Said this hearing will her were turned to order and we understand that senator moran is next so sir you are recognized. Chairman wicker thank you very much and thank you for you and senator cantwell hosting this hearing. Let me address initially this topic that seems to be primary today and then that is of data privacy. Let me ask all three witnesses how much money does your company stand annually on content moderation . How many people work in general in the area of content moderation including by private contract . Let me start with those two questions and ultimately want to ask you how much money does your company spend independently on lawsuits for content. See that mr. Zuckerberg do you want to go first . Senator we have more than 35,000 people who work on content and safety review and i believe our budget is multiple billions of dollars a year, upwards of three or maybe even more billion dollars a year which is a greater amount in revenue in the sense that we are spending more on the whole revenue of our company was the year before we filed in 2012. Senator we used a combination of ai moderation systems. We have a little overt 10,000 the thing they are significantly and i would again, im not sure the exact numbers but i would say around 4 billion we have spent on these things. Thank you. Mr. Dorsey. A dont have the specific numbers but we maintain agility between the people we have working on this building Better Technology to audit its our goal is flexibility. Let me asked the question again about how much would you estimate your company is currently spending on lawsuits related to user content . In the same order. Senator i dont know the answer to that off the top of my head but i can get back to you. Thank you. Senator we are not sure applies to issues and i will follow. Thank you. I dont have those numbers. Let me is your answers to highlight something that i want to be a topic of our conversation so we can base this legislation. Whatever the numbers are you indicate they are significant and effective enormous amount of money an enormous amount of employee time and dealing with modification of content. These companies these efforts are expensive but i would highlight for my colleagues on the committee that they will not be any less expensive perhaps less in scale but not lessen cost than startups and Small Businesses. As we develop our policies in regards to this topic i want to make certain entrepreneurship startups and Small Businesses are considered and what it would cost in their effort to make the kind of standards to operate in that sphere. Let me quickly talk to the federal privacy. I chair the consumer at data privacy consumer act senator blumenthal and i tried to develop a bipartisan piece of legislation. We were close but unsuccessful in doing so. Let me ask mr. Zuckerberg facebook entered into an in order with the ftc in july of 2012 and violations of the ftc act and ordered to pay a 5 milliondollar penalty along with the local government ordering 2018 following the Cambria Analytica incident by way of the 2012 order. My legislation would replied the ftc with civil authority. You think its an important tool for ftc and would better deter unfair practices than the current regime . I would understand it in a little more detail before weighing in on this but the settlement that we have with the ftc we are going to be setting up an industry leading a Privacy Program. We have more than 1000 working on the Privacy Program now and we are basically implementing a program which is sort of the equivalent of starting a Financial Regulation around an internal controls around privacy and protecting people stayed as well. I think that settlement will be quite effective in ensuring that peoples data and privacy are protected. Mr. Pichai Google Youtube 170 million settlement with the ftc and the state of new york for alleged violations of conduct involved persistent identifiers. How should federal legislation address identifiers of consumers over the age of 13. Senator today we have done two things. As if the company we have invested in oneofakind special youtube kipp that can be said for kids and also on the year two product families can view content and part of our settlement was adapt thing is we can operate for those cases as well. Privacy is one of the most important areas with thousands of engineers working on it for choice and transparency in any time you associate data with users we can both see what data is there. We can then give data the option and for all new users. We delete the data automatically without them needing to do anything and 1 billion people have gone through privacy checkups. Thank you. Mr. Chairman thank you. Mr. Marquis. Thank you mr. Chairman very much. Today republican allies in congress and propaganda parents on fox news are peddling and today my republican colleagues on the Senate Commerce committee are simply doing the president s bidding. They should join us in addressing the real problems posed but instead my republican colleagues are determined to push a false narrative about anticonservative bias meant to intimidate standing ably by and allow interference in our election again. Heres the truth violence and hate speech on line are real problems. As is the bias a problem. It attempts to influence our election with this information is a real problem. Anticonservative why is is not a problem. A big tech Business Model which puts profits ahead of people is a real problem. Antibias is not a problem. The issue is not that the company has taken too many posts down. The issue is that they are leaving too many dangers posed up and in fact its amplifying content so it spreads bike like wildfire and destroys our democracy. Mr. Zuckerberg went President Trump posted this on facebook that when the looting starch the shooting starts. He failed to take down that post. Its had hundreds of thousands of shares and likes on facebook instance and the president has gone on National Television and told a hate group to quote standby and he is repeatedly refused to commit that he will accept the Election Results. Mr. Zuckerberg can you commit that if the president goes on facebook and encourages violence after Election Results are announced that he will make sure your companys algorithms dont spread that content and you will immediately remove those messages . Senator yes. Violence is against our policy and their exceptions no exceptions for that including politicians. Said there are exceptions you say . Naeher not the exceptions. There are no exceptions which is very important because obviously this is a message sent that could throw our democracy into chaos and a lot of it can be and will be created by social media sites. Mr. Zuckerberg if President Trump shares disinformation lying about the outcome of the election can you commit that you will make sure your algorithms do not amplify that content and you will immediately take that content down . Senator we have a policy in place that prevents any candidate or campaign from prematurely declaring victory or trying to delegitimize the results of the election and what we will do in that case is we will send factual information to any poster that is trying to do that. If someone says they won the election when the results arent in for example we will tell that person Election Results are not in yet and anyone who sees that post will see that context in line and if a candidate tries to prematurely declare victory or side and incorrect results we have up are cautioned that we have elton to put the top of the facebook added out with information about the accurate u. S. Election results. I know this is a very important issue to make sure that people can get Accurate Information about the results of the election. You cannot we stated as being anything less than critically important. Democracy could be seriously challenged beginning next tuesday evening and for several days afterwards and maybe longer and a lot of responsibility is going to be on the shoulders of facebook and their other witnesses today. Mr. Zuckerberg if President Trump uses the Facebook Accounts to call for armed private citizens to control the polls on election day which would constitute illegal voter intimidation violation of the Voting Rights act will you commit that your algorithms will not spread that content and you will immediately take that content down . Senator my understanding is content like what you are saying would violate our fighter suppression view and would come down. Again the stakes are going to be very high and we are going to take that as a commitment that you will do that because obviously you would otherwise have a series of question marks placed over our elections. Face but cares about one thing keeping users glued to its platform and one of the ways you do that is with facebook groups. Mr. Zuckerberg and 2017 announced a goal of 1 billion users joining facebook groups. Unfortunately these have become breeding grounds for hate echo chambers of disinformation. Again facebook is not only failing to take these pages down its actively spreading these pages and helping the groups recruitment efforts. Facebooks own internal Research Found 64 of all extremists groups join due to facebooks recommendations tools, mr. Zuckerberg we commit to stopping all recommendations on their platform and tell u. S. Election results are certified, yes or no . Senator we have taken the step of stopping recommendations and groups for all political content or social groups as a precaution for this. And just to clarify the vast majority of committees that people are part of our not extremist organizations or even political. They are interfaith communities and are quite helpful and healthy for people to be a part of it i do think we need to make sure that our recommendation and algorithm doesnt encourage people to join extremist groups. We have taken a number of steps and i agree with you its very important that we continue to make her address on it. Your algorithms are promoting on line spaces for Political Violence in the very least you should stable those algorithms. Thank you mr. Chairman. Thank you senator markey. Mr. Zuckerberg let me ask you this in the scenarios that senator markey was posing the action of facebook would not deal function of algorithms in those cases would it . Senator i thank you are right and then clarification a lot of this is more about enforcement of content policies but the questions were about algorithms and the Group Ranking is an algorithm but broadband a lot of it is content enforcement. Senator blackburn you are recognized. Thank you mr. Chairman and i want to thank you for coming here voluntarily. We up reshape that. They are undoubtedly benefits to using your platforms and is everyone mentioned today there are also some concerns which are also serious. Free speech politics religion and i chuckled as i sat here listening to you all it reminds me that you all are kind of in control of what people are going to hear, what they are going to see and therefore you have the ability to dictate what is coming in and what information is coming in. I think its important to realize you were set up as an information source not as a news media so therefore censoring things that you all think of singly may be something thats not unseemly to other parts of the country but let me ask each of you do any of you have content moderators who are conservative . Mr. Dorsey first, yes or no. We dont ask political ideology. That mr. Zuckerberg . Senator we dont ask for their ideology. They are at 35 in cities and places all across the country. Mr. Pichai . We hire them. United states. Okay, all right and looking at some of your censoring mr. Dorsey you all have censored joe biden and donald trump 65 times. I want to go back to senator gardners question. He claims earlier the denial and to genocide by a brand terrorist dont violate socalled rules and thats important for terrorist leaders that the platform and twitter so let me ask you this i dont know. I think this is called a dictatorship. Are people in iran allowed to use twitter or does the country whose leader you claim banned them from doing so . Ideally we would love iran to use twitter. Iran banned twitter and mr. Zuckerberg im sure you were that they have banned facebook as well. If donald trump her world leader . Yes. It would be important for World Leaders to have access to your platform, correct . Correct. So why did you deny that platform and give censorship to the u. S. . We havent censored u. S. President. Oh yes you have. How many posts from Vladimir Putin have you censored . We have labeled tweets of World Leaders and we have a policy of not taking down the content. The u. S. President you censored 65 times. You testify that you are worried about disinformation and election interference. Thats something we all worry about and of course or 100 years foreign sources have been trying to influence u. S. Policy and u. S. Elections. They see this as a way to get access to the American People so given your refusal to censor foreign dictators while regularly censoring the president are you at this very moment personally responsible for flooding the nation with foreign disinformation . Just to be clear we have not censored the president and we have not taken the tweets down that you are referencing. They have a label applied to them and we do the same for leaders around the world. With a the ask you this. You share any of your data each of the three b. Do you share any for data mining with the Democratic National committee . Im not sure what you mean by the question but we have a Data Platform and we have a number of customers. Not sure of the customer lists. Okay and you said you dont keep lists. Ill make that no. Keep lists of the accounts that we watch. All right. Are right mr. Pichai is mike lemoine one of your engineer still working with you . Senator im not sure but he is currently an employee. Okay. He had very unkind things to say about me and i was wondering if you kept him working there. Also i want to mention with you mr. Pichai the way you all have censored some things. Google searches for joe biden generated approximately 30,000 impressions for breitbart links as of may 1 and after may 5 the impressions went to zero. I hope that what you all realize from this hearing is that there is a pattern. You may not leave that it exists but there is a pattern of subjective manipulation of the information that is available to people from your platform. What has driven additional attention to this is the fact that more families functional lives are now being conducted on line. Because of those more people are realizing that you are picking winners and losers. You are trying to, mr. Zuckerberg you said facebook functions more like a government that accompany. 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 you saw some things as competing equity. Is the First Amendment to a given right or competing entity . I believe strongly in Free Expression. Sorry if i was on mute there. They too think like all equities 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 that there should the some limits on speech when it could cause imminent risk of physical harm and the famous example is that you cant shout fire in a crowded theater. So getting those equities in the balance right is the challenge we face. We believe in the First Amendment and we will have questions to follow up. Thank you mr. Chairman. I can see the clock. Thank you. Senator udall. Seemed mr. Chairman thank you and senator cantwell i appreciate this hearing. I want to start by laying out three facts. The Intelligence Community has found the russian government is intent on election interference in its face. They did in 2016 and they are doing it in 2020. Intelligence says they want to help President Trump and they did so in 2016. The president doesnt like this to be said that its a fact. We also know the russian strategy this time around is going after hunter biden so i recognize the details of how they handle misinformation from the internet. I think Companies Like twitter and facebook that take action to not via 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. The u. S. Government is the referee. The ftc, the congress the presidency and the Supreme Court are the referees. Its very dangerous for President Trump and republicans in congress and at the fcc to laws to force social Media Companies to amplify false claims to conspiracy theories and disinformation campaigns. My question to all three of you is the russian government and other foreign nations continue to attempt to usurp Companies Platforms to spread disinformation and influence a at 2020 elections. Can you briefly describe what you are seeing . Please start mr. Dorsey and then mr. Pichai and mr. Zuckerberg you gave an answer partially on this. I like you expand on that answer. Thank you. We do continue to see interference. We recently disclosed actions we took on both russia and factions originating out of iran. We made those disclosures public. We can share those with your team but this remains as youve heard from others and as mark is detailed something we want to make sure we are focused on eliminating as much platform integration as possible. Senator we do continue to see a coordinated influence operation. We appreciate the cooperation we get from individuals and to give an example in june we identified one from iran targeting the Trump Campaign one from china and one targeting the biden campaign. Most were phishing attempts and we removed most of the emails. Thats an example of the kind of activity we see and i think its an area where it would need strong cooperation with Government Agencies moving forward. Mr. Zuckerberg. Center like jack and Sundar Pichai we see continued attempts by russia and other countries especially iran and china to run these kind of information operations. We also see an increase in domestic operations around the world. Fortunately weve been able to build partnerships across the industry both with companies here today in Law Enforcement and the Intelligence Community to identify these threats sooner and along the lines of what you mentioned earlier one of the threats that has alerted our company was the possibility of a hack in lake operation in the weeks leading up to this election. Public testimony from the fbi and in private meetings alert set were given to at least our company and i assume the others as well that suggested wed be on high alert benefit trove of documents appeared that we should view that with suspicion that might be part of a foreign manipulation attempts. Thats what we are seeing and im happy to go into more detail if thats help all. Thank you very much and this one is a simple question, think a yes or no. We continue to push back against this kind of foreign interference even if powerful republicans threaten threatened to take official action against your Companies Ask mr. Zuckerberg when we start with you. Senator absolutely. This is incredibly important to our democracy and we are committed to do this work. Senator absolutely. The democratic process is fundamental to what we do and we will do everything we can. Yes will continue to work on manipulation of. Thank you for those answers. Mr. Zuckerberg to facebook and other social Media Networks have an obligation to prevent disinformation and delicious 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 . Senator in general yes. I think for Foreign Countries trying to interfere with democracy i think that is a question where i would hope no one disagrees that we dont want Foreign Countries or governments interfering in our elections whether disinformation or anything like that. Around Health Misinformation in the middle of a pandemic its a health emergency. I certainly think this is a High Sensitivity time so we are treating with extra sensitivity in the misinformation that could lead to harm around covid. That would lead people to not get the right treatment are getting the right security precautions. We look at harmful misinformation information that is just wrong and we take a hard line in enforcement against harmful misinformation. Thank you senator udall. Senator capito. Thank you mr. Chairman thank you for all of us being here today. I would think anytime what you get the three of you in front of the American People whether several days before an election or several days after his extremely useful and very productive so i appreciate the three of you coming in and we have heard americans chart every day your platforms for information. Id love to give a shoutout to mr. Zuckerberg. When you are in front of our committee i asked you to share dave of facebook into rural america. We see how important that is in you followed through with that and i would like to thank you for partnering with us in West Virginia to get more people connected and i would make the suggestion as well when we talk about what i think we could do would be Million Dollar fines for companies that have been penalized and make a great jump and get to that last household. The topic today is on content so quickly each one of you i know section 230 of said stronger objectional comment or otherwise objectionable would you be in favor of redefining that. Its broad and thats where he think it becomes difficult to answer so we will start with mr. Dorsey. How do you define objectionable and how can we improve that definition . Our interpretation of objectionable is making sure people feel safe to express themselves and when we see abuse or harassment or misleading information that makes people want to leave the internet and it makes people want to leave these conversations on line. That is what we are trying to protect making sure people feel safe enough and free enough to express themselves in whatever way they wish. So as a followup to that much has been said about the blocking of to have a system for when you block someone that would be politically liberal on the other side in the a political row of this country give an example of where this criticism has come from . We dont have an understanding of the ideology and its not howard policies are written. Im sure there are a number of examples but that is not a focus. We are looking at the violations and taking action against them. Mr. Zuckerberg how would you define the definition of that to make it more objective and subjective . Senator thank you. When i look at section 230 in the content that we think shouldnt be allowed on our services some of the things that we think of as objectional content include general bullying and harassment of people on the platform so something similar to what jack was talking about a minute ago. Some of the proposals suggest getting ready getting rid of of would limit their ability to remove pulling content from our platform making it a worse place for people. We need to be very careful in how we think. That. Thank you. Mr. Pichai . Senator the content is so dynamic you could get 500 hours. Minute. 15 of angry as we never seen before. A few years ago there was an issue on teenagers consuming and the kind of issue that was causing real harm. When we run into those situations where able to act and protect their users. The shooting showed a livestreaming shooter. It was a learning moment for plat warm and we are able to intervene so thats what objectionable allows. I think flexibility allows us to focus. The clear policies while we are doing and flexibility to protect their users. Thank you. I hear from all three of you that the definition is fairly acceptable. I think you can go to much of the eye of the beholder with the bubble they are being either your reviewers are your ai where maybe it becomes objective. I want to go to different topic because in my conversations with the two of you you have expressed the need to have protections because of small innovators. I think all of us are wondering how many small innovators and what kind of market share could they possibly have when we see the dominance of the three of you. I understand he is darted as small innovators when you first start in i get that. How can a small innovator breakthrough and what did you really have to do and im skeptical of the argument quite frankly. Whoever wants to answer that mr. Zuckerberg you want to start . Sure senator. I do think we were Getting Started with facebook they were subject to a larger number of content because 230 can exist. That would have prohibited me as a College Student in a dorm room to get started with this enterprise. I think it mimics modifying 230 to make sure its still working as intended but its extremely important that we make sure that for Smaller Companies that are Getting Started the cost of having to comply with a regulation is that a certain scale or at a minimum takes into account the serious factor to repent us from getting the next idea built. Thank you chairman. Senator baldwin. Thank you. I might again by making two points. I believe the republicans have called this hearing to support his false narrative by the present to help his reduction process and number two i believe the Tech Companies here today need to take more action not less for that misinformation including misinformation on the election, misinformation on the covid19 pandemic and misinformation and posts meant to incite violence. That should include misinformation spread by President Trump on their platform. I want to start by asking the Committee Clerk to bring up my first slide. Mr. Dorsey i appreciate the work that twitter has done to flag or even take down false or misleading information about covid19. In an october 11 to wait by the president claiming he has immunity to the virus after contracting it in recovering contrary to what the medical Community Tells us. Just yesterday morning the president tweeted this, the medias and correctly focusing on the pandemic internation is quote rounding this turn on covid19. In fact according to Johns Hopkins university in the past week sevenday National Average of cases reached its highest level ever ended my home state of wisconsin case counts continue to reach record levels. Yesterday was confident set a new record with 64 deaths and 504,862 new confirmed cases of covid19. That is not to a tree that was flagged or taken down. Mr. Dorsey given the volume of misleading post about covid19 do you prioritize from levels raised on Something Like the audience of the user on twitter . That could be mistaken but it looks like the tweet that you showed did have a label pointing to our covid resource and our interface. With regards to misleading information we have policies against manipulating the media in support of Public Health and covid information. And election interference and we take action on that. In some cases its labeling and in some cases its removal. What additional steps are you planning to a take to address dangerously misleading tweets like the president rounding the turn with covid . We want to make sure we are giving people as much information as possible and ultimately where connecting the dots. When we see information like that they have an easy way to get an official resource or many more viewpoints on what they are seeing. We will continue to refine the policy and refine enforcement around misleading information and how we can evolve our products to do the same. At mr. Zuckerberg i want to turn to you to talk about the ongoing issue of rightwing militias using facebook as a platform to organize and promote violence. Will the Committee Clerk please bring up my second slide . On august 25 a Militia Group called kenosha guard created a Facebook Page entitled armed citizens to protect our lives and property encouraging armed individuals to go to kenosha and polk defend the city during a period of civil unrest following the Police Shooting of jacob blake. That evening a 17yearold from illinois did just that and ended up killing two protesters and seriously injuring a third. Commenters in this group wrote that they wanted to kill looters and writers and switch to real bullets and put a stop to these writing impetuous children. While facebook has had a policy in place banning Militia Groups this page remained in place. According to press reports facebook received more than 460 complaints about this page. Your content moderator did not remove it subs something you subsequently called and aberrational mistake. Recently as you heard earlier the alleged plot to kidnap Mission Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the potential for intimidation or violence at voting locations show the proliferation of the threat of violence on facebook remains a very real and urgent problem. Mr. Zuckerberg in light of the operational mistakes around kenosha what steps has faced book taken to ensure that your platform is not in use to promote more of this type of violence . Thank you senator. This is a big area of concern for me personally and for the company. We have strengthened our policies to prohibit any military social movement so any kind of militia like this and we have also banned Conspiracy Network so cue in on being the largest example of that is completely prohibited on facebook at this point. In this period werent personally worried about the potential of increased civil unrest making sure that those groups cant organize on facebook may cut off some legitimate users but it will also preclude greater tensile for organizing harm and i make it simpler we will make it so there are fewer mistakes in content moderation. We are in a much stronger place on the policy at this point. Sncc thank you senator baldwin. Senator lee. Thank you very much mr. Chairman. I want to read a few quotes from each of you i each of our three witnesses and from your companies and i may ask for a response. Mr. Zuckerberg this one is for you. You said quote we have helped facebook to be a platform for all ideas. Our communitys success is everyone feeling comfortable sharing what they want. It doesnt make sense for a commission or business to depress political content or protect anyone from saying what matters most. He said that on may 18 at 2016 and mr. Dorsey on set number fifth, 20 teen you said let me be clear about one important foundational fact twitter does not use political ideology to make any decision. Mr. Pichai on october 28 of 2020s said let me be clear we approach our work without political bias. These quotes make me think theres a good case to be made that you are engaging in unfair or deceptive trade practices in violation of federal law. Each of you tells 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 administration and the New York Post prolife groups and there are countless other examples. I think the trend is clear that you almost always sense or meaning and when i use the word censor i mean block content, fact check or label content or to monetize web sites of conservative republican are prolife individuals or groups or companies contradicting your commercial promise but i dont see the suppression of highprofile liberal content. For example have you ever censored democratic senator and how about part president obama are democratic president ial candidates are planned parenthood or naral or emilys list . Mr. Zuckerberg mr. Dorsey and mr. Pichai can any of you and in that order Zuckerberg Dorsey and then pichai can you name for me one highprofile person or entity from the liberal ideology who you have censored in what particular action you took . Senator ican get you a list. There are certainly many examples that your democratic colleagues object to win a fact checker might label something as false. I get that. It is want to be clear and is asking if you can name for me one hype profile person that you have censored. Understand you were saying their complaints on both sides but i want one name of one person or one entity. Senator i need to think about it but there are certainly many on both sides the aisle and people think we are making content moderation decisions. I think everybody agreed they could identify that maybe 10 more conservative examples. What about you mr. Dorsey . We can give a more exhaustive list. Again we dont have an understanding. Im not asking for an exhaustive list. Im asking for one entity, anyone we have taken action on tweets for members of the house for election misinformation. Can you identify an example . Two democratic congresspeople and i will get those names to you. Mr. Pichai how but you . Senator but may step back. We dont censor. We have moderation policies that are applied equally and to give an example. I use the word censor is a term and im not asking for conference of list. Vice president widens campaign and we have had compliance issues with the leftleaning publication. We can give you several examples but for example in the content policy we dont allow ads to show graphic content and we have taken down ads on both sides of the campaign that i gave you an example. Okay. 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 nor can identify anyone or picking at random from the public as far as members of the political active community and either political party. There is a disparity between the censorship and again im using that as a term as i do find it a moment ago. The censorship of the conservative and the liberal there are enormous disparities. Now you have the right and i want to be very clear about this. You have every single right to set your own terms of service and to make decisions about violations but given that this tier there at and practice to get censored on your platforms seems that you leave are either not enforcing your terms of service equally or alternatively you are writing your standards to target conservative viewpoints. You certainly have the right to operate your own platform but you also have to be transparent about your actions at least in the sense that he cant promise certain corporate behavior and then customers are contradictory actions as youve given azure corporate policy. Mr. Zuckerberg or mr. Dorsey if facebook is a platform for all ideas and of twitter does not use but ideology to make decisions tend to use state before this committee and for the record that uis apply your terms of service equally for all of the users . Senator our principle was to stand for Free Expression and that should be a platform for all ideas. I certainly dont think we have any intentional examples where we are trying to enforce our policies in a way that is anything other than consistent but i get that they are probably mistakes are made from time to time but our northstar and what we intend to do is to be a platform for all and to give everyone a voice. I understand what youre saying and potential examples but theres a disparate impact on the state is evidenced by the fact that neither you nor jack can identify it as simple example. We operate our enforcement policy without clinical ideology. Anytime we find examples of bias in how people operate our systems we remove it and as mark mentioned there are chip points in these companies and in these frameworks and we do need more transparency around them and how they work. We do need much more straightforward quick and efficient appeals process for a check on the public. Thank you senator lee. Senator duckworth. Smith thank you mr. Chairman. Ive filled devoted my life to upholding a sacred oath to defend the constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic and makes my blood oil and it breaks my heart a little as i watch my republican colleagues days before an election stoop down to the level of donald trump. Putting the selfish interests of donald trump ahead of our democracy . And detert republicans when they realize there are waking weakening our and as the late senator cummings reminded us we are better than this. Every american and every member of congress should the committed to defending us from hostile are ever series now they cant defeat us on a conventional battle for the admin while the United States military and dedicated civilservice arrow working roundtheclock in the cyber domain to counter hostile actors such as iran and china and russia and they do this while the commanderinchief powers in fear of russia and stubbornly refuses to take action to criticize russia against endangering our troops. I have confidence in the United States Armed Forces Intelligence committee and civilservice. Their performance explains why are foreign adversaries use different avenues to attack our nation. They look for unconventional means to weaken our democracy and they realize social media could be the of art democracy. Social media is so pervasive in the daily lives of americans in traditional Media Outlets that they can be weaponized to manipulate the public and destabilize their institution. After russia was disrupting our our democracy four years ago all over adversaries learned a chilling lesson. Social Media Companies cannot be trusted to put patriotism above trough it. Facebook and twitter fail to enter russias sweeping interference in our 2016 election which viewed the platform simple trader committed to spread disinformation and turn americans against one another. The situation has grown far worst today as evidenced by todays partisan sham hearing. Corporations may plead ignorance prior to the 2016 election President Trump and his republican enablers in the senate have no excuse. Senator republicans cut a deal to become the party of trump and now they find themselves in a very by clutching russias illegal hacking and by falsely claiming censorship when responsible actors attempt to prevent hostile foreign adversaries from interfering in our election republicans and sylvia. A true patriots working to counter maligned interference to weaken our security. This committee is playing politics at a time when responsible public official should be doing everything to preserve confidence in our system in our system of government the reckless actions of donald trump and senate republicans. None of the companies testifying are helpless in the face of threats to our democracy. Federal law provides Respective Companies with the authority to counterpoint information and counterintelligence propaganda and i want to make absolutely clear gentleman that i fully expect each of you to do so. Each of you will be attacked by the President Senate republicans and rightwing media for how still interference in our election but you have to do your duty and do the right thing. Facts facts still exist, facts dont matter, facts save lives and theres no both sides when one side embraces pointless false information. In closing i would like to provide a personal commitment that your Respective Companies will proactively counter domestic disinformation that spreads the dangerous lies while aggressively identifying and removing disinformation that is part of or in adversaries efforts to differ in our election are undermined our democracy. Do i have a commitment from each of you gentlemen . American people and the future of our democracy. Thank you and i yelled back, mr. Senator johnson. Id like to start with a question for all three of the witnesses. The public reports you have different chat forums in Different Countries and public reports that the few conservatives that might work for your companys have certainly been harassed on those types of forums. I dont expect you have taken hold of your employees but i want to get a sense because i think it is pretty obvious but would you say the political ideology of those lets say 5050 conservative versus liberal progressive or do you think it is closer to 90 liberal and 10 conservative. We will start with mr. Dorsey. I dont know the makeup of the employees. What do you think off the top of your head based on the chat rooms and kind of people you talk to. Not something i look for. Mr. Pichai. A. We have over a thousand employees and have hired 50 of the workforce outside california. It tends to be proportionate to the areas we are in. But we have over a million in google and groups like [inaudible] and so on and weve made an effort so all viewpoints are welcome. Mr. Zuckerberg, will you answer honestly which is it closer to . I dont know the exact number but i would guess our Employee Base is leftleaning. Thank you for that honesty. Mr. Dorsey you started opening comments you dont think people trust you you are neutral and your advice the most incredible answer ive seen so far they asked do they have the ability to influence elections, again does twitter have the ability to influence. You said no. Do you still deny you dont have the ability . My answer was around other communication channels. The question was does twitter have the ability to influence elections and you said no. Do you still stand by that . You dont think you have the ability by moderation policies. Those censored the stories or throttled them back is there any evidence that the emails were the russian disinformation. [inaudible] they were not hacked. It looked like we updated the policy and enforcement within 24 hours. As i testified before, we relied heavily on the fbis intelligence and alert. Did they contact you . Not about that story specifically. They alerted us at the risk of misinformation. To be clear on this, we censored the content and pending that review be constrained the distribution to make sure that it didnt spread wildly while it was being reviewed. Its not up to us to determine if the russian interference was true. Have you talked about the policies towards misinformation and you would block this information if its about the civic integrity, election interference. There was a tweet put up on twitter that says [inaudible] this is a complete lie we all seem to take it down and heres the response. To the support team for the review they determined this is not a violation of the policies. So, mr. Dorsey, how if it is submitted as a lie how does that not affect the integrity that would impact my ability to get elected. How could that not be a violation of the Voter Suppression why didnt they take that away. It was tweeted out like 17,000 times and over 50,000 people. How is that not interference and how does that not affect the civic integrity . We have to look into the enforcement. In that same hearing, there were all kinds of good ideas and that was six months ago. Why havent you implemented any of those transparency ideas you thought were good months ago . We have implemented the choice. The rest is work and its going to just take some time. Thank you, mr. Chair man. Let me make sure that i understood the answer. Mr. Dorsey and mr. Zuckerberg, 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 correctly . Yes, not that im aware of. Is that also your understanding that you have no information at all to indicate russia was the source of this New York Post article . I would rely on the fbi to make that assessment. But you do not have such information. Just trying to clarify the answer to the question. Thank you very much for indulging me. Senator tester, you are next. I want to thank you and jack and marc for being in the committee. Theres no doubt there issues Congress Needs to address we do need to hear from all three of you about the range of Critical Issues i trust the proliferation on the platforms. In a moment im going to ask you to return to the committee and have a hearing on these important issues. The truth is to make a lastditch case that these companies are censoring the voice. It is also Crystal Clear that to hold this hearing comes straight from the white house and it is a sad day when the United States senate and equal part of the independent branch of government allows the hall to be used. There is a National Inauguration to hold these hearings and six days before the election. The idea that we could have a hearing about putting the rains on big tech six days before the election quite frankly doesnt pass the sound test. This is about electoral politics. I know it, you know it, everybody in the room knows it and i dont think the American People the American People are smart enough to figure it out. The question, and this is a yes or no answer are you committed to testify again in the new congress, starting with you, jack. We are always happy to talk directly with people. We are happy to continue that engagement to congress. I hope we can continue to have this conversation not just through the ceos of the companies but also with experts who work on these issues every day. Absolutely. The more information the better but not based on politics, based on reality. And i want to thank you for that because we are in these times when it comes to politics. Quite frankly we are at the time when real news is fake and you try to shut down the news. Whether it comes from joe biden or Donald Trumps mouth. Wouldnt you agree if they said the same stuff that you would do the same Fact Checking . If we found violations of the policy, we would do the appropriate action lets go ahead then. We would apply the policy without regards to who its from from. Senator, i agree with what was said. We would also apply our policies to everyone. And in fact, when joe biden posts to facebook about the election. Thank you for that. In 2016 to spread disinformation including some folks in congress to amplify, what tools do you have to fight for the disinformation on the platforms . Our policies are against the platform no matter where it comes from. We see patterns of people and organizations that attempt to manipulate the platform and conversation the partnerships weve made with the other Tech Companies here as well as Law Enforcement and intelligence communities and Election Officials across the world to make sure we have all of the appropriate input and i took kobe take you live to a Campaign Event with Kamala Harris in georgia. Now touncer we take you a Campaign Event with Kamala Harris. Send who harris hello sen. Harris hello everybody. Can we give it up for Stacey Abrams . [applause] i was talking to stacy and i said, look at where we are,
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