, mr. Chairman. We will now take a five will ecess and we most of our members have not yet had a chance to ask questions. We will be in recess for five minutes. This hearing on social media regulations with executives from facebook, google and twitter is taking a quick break. When resumed, we will will continue our live coverage here on cspan. I want to thank you, mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. The three speakers we have before us today i believe pose the greatest threat to free speech in america. Yesterday, i spent a considerable amount of time speaking to them. I have grave concerns about both companies. Trying tos at least make some efforts to defend free speech. I appreciate their efforts doing so. Google, i agree with the concerns senator klobuchar raised. I think google has more power than any company on the face of the planet and the antitrust concerns are real, the impact of expectis profound, and i we will have continued and ongoing discussions about googles abuse of that power and its willingness to manipulate search outcomes to influence and change Election Results. I want to focus my questioning on mr. Dorsey and twitter because of the three we have before us, i believe twitters conduct has been the most egregious. Mr. Dorsey, does twitter have the ability to influence elections . Mr. Dorsey no. Mr. Cruz you dont believe twitter has the ability to influence elections . Mr. Dorsey no. Testifying toare this committee right now that when twitter silences people impact on elections . Mr. Dorsey people have a choice of other Communication Channels. If you dont think you have the power to influence elections, why do you block anything . Mr. Dorsey we see a lot of abuse and harassment, which ends up silencing people and causing them to leave the platform. Mr. Cruz i find your opening answers absurd on their face. Lets talk about the last two weeks in particular. Long beenw, i have concerned about twitters pattern of censoring and silencing individual americans with whom twitter disagrees, but and to a ago, twitter lesser extent facebook crossed a threshold that is fundamental in our country. Two weeks ago, twitter made the unilateral decision to censor the New York Post and a series of blockbuster articles alleging corruption against joe biden, the first concerning ukraine, the second concerning communist china. Twitter made the decision to prevent any user from sharing those stories. Two, you went even further and blocked the New York Post from sharing on twitter its own reporting. Twitter make the decision to censor the New York Post . Dorsey we have a policy mr. Cruz when was the policy adopted . Dorsey 2018. We adopted a policy of limiting distribution of materials that spread disinformation. Materialnshots of the made it unclear how it was obtained. It fell under this policy. In your view, if it ,s unclear what the source is which the New York Post said what the source was, a laptop from hunter biden they were not hiding what they claimed to be the source. It is your decision that when twitter cannot tell the source, press stories . Mr. Dorsey no, our team made a and we changed it. Mr. Cruz right now, the New York Post is still blocked from tweeting two weeks later. Mr. Dorsey yes, they have to log in, which they can do right now, delete the original tweet, and now they could tweet the exact same article and it would go through. Cruz, so you have the ability to force a media outlet. Lets be clear. The New York Post is not just some random guy. The New York Post is 200 years old, founded by alexander hamilton, and your position is that you can sit in Silicon Valley and demand that the media, you can tell them what stories they can publish, tell the American People what they can hear. Is that right . Mr. Dorsey no, every person, every account, every organization that signs up to twitter agrees to the terms of service. Mr. Cruz so the media has to genuflect and be willing to obey your dictates. No, we recognized an error in this policy and its enforcement. Mr. Cruz you are still blocking their posts. Even today, you are blocking their posts. Can the New York Post post on their twitter account . Mr. Dorsey if they go to their account mr. Cruz if they agree to your dictates. Let me ask you something. You have a hacked materials policy. There are videos clearly employed are, you are recognized. Thank you very much. , initially, the topic that seems to be primary. Oday, privacy let me ask all three witnesses, how much money does your company spend annually on content moderation . How many people work in general in the area of content moderation . Let me start with those two also wantand then i to ask how much your company spend defending lawsuits around user content on your platforms . Mr. Zuckerberg senator, we have more than 35,000 people who work on content and safety. I believe our budget is multiple billions of dollars a year on this. 3 billion ors of more a year, which is a greater that we arevenue spending on this than the revenue of our company was the year before we file to go public in 2012. We use both human reviewers and ai moderation systems. I would again i am not sure the exact numbers, but im sure it is north of a billion dollars. I dont have the specific numbers, but we want to maintain the agility between the people we have working on this and our ability to monitor it. Estimatech would you your companies are currently spending on pending lawsuits . Same order. Senator, i dont know the answer to that off the top of my head, but i can get that to you. We do spend a lot on legal lawsuits, but i am not sure how much applies to content related issues, but i am happy to followup. Mr. Dorsey i dont have those numbers. Moran i want to use your answers to highlight a topic of conversation. Whatever the numbers are, you indicate that they are significant. Its an enormous amount of money and an enormous amount of employee time and labor time dealing with questionable content. I would highlight for my colleagues on the committee that it would be less expensive, not less in scale, but less in cost for startups and small business. I want to make sure that entrepreneurship, start startup and businesses can meet the kind of costs acquired. Let me quickly turned to federal privacy. I chair the consumer data , and worked to develop a bipartisan piece of legislation. We were successful in doing so. Let me ask mr. Zuckerberg, facebook entered into a Consent Order with the fcc in july of 2012 andtc in july of later agreed to pay a 5 million penalty following the cambridge a incident. My legislation would provide the ftc with civil penalty authority. Of toolhink this type would better deter unfair practices and the current enforcement . Mr. Zuckerberg i would need to understand it in a little more detail before weighing in on we are going to be setting up an industryleading Privacy Program. We have more than 1000 engineers. Orking on the Privacy Program we are implementing a program that is sort of the equivalent of startups. Obviously, there is financial regulation, internal auditing and controls around privacy and protecting peoples data. I think that settlement will be in ensuring that peoples data and privacy are protected. Mr. Moran google had a milliondollar settlement with the ftc in the state of new york for violations. It involved persistent consumers over the age of 13. We have done two things. Youtube today, the way the internet gets used, families view content. Privacy is one of the most. Mportant areas we believe in giving users control, choice, and transparency. There. See what data is we give data portability options and controls. And there is an important change for all new users. We delete data automatically without them needing to do anything. Checkups. Acy mr. Moran i do not see my timeclock. Do i have time for one more . You do not. Thank you so much. Mr. Martin. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Today, trump, his republican and hisn Congress Propaganda parrots on fox news are peddling a myth. And today, my republican colleagues on the senate Commerce Committee are civilly doing the president s bidding. Doing the president s bidding. Lets be clear. Inublicans could join us addressing the real problems posed, but instead, they are focused on a small narrative bias anticonservative meant to intimidate big tech so that it will stand idly by and ourw interference in election again. Here is the truth. Violence and hate speech online are real problems. Anti bias is a real problem. Attempts to influence our election with disinformation is a real problem. Anticonservative bias is not a real problem. Not aonservative bias is problem. The issue is not that the companies before us today are taking too many posts down, the issue is they are leaving too many dangerous post up. , disinformation spreads like wildfire and torches our democracy. When President Trump posted on facebook that when the looting starts, the shooting starts, mr. Zuckerberg, you failed to take down that posts. Today, it has hundreds of thousands of shares and likes. Since then, the president has gone on National Television and told a hate group to stand by and he has repeatedly refused to commit to accepting the Election Results. If the president goes on facebook and encourages violence after Election Results are announced, can you commit that your company algorithms will not spread that content and you will immediately remove those posts . Mr. Zuckerberg incitement of our policy against and there are not exceptions to that, including for politicians. Mr. Markey that is very important, because obviously, sent could be a message that could throw our democracy into chaos. A lot of it can be and will be doated if social media sites not cease what President Trump says. Ukraine lies about the outcome of the election, can you make sure your algorithms do not amplify that content and that you will take it down . We have a policy in place that prevents any candidate or campaign from prematurely declaring victory or trying to delegitimize the result of the election. What we will do in that case is information to any post trying to do that. If someone says they won the election before the result is in , we will append that with a statement that official results are not in yet, so anyone who sees that post will see that context. Also, if one of the candidates tries to prematurely declare victory or sites incorrect results, we have a precaution we have built into put at the top of the facebook app for everyone who signs and in the u. S. , accurate u. S. Out election voting results. I think this is a very important issue to make sure people can get accurate results about the election. Mr. Markey it could not be viewed as anything less than critically important. Democracy could be challenged for several days or longer, and a lot of responsibility is going to be on the shoulders of facebook. If trump uses private citizens to patrol the polls on election day, which would constitute illegal voter intimidation in violation of the Voting Rights act, will you commit that your algorithms will not spread that content and that you will immediately take it down . Mr. Zuckerberg content like what youre describing would violate our Voter Suppression policy and would come down. Mr. Markey the stakes are very high, and we are going to take that as a commitment. Obviously, you would otherwise marka serious question over our elections. We know facebook cares about one thing, keeping users glued to their platform. One of the ways you do that is with facebook groups. Mr. Zuckerberg, in 2017, you had a goal of one billion users joining groups. Unfortunately, these pages have become breeding grounds for hate and echo chambers of disinformation. Facebook is failing to take this information down, actively spreading misinformation, and helping groups recruit members. 64 of all extremists joined groups due to facebooks recommendation tools. Do you commit to stopping recommendations on your platform until u. S. Election results are certified . We have takenerg mr. Zuckerberg we have taken the steps of stopping recommendations for all political groups. Just to clarify, the vast majority of groups and communities people are part of our not extremist organizations or even political. Interestbased and communities that i think are quite helpful and healthy for people to be a part of. I do think we need to make sure our recommendation algorithm doesnt encourage people to join Extremist Groups. That is something we have already taken a number of steps on and i think its important that we continue to make progress. If your algorithms foster political violence, at the very least, you should disable those. Let me askerberg, you this. In these scenarios that mr. Markey was posing, the action of facebook would not be a function of algorithms in those cases, would it . Mr. Zuckerberg you are right and that is a good clarification. A lot of this is more about enforcement of content policy. Algorithm,ng is an but a lot of it is content enforcement. Mr. Wicker thank you for clarifying that. Senator blackburn, you are recognized. Thank you for will coming here voluntarily. We appreciate that. There are undoubtedly benefits to your platform as you have heard everyone mention today. There are also some concerns, also hearing. Privacy, free speech, politics, religion. I kind of chuckled sitting here. Istening to you it reminds me that you are in control of what people are going to hear, what they are going to see, and therefore you have the whatty to dictate information is coming into them. I think its important to that you are set up as an information source, not as news media. Therefore, censoring things may be seen as unseemly to people in other parts of the country. Let me ask each of you very quickly, do you have any content moderators who are conservative, mr. Dorsey first . Yes or no . Mr. Dorsey we do not ask political ideology. Mr. Zuckerberg senator, we do not ask for ideology, but we have 35,000 moderators in cities and countries all over the world, so i would assume yes. We hire them through the United States, so yes. Blackburn looking at some , you havensoring censored joe biden zero times, mr. Dorsey. You have censored donald trump 65 times. So i want to go back to senator gardners question. You said Holocaust Denial and doeats of jewish genocide not violate twitters rules and its important for irans leaders the terrorist leader to have a platform on twitter. I think this is called a dictatorship. Our people in iran allowed to use twitter, or just a country whose leader you claim deserves a platform banned them from doing so . Think most i do people in iran can use twitter. Blackburn mr. Dorsey, is donald trump a world leader . Mr. Dorsey yes. Sen. Blackburn ok, so it would be important for World Leaders to have access to your platform, correct . Mr. Dorsey correct. Sen. Blackburn so why did you deny that platform through censorship of the u. S. President . We have not censored the u. S. President. Sen. Blackburn yes you have. How many posts from the ayatollah have you censored . Vladimirposts from putin have you censored . Mr. Dorsey we do not take down the tweets but we add content around it. Sen. Blackburn and the u. S. President you have censored 65 times. You have testified you are worried about election interference. That is something we are all worried about. For about 100 years, foreign sources have been trying to influence u. S. Policy and u. S. Elections. Now they are on your platforms. They see this as a way to get access to the American People. Given your refusal to censor or butforeign dictators regularly censoring the president , arent you at this very moment personally flooding theor nation with foreign disinformation . Mr. Dorsey just to be clear, we have not censored the president. We have not taken the tweets down that youre referencing. We have added context with a label and we do the same for leaders around the world. Do you share any of your data mining with the Democratic National committee . This is for all three of you. Mr. Dorsey i am not sure what you mean by the question. We have a data platform. We have a number of customers. I am not sure of the customer list. We dont keep a list of accounts that we watched. Sen. Blackburn is blake lemoine, one of your engineers still working with you . Mr. Pichai i am not sure if he is currently an employee. Sen. Blackburn well, he has had very unkind things to say about me, and i was just wondering if kept him there. I also wanted to mention the way you have censored things. Searches for joe biden generated approximately 30,000 impressions. For breitbart links. This was on may 1. After may 5, both the impressions and the links went to zero. I hope what you realized from is ahearing is that there pattern. Realize it exists, but there is a pattern of subjective manipulation of the Information Available to people from your platforms. Functionalamilys life is now being conducted online. This, more people are realizing that you are picking winners and losers. You are trying to mr. Zuckerberg, you said facebook functioned more like a government than a company, and you are beginning to insert yourself into these issues of free speech. Mr. Zuckerberg, with my time that is left, let me ask you this. You mentioned early in your remarks, that you saw some things as competing equities. Is the First Amendment a given right or a competing equity . Mr. Zuckerberg i believe strongly in Free Expression. Sorry, i was on mute. I do think that like all equities, that it is balanced against other equities like safety and privacy, and even the people who believe in the strongest possible interpretation of the First Amendment still believe there should be some limits on speech when it could cause imminent risk of harm. The famous example used is that you cant shout the word fire in a crowded theater. Getting those equities and the balance right is the challenge we face. The time has expired. We believe in the First Amendment. We will have questions to follow up. Thank you mr. Chairman. I cant see the clock. Senator udall. Andr. Chairman, thank you, senator camp well, i appreciate this hearing. I want to start by laying out three facts. The u. S. Intelligence community has found that the russian on elections intent interference in the United States. They did it in 2016, they are doing it in 2020. Intelligence also says they want to help President Trump. They did so in 2016. The president doesnt like this to be said, but it is a fact. We also know that the russians strategy this time around is going after hunter biden. I recognize that the details of how to handle misinformation on the internet are tough, but i think the Companies Like twitter and facebook that took action to not be a part of a suspected Russian Election interference operation were doing the right thing. Let me be clear. No one believes these companies represent the law or represent the public. When we say the u. S. Government is the referee. The fcc, congress, the presidency and the Supreme Court are the referees. It is very dangerous for President Trump, Justice Thomas and republicans in congress and at the fcc to threaten new federal laws in order to force social Media Companies to tolify false claims conspiracy theories and disInformation Campaigns. My question to all three of you, to the russian government and other foreign nations continue to attempt to use your compan spreadatforms to misinformation . Can you briefly describe what you are saying what you are seeing . Please start with mr. Dorsey, mr. Pichai and mr. Zuckerberg, you gave a partial answer on this and i would like you to expand. Thank you. Mr. Dorsey yes, so we continue to see interference. We recently disclosed actions we took on both russia and actions originating from iran. We made those disclosures public. We can share those with your team. This remains, as youve heard from others on the panel and has mark has detailed, one of our highest priorities and we want to make sure we are focused on eliminating as much platform manipulation as possible. Senator, we do continue to see coordinated influence operation attempts. We have been very vid we have been very vigilant. We appreciate we are sharing information. We published transparency reports in june and identified a group one from iran, of 35 targeting the trump campaign. A group in china targeting the biden campaign. Are removed through spam filters but we notify intelligence agencies, and that is an example of the type of activity we see. We need area where strong cooperation with government agencies. Mr. Zuckerberg. Mr. Zuckerberg senator, like see and sundar, we also continued attempts by russia and other countries, especially iran and china to run these kinds of information operations. We have also seen an increase in domestic operations around the world. Fortunately, we have been able to build partnerships across the industry, both with the companies here today and Law Enforcement and the intelligence communities to share signals to identify these threats sooner. Along the lines of what you mentioned earlier, one of the has alerted the fbi our companies and the public to was the possibility of a hack and leak operation in the days and weeks leading up to this election. You have public testimony from the fbi, and in private meetings, alerts that were given to at least our company. I assume the others as well. They suggested that we be on high alert and sensitivity, and that if a trove of documents appeared, we should view that with suspicion, that it might be part of a foreign manipulation attempt. That is what we are seeing, and i am happy to go into more detail. Thank you very much. Really simple question, i think a yes or no. Will you continue to push back against this kind of foreign interference, even if powerful republicans threatened to take official action against your companys question mark mr. Zuckerberg, why dont we start with you and work our way back . Mr. Zuckerberg absolutely. This is incredibly important to our democracy, and we are committed to doing this work. Mr. Pichai absolutely. Protecting our civic and democratic is fundamental to everything we do. Mr. Dorsey we will continue to work and push back on any manipulation. Thank you, for those answers. Mr. Zuckerberg, to facebook and other social Media Networks have an obligation to prevent disinformation and malicious actors spreading conspiracy theories, Dangerous Health disinformation, and hate speech, even if preventing its spread means less traffic and potentially less advertising revenue for facebook . Mr. Zuckerberg senator, in general, yes. I think for Foreign Countries trying to interfere in democracy , that is a relatively clearcut question, where i would hope that no one disagrees that we dont want Foreign Countries or governments trying to interfere in our elections through disinformation or fake accounts or anything like that. Around health disinformation, we are in the middle of a pandemic. It is a health emergency. I certainly think this is a High Sensitivity time. We are treating with extra sensitivity, any misinformation that could lead to harm around covid. That would lead to people not getting the right treatments or not taking the right security precautions. We do draw a distinction between harmful misinformation and information that is just wrong, and we take a harder line and more enforcement against harmful misinformation. To. Enator cap thank you mr. Chairman and thank you for being with us today. I would say that anytime we can get the three of you in front of the American People, whether it is several days before an election or several days after, is extremely useful and can be very productive. I appreciate the three of you coming and the committee holding this hearing. Americans turn every day to your platforms for a lot of information. I would like to give a shout out to you mr. Zuckerberg. The last time he was in front of our committee, i asked him to of facebook into Rural America and helped and help with fiber deployment. We have seen how important that is, and he followed through with that and i would like to thank him and his company for helping partner with us in West Virginia to get more people connected. I think that is essential. I would make a suggestion when we get to the end we talk about what i think we can do with that Million Dollar fines some companies have been penalized on. We could make a great jump and get that household. The topic today is objectionable content. Knowly, each one of you, i that in section 230, it says that the charge is objection all content or otherwise objectionable. Ofld you be in favor redefining that . I think that is where some of these questions become difficult to answer. We will start with mr. Dorsey, on how do you define otherwise objectionable, and how can we improve that definition, so that it is easier to follow . Mr. Dorsey our interpretation of objectionable is anything that is limiting the speech of others. All of our policies are focused on making sure people feel safe to express themselves, and when we see abuse, harassment, misleading information, these are all threats against that and make people want to leave these conversations. That is what we are trying to protect, making sure that people feel safe enough and free enough to express themselves in whatever way they wish. A followup to that, as much as it has been talked about, the blocking of the New York Post. Do you have an instance of when you blocked somebody that would be considered politically liberal, on the others in this country . Do you have an example of that . Not how but is that is not how our policy is written or enforcement is taken. Im sure there are a number of examples, but that is not our focus. We are looking purely at the violations of our policies and taking action against that. Mr. Zuckerberg, how would you define otherwise objectionable how would you define the definition of that, to make it more objective than subjective . Mr. Zuckerberg thank you. When i look at the written and the in section 230, content that we think shouldnt itallowed on our services, includes general bullying and harassment of people on the platform. Somewhat similar to what jack was talking about a minute ago. I would worry that some of the proposals that suggest getting rid of the phrase otherwise objectionable from section 230 would limit our ability to remove bullying and harassing content from our platforms, which would make them worse places for people. I think we need to be careful in how we think through that. Thank you. Mr. Pichai . Content is soe of 50000 hours hours a minute of video uploaded. To give you an example, a few years ago, there was an issue consuming tieds pods tide pods. When we encounter those issues, we can act with certainty. Shooter livestreaming horrific images, we were able to intervene. That is what otherwise objectionable allows. I think that flexibility is what allows us to focus. We always state clearly what we are doing on all platforms. Thank you. I am hearing from all three of you, that the definition is fairly acceptable to you all. Sometimes i think it can go suit i think sometimes i think you can go too much to the eye of the beholder, you all or your reviewers or your ai and it gets to a region where you become very subjective. I want to move to a different topic. In my personal conversations with at least two of you, you expressed the need to have the 230 protection because of the protections it gives to small innovators. I think all of us are wondering, who amongst them . How many small innovators and how much market share with a possibly have, when we see the dominance of the three of you . I understand you started as small innovators, i get that. How could a small innovator really breakthrough, and what does 230 really have to do with the ability i am not skeptical on the i am quite skeptical on the argument, frankly. Whoever wants to answer that. Mr. Zuckerberg, do you want to start . Mr. Zuckerberg sure, senator. When we were Getting Started with building facebook, we were subject if we were subject to a larger number of content lawsuits because 230 didnt exist, that likely would have been prohibitive for me as a College Student in a dorm room to get started with this enterprise. It may make sense to modify 230 at this point, just to make sure that it is working as intended, but i think it is extremely important that we make sure that for Smaller Companies that are Getting Started, the cost of having to comply with any regulation is either waived until a certain scale or is taken into account so that we are not preventing the next set of ideas from being built. Thank you, senator. Senator paul wood. Thank you. I would like to begin by making two points. I believe the republicans have called this hearing in order to support a false narrative, fabricated by the president to help his reelection process. Number two, i believe that the Tech Companies here today need to take more action, not less, to combat misinformation, including misinformation on the election, misinformation on the covid19 pandemic, and meantormation and posts to incite violence. That should include misinformation spread by President Trump on their platforms. Asking thetart with committee to bring up my first slide. Dorsey, i appreciate the work that twitter has done to flag or even take down false or misleading information about covid19, such as this october 11 tweet by the president , claiming he has immunity from the virus after contracting it and recovering, contrary to what the medical Community Tells us. Just yesterday morning, the president tweeted this, that the media is incorrectly focused on the pandemic, and that our nations quote, rounding the turn on covid19. In fact, according to Johns Hopkins university, in the past week, the sevenday National Average of new cases reached its highest level ever. In my home state of wisconsin, case counts continue to reach record levels. Yesterday, wisconsin set a new record with 64 deaths and 5406 5462 new cases. That is not rounding the turn, but it was also not a tweet that was flagged or taken down. Mr. Dorsey, given the volume of misleading posts about covid19 out there, do you prioritize removal based on Something Like the reach or audience of a particular user on twitter . Mr. Dorsey i could be mistaken, but it looks like the tweet you showed did have a label, pointing to both of them, pointing them to our covid resource hub and our interface. With regards to misleading information, we have policies ininst manipulating media, support of Public Health and covid information. We take action on that and in some cases it is labeling. In some cases it is removal. What additional steps are you planning to take, to address dangerously misleading tweets like the president s rounding the turn tweet . Mr. Dorsey we want to make sure that we are giving people as much information as possible, and that ultimately we are connecting the dots. When they see information like that, that they have an easy way to get an official resource. Many more viewpoints on what they are seeing. We will continue to refine our policy. Ourill continue to refine enforcement around misleading information. We are looking deeply at how we can evolve our product to do the same. Mr. Zuckerberg, i want to turn to you about the ongoing issue of rightwing militias using facebook as a platform to organize and promote violence. Could the Committee Clerk bring up my second slide . On august 25, a selfdescribed Militia Group called kenosha guard greeted a Facebook Event page entitled armed citizens to protect our lives and property, encouraging armed individuals to go to kenosha, defend the city of unresteriod following the Police Shooting of jacob blake. That evening, a 17yearold ended up doing just that, killing two protesters and seriously injuring another. Commenters in this group wrote that they wanted to kill looters and rioters, and switch to real bullets and put a stop to these rioting impetuous children. While facebook has already had a policy in place, banning Militia Groups, this page remained in place. According to press reports, facebook received more than 450 complaints about this page, but your content moderators did not remove it, something you subsequently called an operational mistake. Recently, as you heard earlier in questions, the alleged plot to kidnap Mission Governor michigan governor gretchen whitmer, as a potential for intimidation or even violence at voting locations shows that the proliferation of the threat of violence on facebook remains a very real and urgent problem. Mr. Zuckerberg, in light of the operational mistake around kenosha, what steps has facebook taken to ensure your platform is not being used to promote more of this type of violence . Mr. Zuckerberg thank you, senator. Concerna big area of for me, personally and for the company. We have strengthened our policies to prohibit any militarized social movement. Any kind of militia like this. We have also banned conspiracy networks, qanon being the largest example of that. It is completely prohibited on facebook at this point. Amthis period, where i personally worried about the potential of increased civil unrest, making sure that those groups cant organize on may cut off some legitimate uses, but i think it will also preclude the greater potential for organizing any harm. By making the policy simpler, we will also make it so there are fewer mistakes in content moderation. I feel like we are in a much stronger place at this point. Thank you senator baldwin. Senator lee. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. I want to read a few quotes from each of you, each of our three witnesses, and from your companies. Mr. Zuckerberg, this is from you. You said quote, we built facebook to be a platform for all ideas. Our communitys success depends on everyone feeling comfortable sharing what they want. It doesnt make sense for our mission or for our business to suppress political content or prevent anyone from saying what matters most of them. You said that on may 18, 2016. Mr. Dorsey, on september 5, 2018, you said let me be clear about one important and foundational fact. Twitter does not use political ideology to make any decisions. Mr. Pichai, on october 28, 2020, you said let me be clear, we approach our work without political bias, full stop. These quotes make me think there is a good case to be made that you are engaging in unfair or deceptive trade practices in violation of federal law. I have seen these quotes where each of you tell consumers and the public about your business practices, but then you seem to do the opposite and take censorship related actions against the president , against members of his and administration, against the New York Post, the federalist, prolife groups, and there are countless other examples. I think the trend is clear, that andalmost always censor, when i use the word sensor, i mean block content, factcheck, or label content, or demonetize websites of conservative, republican, or prolife individuals or groups or companies, contradicting your commercial policies. Ofont see this suppression highprofile liberal commentators. For example, have you ever censored a democratic senator, or how about president obama . How about a democratic president to canada . How about planned parenthood or emilys list . Mr. Zuckerberg, mr. Dorsey and and lets go in that me onecan you name for high profile person or entity from a liberal ideology who you have censored, and what particular action you took . I canckerberg senator, examples list of many that your democratic colleagues object to, when a fact checker might label something as false. I get that. I just wanted to be clear, i am asking if you can name for me one highprofile liberal person or company, who you have censored. I understand you are saying there are complaints on both sides. I just want one name of one person or one entity. Senator, i would need to think about it and get you more of a list, but there are certainly many issues on both sides of the aisle where people think we are making content moderation decisions that they disagree with. I got that, and i think everybody with this call could agree and identify at least five, maybe 10 or more highprofile conservative examples. What about you, mr. Dorsey . Mr. Dorsey we can give a more exhaustive list, but again, we dont have an understanding of political ideology on our accounts. Im not asking for an exhaustive list, just one individual. One entity. Mr. Dorsey we have taken action on tweets from numbers of the house. Can you identify any example . Mr. Dorsey two democratic congresspeople. Their names . Mr. Dorsey i will get those names to you. Mr. Pichai, what about you . Mr. Pichai let me step back. Moderation policies are applied equally. Sensor as a word term i defined. I am asking for a comprehensive list. I want a name. Mr. Pichai we have turned off ads from priorities usa and president bidens campaign. We have had compliance issues with socialist review, which is a leftleaning publication. We can give you several examples. We have a graphic content policy. We dont allow for ads that show graphic violent content in those ads. We have taken down ads on both sides of the campaign. Ok. At least with respect to mr. Zuckerberg and mr. Dorsey, and i would point out with respect to mr. Pichai, those are not nearly as highprofile. Picked at random from the public, members of the political active community in either Political Party who could and if i those right off the top. There is a disparity between the censorship, and im using that as a term of art, as defined a moment ago. Between the censorship of conservative and liberal points of view. It is an enormous disparity. You have the right and i want to be clear about this, you have every single right to set your own terms of service and to interpret them and make decisions about violations, but given the disparity of who gets censored on your platforms, it seems that you are either not enforcing your terms of service equally, or alternatively, you are writing your standards to target conservative viewpoints. You have the right to operate your own platform but you have to be transparent about your actions at least in the sense that you cant promise certain corporate behavior and deceive customers through contradictory actions. Thats just blatant contradiction as you stated as your policy. Dorsey,erberg and mr. If facebook is still a platform for all ideas and of twitter does not use political ideology to make decisions, then do you state before this committee for the record that you always apply your terms of service equally to all of your users . Our principle is to stand for Free Expression and be a platform for all ideas. Mr. Zuckerberg i dont think we have an any intentional examples where we are trying to enforce our policies in a way that is anything other than fair and consistent. But its a big company so i get that there are probably mistakes made from time to time. Our northstar and what we intend to do is to be a platform for all ideas and give everyone a voice. Sen. Lee i appreciate that and i understand what you are saying. Disparityre is a impact thats unmistakable. Neither you nor jack can identify a single example. Mr. Dorsey, how can you answer that . Mr. Dorsey we operate our policy without understanding of clinical ideology. Biasme we find examples of in how people operate our systems or algorithms, we remove it. As mark mentioned, there are checkpoints in these companies and these frameworks and we do need more transparency around them and how they work and we do need a much more straightforward and quick and efficient of appeals process to give further checkpoints for the public. You, mr. R thank dorsey, thank you senator lee. I have devoted my life to upholding a sacred oath to defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic and i have to be honest, it makes my blood boil and breaks my heart a little as i watch my republican colleagues just days before an election sink down to the level of donald trump. Selfish wants a President Trump is weakening our National Security and providing aid to our adversaries. Congressmanriend, cummings reminded us, we are better than this. Our democracy is under attack right now, every member of congress should be defending the integrity of our elections. Despite the recent talk of great petition, our ever terrys our adversaries know they cannot beat us on a conventional battlefield but that members of the United States military and Civil Servants are working aroundtheclock in the cyber domain to counter hostile actors like iran, china and russia. And they do this while the commander cowers in fear of russia and refuses to take any action to criticize russia in endangering our troops. I have confidence in the United States armed forces, Intelligence Committee and civil service. Their special performance expands why are foreign efforts are using alternative efforts to attack us. They look for unconventional means to weaken our democracy and they realize that social oura could be the port of democracy. Social media is so pervasive in the daily lives of america and traditional Media Outlets that they can be weaponized to manipulate the Public Discourse and destabilize our institutions. Was not successful in disrupting our democracy four years ago come all of her adversaries learned a chilling lesson. Social Media Companies cannot be trusted to put patriotism above profit. Facebook and twitter utterly failed to hinder russias sweeping and systemic interference in our 2016 elections which use the platforms to infiltrate our committees, spread disinformation and turn americans against one another. Of course, the situation has grown far worse today. Thats evidenced by todays partisan sham hearing. While corporations may plead ignorance prior to the 2016 election, President Trump and his republican enablers in the senate have no such excuse. Senate republicans cut a deal to become the party of trump and now they find themselves playing a very dangerous game. Encouraging russias illegal hacking by serving as promoters of disinformation cooked up Foreign Intelligence Services and by falsely claiming censorship when responsible actors attempt to prevent hostile foreign air verse aris interfering in our elections, Senate Republicans insult the efforts of true patriots working to counter maligning interference and weaken our security. This committee is playing politics at a time when responsible Public Officials should be doing everything to pervert of confidence in our system of elections and system of government. The reckless actions of donald trump and Senate Republicans do not let the Technology Companies off the hook. No the companies testifying today are helpless in defending our democracy. Federal law provides you yourctive companies Respective Companies with authority to counter foreign disinformation and counterintelligence propaganda and i want to be absolutely clear, gentle man i expect each of you to do so. Each of you will be attacked by the president , Senate Republicans and rightwing media for countering hostile foreign interference in our elections but you have a duty to do the right thing. Facts still exist, fact still matter. And there arees no both sides when one side rejects truth and embraces poisonous, information. In closing, i would like you to i would like each with just to provide a personal commitment that your specter companies will counter domestic disinformation that spreads the dangerous lies such as masks dont work and removing disinformation that is part of foreign adversaries efforts to interfere in our election or undermine our democracy. Do i have that commitment from each of you gentlemen . Mr. Wicker we will take mr. Dorsey first. Mr. Dorsey we have made that commitment. Mr. Pichai senator, absolutely yes. Mr. Wicker and mr. Zuckerberg . Mr. Zuckerberg yes, senator. I agree with that. Sen. Duckworth thank you, your industries will have far reaching life or death consequences for the American People and the future of our democracy, thank you and i yield back, mr. Chairman. Mr. Wicker senator johnson. Johnson i want to start with a question for all three witnesses. There are public reports that you have different ship forms and public reports where the few conservatives that might work for your company have been harassed on those forms. I dont expect you to have taken a poll of your employees but i want to get a sense. Its pretty obvious but would you say that the political ideology of the employees of be 50 50,nys would conservative versus liberal progressive or do you think its closer to 90 liberal, 10 conservative . Lets start with mr. Dorsey. Mr. Dorsey as you mention, i dont know the makeup of our employees because its not something we ask or are focused on. Sen. Johnson what do you think off the top of your head based on your chat rooms and the people you talk to . Mr. Dorsey its not something i look for. Sen. Johnson p mr. Ichai. Mr. Pichai we have 400,000 employees and we have hired much of our work for us outside california and it doesnt seem to be proportionate to the areas we are in but we do have message ports and groups like republicans or liberals. We have definitely made an effort to make sure people of all viewpoints are welcome. Sen. Johnson mr. Zuckerberg, will you answer the question honestly . I donterberg senator, know the exact number but i would guess that our Employee Base skews roughly sen. Johnson thank you for that honesty. Mr. Dorsey, you started your debt you stated in your opening comments that you think people dont trust you. I agree with that. We dont trust you. You all say you are fair and consistent in your neutral. Most incredible answer ive seen so far in this hearing is senator cruz asked, does twitter have the ability to influence elections . Does twitter have the ability to influence elections . You said no, do you stick with that answer that you dont believe do you all believe has used your social platforms . Do you still deny you dont have the ability to influence or interfere in our elections . Wasdorsey yeah, my answer around peoples choice around other can occasion channels. Sen. Johnson your answer was the question was, does twitter have the ability to influence elections and you said no. Do you still stand by that answer . Mr. Dorsey twitter is a company, no, we dont. Dont think you you have the ability by moderation policies . Think that censorship, that moderation of policies, you dont think that influences elections by withholding what i believe is true information from the American Public . You dont think that interferes in elections . Mr. Dorsey our current moderation policies are to protect the integrity of the conversation around the elections. Sen. Johnson for both mr. Zuckerberg and dorsey who censored the New York Post stories or throttle them back, do you have any evidence that the New York Post story is part of russian disinformation or that those emails are not authentic . Do you have any information whatsoever they are not authentic or they are russian disinformation . Mr. Dorsey. Mr. Dorsey we dont. You johnson so why would censor it . Why would you prevent that from being disseminated on your platform . Its supposed to be for the oppression of ideas and particular true ideas. We judged it by our hacking policy. Sen. Johnson they werent hacked. Mr. Dorsey it looked like it was hacked material. Sen. Johnson you are wrong. Mr. Dorsey and we updated our policy and our enforcement within 24 hours. Sen. Johnson mr. Zuckerman zuckerberg . I. Zuckerberg senator, as testified before, we rely heavily on the fbis intelligence to alert us and through their public testimony and private sen. Johnson did the fbi contact you and say the New York Post story was false . Mr. Zuckerberg senator, not about that story specifically. Sen. Johnson why did you throttle it back . Mr. Zuckerberg they alerted us to be on heightened alert around the risk of a hack and leak operation. Be clear on this, we didnt censor the content. We flagged it for Fact Checkers to review and pending that review, we temporarily constrained the distribution to make sure it didnt spread wildly while it was being reviewed. It is not up to us either to determine whether its russian interference nor whether its true. Mr. Dorsey, you talked about your policies toward misinformation and you will block this information if its about integrity, election interference. Let me give you a tweet that was put up on twitter that says strangledn johnson our dog buttons right in front of my fouryearold son and daughter. The police refused to investigate. This is a complete lie but important to retweet and note that there are more of my lies to come. Twitter and we asked them to take it down. They responded by saying, thanks for reaching out. We refer this to our support team and they have determined this is not a violation of our policies. How could ay, complete lie it is a lie, how can you view that could impact my ability to get reelected. How could they not be a violation of Voter Suppression . If people think im strangling my neighbors dog, they may not show up at the polls. That would be Voter Suppression. Why didnt twitter take that liketweet was retweeted 17,000 times and viewed and commented on and appreciated by over 50,000 people. How is that not Voter Suppression or election interference, how is that not a breach of civic integrity . Mr. Dorsey we will have to look into our enforcement. We can get back to you with more comments. Sen. Johnson mr. Zuckerberg, in that same june hearing, mr. Dorsey, you refer to the goodhearing that these are ideas 16 months ago. Why havent you implemented any of those transparency ideas 16 months ago . Mr. Dorsey he was talking about algorithmic choice and we have and lamented one of them which we allow people to turn off certain features. The rest is work and it will take some time. Sen. Johnson i would get to it if i were you. Mr. Wicker let me just make mr. I understood the answer dorsey and mr. Zuckerberg gave. Did i understand you to say that you have no information indicating that the New York Post story about hunter biden has a russian source . Did i understand that correctly . Mr. Dorsey not that im aware of. Mr. Wicker is that also your answer, mr. Zuckerberg . You have no information to indicate that russia was the source of this new workforce article just of this New York Post article . Mr. Zuckerberg i would rely on the fbi to make that assessment. Mr. Wicker you dont have any such information . Just trying to clarify. Mr. Zuckerberg i dont myself. Mr. Wicker thank you for indulging me, senator tester, your next. Tester i want to thank you for being in front of this committee. There are major issues with google and facebook and twitter the Congress Needs to addressed. Unregulated wild west that needs to be held accountable and we need to hear from all three of you about a range of Critical Issues that americans deserve answers on antitrust, the misinformation on your platforms. In a moment, will ask all of you to commit your return to this committee next year to have a hearing on these important issues. The truth is, i republican weak from are still election day for one specific reason, to make a last ditch case based on information that these companies are censoring conservative voices. It is a stunt and its a cheap stunt. It is Crystal Clear that this hearing is designed to cast doubt on the fairness of the upcoming election and to work with the platforms to allow that information to stay up as november 3 approaches. It is also Crystal Clear that the directive to hold this political hearing comes straight from the white house. It is a sad day for the United States senate and equal part of an independent branch of government that allows the senate halls to be used for the president s political stunts. There is a National Election in six days, mr. Chairman. You had nearly two years to hold this hearing and its happening six days before the election. Have aa that we should somber hearing about putting the rains on big tech six days before the election quite frankly doesnt pass the smell test. Today, this hearing is about electoral politics. I know it, you know it, everybody in this room knows it. I know the American People are smart enough to figure that out. About talk a little bit that in the second but first, i want to thank the panel once again for being here. I will start by asking a question about making a more sincere effort to discuss the issues that surround big tech down the road. The question for the panel and this is a yes or no answer, will you commit to returning to testify again in the new congress . We will start with you, jack. We are always happy, myself or others, to talk to the American People. Sen. Tester sundar . Mr. Pichai we have engaged many times and we are happy to continue that engagement with congress. Sen. Tester ok, mark . Mr. Zuckerberg yes, i hope we can continue to have this conversation and hopefully not just with the ceos of the companys but also with experts who work on these issues every day as part of their jobs. Sen. Tester absolutely, i think the more information the better but not based on politics, based on reality. I want to thank you for that because we are in and very unreal time when it comes to politics. Quite frankly, we are in a time when fake news is real and real news is fake. And you guys trying to shut down the fake news weather comes from joe bidens mouth or whether it comes from Donald Trumps mouth. The fact is that joe biden says something crazy and offensive that the president has said, you would he would get fact checked in the same way, wouldnt you agree . You cannot your head to that. You can nod your head to that. If joe biden said the same stuff that trump said that you would do the same sort of Fact Checking on him . Mr. Wicker we will take dorsey, mr. Pichai and mr. Zuckerberg in that order. Mr. Dorsey if we find violations of our policy, we would do the appropriate enforcement action. Sen. Tester thank you. Mr. Wicker go ahead then, mr. Pichai. It pichai it depends on who is from and its applied mutually. Sen. Tester thank you, mark . Mr. Zuckerberg senator, i agree with what jack andsundar said, we would apply our policies to fact, when joe biden tweets or posts in the cross post to facebook about the label,n, we put the same heading context about voting on his post as we do for other candidates. Sen. Tester thank you for that. Fake16, russia built up amounts to spread this and year, it seems they are relying on americans including some folks in congress, to amplify and distribute it. What tools do you have to fight for disinformation on your platforms when its spread by americans . . . Jack . Policies areur against platform infiltration no matter where comes from. Its whether its foreign or domestic. We see patterns of people or organizations that attempt to manipulate the platform in a conversation artificially amplified. Sen. Tester mark . Mr. Zuckerberg senator, the efforts are a combination of ai systems that look for anomalous behavior and networks of accounts. There is a large human effort where we have 35 thousand employees that work on security and content review and partnerships we have made with the other Tech Companies here as well as Law Enforcement and intelligence committed Election Officials across the world to make sure we have all the appropriate input signals and can share signals on what we are seeing with other platforms as well. Sen. Tester sundar . Mr. Pichai two things to add civictner with over 5000 entities, camping organizations, at the federal and state level to protect their campaigns Digital Program and training. There has been an enormous increasing in cooperation between the Tech Companies. We are sharing a lot of information and are more together than ever before. Sen. Tester i want to close with one thing we learned a lot of information out here today where when you hire someone, you are supposed to ask them your political affiliation, you are supposed to ask who they donated to, theyre supposed to be a political litmus test. If you hire a biden person, you are supposed to hire a trump person. Lets talk about business. If that business is run by a liberal, we will regulate him different than if they are run by a conservative outfit. That reminds me a lot of the Supreme Court where you have two sets of rules, one for a democratic president in one for a republican. This is baloney, folks. Get off the political garbage and lets have the committee do its job. Mr. Wicker senator scott. Senator scott thank you for hosting this. Republicans believe you sensor and democrats believe what youre are doing is good. This isnt the case around the world. We can look at communist china right now. Abusesre human rights and attacking minority communities and anyone that speaks out about their organization. The communist party surveilled their citizens and through propaganda, control information the citizens consume and hide human rights abuses. Twitter and facebook are banned in communist china. Its concerning for me to discuss the issues that technology companys are interfering with free speech. The American People and trust their companies with their information. They believe that you will protect information and allow them to use your platforms to express themselves freely. Person onink anyone your platforms expects to be blocked or kicked off because of their political views. Its becoming obvious that your companies are targeting conservatives unfairly. Thats the perception today. Facebook is actively targeting as by conservatives and the election, either removing the ads completely or claiming they didnt pass their factcheck system. Other fact check is based on known liberal media groups like olitifax which is a liberal organization. Recently, they completely blocked the American People from sharing the New York Post story about Hunter Bidens laptop. They suspended the New York Post account. The New York Post is one of the moser can lead to publications in the United States. It is not filled with can spare these theories get you allow murderous dictators around the world to use your platform freely. Supreme the irene the Iran Supreme Leader ayatollah asked for the complete obliteration of the zionist regime. He said the elimination of the zionist regime does not mean the massacre of the jewish people. The people of palestine should hold a referendum, any political system they vote for should govern palestine. The only removal of the zionist regime [indiscernible] i would like to know why the ayatollah has not been blocked. Dictator,murderous tweeted after three people were killed and 130 injured during protests in his country. They described a march is a clear demonstration and integrity of our Glorious Armed forces which is always too prepared to defend peace and prosperity. I would say is glorified twitter with which has find President Trump four. He committed genocide against the quigurs. On september 1, the Chinese Government posted on twitter more fake news, what the Chinese Government has done has created possibility of chinese to lead better lives. These this is a clear live. His been purported that the claim by the Chinese Government is false, and twitter took no action. Your companies are inconsistently applying their own rules with an obvious bias. Your companies are censoring free speech, you target the president , the White House Press secretary, senator Mitch Mcconnell, prolife groups while giving dictators a free, unfettered platform. It is my responsibility to hold these countries these Companies Accountable and protect americans abilities to speak freely on their platforms. Regardless of their political views or the information they choose to share. You cant pick and choose which viewpoints are allowed in your platform and expect to respect 230. Mr. Dorsey, you allow dangerous dictators in your platform. Tell me what you flag conservatives in america like President Trump or leader mcconnell as potential misinformation while allowing dictators to spew their propaganda on your platform . Mr. Dorsey we have taken action around leaders around the world. Certainly, other dictators as well. We looked at the tweets and we reviewed them and we figure out if they violate our policy or not. Sen. Scott can you tell me when you get against one you did against iran or against the ayatollah or maduro . Mr. Dorsey we have done more than one but we can send you that information on those actions. Sure that weke have a Global Leader policy. We believe its important. People can see with these leaders are saying. Those tweets remain up but they are labeled that they violated our terms of service to show the integrity of our policy. When communist china has put a Million People in camps, you did nothing about the tweet when they say they are helping them lead a better life. Anybody that follows the news knows whats happening to the uighurs. Its genocide. You have not called that a lie. Mr. Dorsey we dont have a general policy around misleading information. We rely upon people reaching out and calling those reports out. Thats part of the conversation is if there is something bound to be in contest, people reply to it and people retweet it and say this is wrong. This is obviously wrong, you could save that is wrong and we benefit from people calling that out. Sen. Scott but you block Mitch Mcconnell and trump trades tweets. If youwhat i dont get, guys have set a policy that you dont enforce consistently, then whats the recourse to the user . I talked to a lady this week who has her facebook account eliminated and there is no recourse, theres nothing she can do. Everyone of you have these policies you dont enforce consistently. What should be the recourse . Its critical we have more transparency around their process. We have clear and straightforward and efficient appeals so the woman you talk to can appeal the decision that we made. We need to figure out how to give them more choice. Mr. Wicker thank you, senator rosen. Thank you, mr. Chairman, i appreciate the witnesses for being here today. I want to focus little bit and thank you mr. Dorsey on algorithms. I would argue youre doing too much to stop the spread of disinformation and conspiracy theories and hate speech and hate speech in your platform. I am here to tell you you are not doing enough. The platforms recommendation algorithms drive people who show an interest in conspiracy theories deeper into hate. And only you have the ability to change this. What idplatforms and like to tell my colleagues, an important factor to realize is that people are incendiary content that will lead and has led to violence. I want to be clear, its really not about what you can or cannot do, its really about what you will or will not do. We have adversaries like russia who continue to amplify propaganda, everything from the election to coronavirus, we know what they are doing, antisemitic conspiracy theories. They do it on your platforms. They recognize division and hate and destroy our democracy and their communities. U. S. Intelligence community warned us earlier this year that russia is now actively inciting white supremacist violence which the fbi and the head of homeland lethal threat to america. In recent years, we have seen White Supremacy and antisemitism on the rise, much of it spreading online. The actors to disseminate their hateful messaging to the American Public are the algorithms on your effectively rewarding efforts by foreign powers to exploit divisions in our country. To be sure, i want to acknowledge the work you are already doing in the space and im relieved to see that facebook has really taken that long overdue action of banning holocaust denier content. Well you see some policy changes, we have seen time and time again, it whats what starts online does not end online. Words turn to deadly actions which are amplified again and again, its a vicious cycle. Just yesterday, we commemorated the twoyear anniversary of the tree of light shooting in pittsburgh, the deadliest targeted attack in a Jewish Committee in american history. Historyter had a long of posting antisemitic content on social media sites and what started online became very real for the families who will now never again see their loved ones. There has to be accountability when algorithms actively contribute to radicalization and hate. Mr. Zuckerberg and mr. Dorsey, when you implement a policy banning hate or disinformation content, how quickly can you address your algorithms to reduce the content and perhaps, even more importantly, to reduce or remove the recommendation algorithm of hate and disinformation. Perhaps it wont continue to spread. We know the recommendation algorithms continue to drive more specifically and more specifically. When you want to buy a new sweater, it will be cold out here, its winter and not great when it comes to violence. Can you talk to us about that please . Mr. Dorsey can go first. Mr. Dorsey as you know, algorithms are a deeper learning. They are complex and complicated. They require testing and training. As we learn about their effectiveness, we can shift them and integrate them. It does require experience and it does require time. The most important thing we need to build into the organization is the fast learning mindset. And the agility around updating these algorithms. The urgency focus of our updates on any severity or harm. As you mentioned specifically, it leads to offline dangerous activity. Sen. Rosen mr. Zuckerberg, answer that and i have more questions about the nimbleness of your algorithms. Go ahead. Mr. Zuckerberg senator, i think you are focused on exactly the right thing in terms of how any people see the harmful content. As we talked about putting in and reformingons section 230 in terms of what we want to hold Companies Accountable for, i think we should be judging the companies on how many people see harmful content before Companies Act on it. Andeed to act on a quickly act on content that is potentially going viral or will be seen by more people before it does see a lot of people. Thats critical. This is what we report in our quarterly transparency reports. What percent of the content that anyon sees is harmful in harmful categories we track. We try to hold ourselves accountable for the prevalence of that harmful content and good content regulation here would create a standard like that across the industry. Sen. Rosen i like what you said, your recommendation how good rhythms need to learn to drop the prevalence of harmful content down. I have some other questions and i will ask those but i would like to see some of the information of how nimble you are on dropping down that itvalence and when you see trending or you see an uptick whether its by bots or human beings. We need to drive that prevalence down. Specificallymore on things you might be doing for antisemitism . We know White Supremacy is the threat to ouric nation. Thist to be sure that violence is not celebrated and amplified on your platforms. Mr. Wicker we will have to have a brief answer to that. To whom are you addressing the question . Sen. Rosen mr. Zuckerberg . We only have a few seconds. There is a lot of nuance here. In general, for each category of harmful content, whether its terrorist, propaganda or in scenting violence and hate speech, we have to build specific systems. One of the benefits of having transparency and transparency reports and how these copies are doing is that we have to report on a quarterly basis how effectively we are doing at finding those types of content. You can hold us accountable for how nimble we are. Hate speech is one of the hardest things to train an ai system to get good at identifying because its linguistically nuanced we operate in 150 line which is around the world. What are transparency reports show that over the last few years, we have gone from proactively identifying and taking down about 20 of that kind of speech on the service to now we are proactively identifying i think its about 94 of the hate speech we end up taking down. The vast majority of that is people who reported to us. I having this kind of transparency requirement which is part of what im advocating for in the section 230 reform, i think will be able to have a broader sense across the industry of how all the companies are improving in each of these areas. Mr. Wicker thank you for that answer. Sen. Rosen i look forward to working with every one on this, thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Wicker as do i, senator rosen. When this hearing convenes, i threeted it would last hours and 42 minutes. It has now been three hours and 41 minutes. Upr of our members have been been unable to join us and thats the only reason my prediction was the least bit accurate. Thank you all, thank you very much and i think our witnesses. , my firstfirst series panelists, ihe hadrred to a document i entered into the record during our Committee Meeting i believe on october 1 entitled social Media Companies censoring prominent conservative voices. That document has been updated and without objection, it will be added to the record at this point. We are now at the point of closing the hearing. The hearing record will remain open for two weeks. During this time, senators are asked to submit any questions for the record. Are receipt, the witnesses directed to address their questions to the committee as by nos possible but later than november 25. I want to thank her witnesses for their cooperation and for bearing with us during this lengthy hearing and i want to thank each member of the committee for their cooperation in the conduct of this hearing. With that, the hearing is witnesses arethe excused and this hearing is now adjourned. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] that wraps up todays hearing with facebook, google and twitter executives testifying on social media regulations before the senate Commerce Committee. We will show the entire hearing again tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan two. You are watching cspan, your unfiltered view of government, created by americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. With his public