Washington jiewrt and was the first time the house of Commons Committee broadcast a live session outside of the u. K. This portion is an hour. Good afternoon. Welcome to the seconds session of evidence here today to Washington University as part of our committee inquiring into this information and fake news. We heard in the previous session from the Tech Companies and would be joined by people who are leading the investigation and research into the issues we were discussing in the first session, and committee of questions directly but also through as session goes on certainly welcome an immediate observation that you have on the evidence we received from her Tech Companies. I wanted to start this first with david carol. In the session with facebook, there was a reference made to an investigation that the u. K. Information Commission Office is conducting and this is your case. So i thought perhaps you could tell us something about it and my understanding is you made an application to dates they hold about you that was linked to the election, election period in america in 2016, and that because at some point on that date must have been within u. K. Jurisdiction of the u. K. Information Commissioner Office is looking into that and this is really interesting area. Im sure that well be interested to followup with Information Commission back in the u. K. About this. But we welcome as you can give us about ysh case and what youre trying to achieve. Sure, we will thank you for the opportunity to address the committee and to share information about this transatlantic investigation. So, back in february of 2017, i was advised that i could make a subject access request under the u. K. Data protection act to the Company Cambridge ann lit ka because of the reports theyve been hired by various campaigns during the 2016 campaign season. And that right affords someone to if you have data thats being processed that it can be provided to you. And then received the data from the Parent Company group, at the end of march. Accompanied by a letter indicating that they were compliant and trying to be compliant to the u. K. Data protection act. And some description of how it was encollected but Nothing Specific. Some description of the kind of Third Party Entity that it qowb shared with but Nothing Specific and excel spread sheet that contained voters information that was accurate. A tab of election returns relevant to my voting district and then a panel called models which was an ideological model that tried to predict and analyze my political beliefs that compromised Ten Political topics that were ranked in order. It also tried to compute my partisanship separate and tried to compute to participant and i decided to post this on twitter on the day that i received it. While redacting my personal information, and then i soon was able to get a solicitor to represent me in the u. K. To challenge the compliance to u. K. Data protection act. Because we believe that the disclosure was not complete. And may not be compliant. And also the same time i was advised to file with the Information Commission manier office which i did on july 4th, 2017 which is a little bit poetic, and the that was ability to contribute to their Ongoing Investigation as to voters an a littics companies with reference to the elections in the 2016 season. So theres at least one u. S. Citizen who has filed with the ico and we have received updates recently that of the investigations far more complex than they anticipated. They had hoped to provide a report at last fall. But as they dug deeper into it, it became more and more complex. So theyre still working on it few we have received followup that the investigation is coming along. And it certainly has been useful to provide this information also to the Senate Select committee on intelligence and others here in the u. S. To ours trying to figure out the Companies Role in 2016 election. But the key idea is that u. S. Voters data appears to have been processed in the United Kingdom and this was probably unprecedented. And i want you to think it simply because of the construct of the Company Cambridge and its groups. That data has been purchased outside of america are there any rules around the location of where they store and process relating to politics in america . Interestingly it doesnt seem like u. S. Law was potentially violated here. So it really pex poses how there arent sufficient u. S. Protections for usda it and how u. S. Citizens dont have the same right that u. K. Citizens and citizens used to enjoy being able to get data controllers to disclose data held on them when they become a data subject. So this experience has aluminated a lot of things but one of the things that is most stark for us is that the u. S. Has inadequate protections in this regard. And this is data that theyre holding on you. Do you know where that data is acquired from and able to defend that when you get access to it . Smtion there was no indication of where they obtained data and thats part of the insufficient disclosure. We should be able to know where did they get the data, how to they process it . What do they use it for. Who it they share it with and also do we have a right to out of it and delete data and stop processing it in the future. You heard what some facebook said in earlier sessions about the right to request data deletion and whether or not you sees your facebook act and that Facebook Developers are required to give up any data they acquire from facebook users who request that. Do you think that in reality is a straightforward as that . Well i have myself downloaded my facebook data as they described. And it surgery by no means a complete disclosure of all of the data that facebook has on a user so but i also know that the company has pledged to try to be compliant with general Data Protection regulations and will be launching new controls and new disclosures for users to try to be compliant with that new privacy regime. So i look forward to seeing if users are able to actually get a complete profile when they download it their data in the near future. Thank you. If i could ask as well bring in colleagues you were heard what was said had in Previous Panel i think particularly what was said regards to their policies on on not the stake information but lie. Do you think its irresponsible for them to have attitude surely a platform from Twitter Police had had no obligation to take down this information. That is inhib in trying to spread combat issues of like disinformation which we regard asking being a harm. I mean, this really does get to the root of the question and this is, obviously, what you were saying and it was interesting back there american colleague behind me, First Amendment. First amendment which hangt come up yet in this discussion and difficulty here is most of this information isnt true or o false. It is somewhere on a spectrum and i think we take the specific examples and we want to say that seems wrong. They have to be able to take that down but truth is the scale of this and the issues around where many people believe that there isnt an obvious truth. It makes much hareldser. I think this issue of where we know that something is 100 inaccurate how do we talk about that . Because i think at the moment this gets to the question of definitions when we are talking in this huge spectrum, we cant start thinking about regulation. We cant stop talking about intervention if were not clear about what we mean so i think if this idea of whats misleading and question of partisan a british president , much of the content of hour press every day thats published could be argued is misleading in some way. So while it is hard to hear twitter say what theyre saying because from a particular example we want to it say that seems wrong. I think we would be in very dangerous territory to start saying this is clearly something that needs to be taken down and it isnt and who does that . I wish we didnt live in that world but we do. We go to the pub and say different thaings gossip that makes human it is humans and makes us feel uncomfortable but i cant imagine to start to say that we live in a world where we can make those decisions i dont want them to make those decisions. There are there are lies, you know, an debate looking at information used very clear, and your analysis from Academic Work demonstrates different scale of fake news but theres most extreme end things that we know are a lie but dangerous not any for that information to spread uncorrected. But for it to be spread anonymously as well. The courts are open and puck people have been a bit, have faced legal readdress because of tweets that shared or posted on twitter because we know who they are. But if who it is more concerning when people use protection of anonymity to spread lies about other people. No, and it makes us feel very uncomfortable in that way. Because twitter allows without a real name policy it makes us feel very uncomfortable but people who have good reasons but not using their real name but we have to think through twitter talks about as selfcleaning oven. Because they would argue that many journalist would correct the lies very quickly. There suspect a way to tag that correction to the original problematic piece of con tengt so i think thats why we with like to see is how can when journalist and Civil Society and Fact Checkers work on that. Not to flag it and say this is false but instead to have a way to connect alternative pieces of information to that. So if we have a heament debate about what is true or false thats around original piece of con tengt for the moment theyre completely separated so i think thats something that we need to look out from a technical point of view. Quick question still i have to ask one question that you made for which thanks, you said, you know i dread to think where we may start on this. Where we start is where we are and establish norms for people who have the power to affect a the outcome of elections by what they choose to print and what they choose to wise with hold so i suppose what were saying is is one argument which sustainable argument that explains why people who run Online Platform consider themselves to be from place legally to those who run an offline platform i. E. Newspaper. This is we havent heard it yet. I agree with with you frustration is they say were with a publisher no youre a platform theyre a hybrid form of communication and what i would like to say and i did hear that this morning that we would like to be part of a conversation around what new form of regulation might look like. Because i dont think we can take the board model we cant regulate speech and twitter the way we do the bbc thats not workable but i dont think we should say theres nothing in that space and my frustration is all of these conversations were not actually getting to what does this new hybrid form of regulation look like and thats where we need to get and we need to quite quickly i would argue. I think some of the evidence this week from tech professionallings and from academics, is that the moment for selfregulation is probably past. The social media platform will be taking it seriously. Certainly not as seriously as they take that commercial objectives therefore only option left is some kind of state intervention maybe like touch and gotten on to the fact that this net is now closing arranged them . Chef absolutely caught on to that but what i would like to see them say is to say here are are possible solutions that we are all bpgd. Can we start this conversation as opposed to sitting in the trenches saying you know we are not publishers so i do think and i sit on the european fake news it is coming the conversation is in europe are very, very different to conversations you hear in the u. S. But i dont think that we should have state intervention that potentially is knee jerk and tonight react aring to reality and challenges that come from teases these platform a scale that is hard to imagine. I want them to be part of the conversation to have a honest look at we never saw this coming we didnt think in 2018 we would be where we are today and we shouldnt be only one who is make these decision an they shouldnt be the only ones i agree but didnt seep much evidence of it. But the ideal opportunity for at least an indication that, that thought process is going on was surely going to be this morning. Trchg they wanted to be part of the conversation but didnt see them coming up. Thank you. Thank you. Quick question on this. My question is more relating to the line that i was presumed this morning on electoral issues, and regulation and a i was very interested in in what facebook in particularly was saying about the different rules that they are beginning to introduce. And they conceded that the capacity for the law to be broken because filing to disclose information. What was your reaction to those proposals so they made an how does it sit with for example, u. S. Electoral law . I think coming up for a second my concern is definition so we if we talk specifically about election how do question define that . Are we talking about what candidate or Campaign Push out . If we look at the russian around interference it was about post nothing to do with obvious political issues they were cultural and social issues my concern is if we have an honest policy ad that says all of the candidates and campaigns is have to be transparent but it doesnt look over here or o stuff that is causing problems. My fear is is that we create bound are reis which do nothing because real problem sods those boundaries and same way is were talking here if electionings and were talking about political con content we look at pin interest and visual, information, this isnt just about politics but thats something too we need to be careful about. But i was a little bit surprised they can it admit they werent looking at things that so manied shocking to me they werent looking for but honest where people can lie about where their location is. But fact they didnt think this through earlier to say is an a issue of people buying and we cant verify their location. That was surprising to me. That is oven the twitter in particular isnt it . Because they dont have an address. In terms of volume that cant have an impact many the u. S. We have National Rules about no, the importance of local spenders very, very important, and this make it is even more difficult. Even most basic level i could post now to facebook to say youre in washington, d. C. And i could override that say were in antarctica for every plat formal to override and say wherever i am and make it up that is basic location issues on platform to think much more carefully about and privacy implication the idea to override my location is problematic. What about the question of access to the at a time that the platforms have. They seem to think that fact that they were looking at it, and they were they would put the information up. Was quite a quite sufficient any question to them was how is this pleased . How do we know theyre complying with their own rules . We absolutely and i would hope they would recognize that they need independent audit iting of not just whats on the platform now but even steps that theyre taking so the the new fact check tag for example that they have that should be independent auditing of the data around that and ways to make that anonymous so they should have ways that we can sample data and sample con tengt in same ways in Europe Commission independent siflt Society Organizations to audit output there should be a way that we can do exactly same thing on the social platform and that seems to be low hanging fruit for them in their interest to have people l to look. And moment all of the conversations were having is because of excellent journalist at buzz feed and propublic and some of the examples that you gave today are about journalists going to platform and searching and they have lomented access to data. Panel what we could really find if we have true access thats why they dont want to give it up but for me past the point of believing that theyre beginning to give us that information. I felt we have to have access to that data i would argue. Thanks. Stevens. Board like to go back to some of the points i was raiding this morning about algorithm secret sis and inherent biases im looking at that against transparency and losing understanding of what is going on when they have platforms. And what do you think is the solution . Where is the balance that could be found between those two competing interests if their an obvious, simple solution . I think that your question got to the heart of so many things that were trying to discuss today is most users dont understand this space so even if were talking about news and Media Literacy curricular that has to include teach, how to evaluate algorithm how to understand how what you see on amazon or netflix or o facebook has been decided by algorithm and how does that get developed and created by a certain person and how that might shape that. The commute for one thing has to be part of the teaching that we give to people. And also in terms of the the plat forge is complengt work on transparency and at columbia actually has a i think it was in 2014 actually talked about algorithm and what a frame work might look leak and what are questions to ask a platform around why was it created and how can we have more insight, and how can we think about framework actually looking algorithm inrespective of the platform and set up frame qork that says not just a speech but across these particular aspect and elements and i think thats the key we talk about algorithms, and how did we get into black boxes had in a consistent way . Doesnt that go against the whole east and companies by a tie a Business Model is biased on secrecy isnt it . So they would talk about the secret source and you know we would understand that theres a part of that. But i think when their secret source impacts the information that people receive, theyre a way of coming up with i believe a framework which isnt really about them sharing competitive j its saying can we talk about why the algorithm was designed in first place what had metrics are and if we would google it it would say to surface as quickly as possible but i think we need to be asking those questions i think again with yes commercial companies and we have to understand that. But the influence in terms of how they have become the dominant source of informs globally means they have to be held to understand that responsibility and all three Companies Said yes we see this as one of our responsibilities. Okay. Thank you. Thanks so much. Thank you, chair. What do you think the likes of facebook and policymakers not in the years and bipartisan and argument in this respect around the fake news and impact the president ial elections. What do you think is and would be most effective course of action with the acute problem of this information more under control. What do they fear from you and from our regulations . [laughter] they will not be what they profess to be which is technology or Media Company and fear theyre held to account for the con tengt they say they are merely facilitating and not producing. And i think that most poignant observation is they have this very strange powerful hybrid identity as Media Companies that are also that dote create any of the con tengt but yet should be and u must be and they took their own inadequate levels except some responsibility for promulgating and fear to require their data and fear there will be government regulators overseeing their businesses and it they will not be able to be independent mega corporations with the mega revenue that they now generate. What do you think is most effective . Conversations like this are effective and if you feel the heat in a very powerful way. They are also feeling the heat in a very powerful way from Journalistic Community from the Publishing Community and i thought it was interesting hearing them tag about how theyre working with publishers to help them generate revenue. Well, talk to the publishers. But you know what what is very powerful and very prevalent now is to make this conversation as stark as it is to put online what is on the line which had is whether were o going to have an informed or deformed Public Discourse and and public process. And whether companies are contradicting to or subtracting from the the democratic help that we value. And so i dont think we can invite them to the table to lead a conversation and not just be dragged through it. Do you think they understand that game . Some. Some theyve all gone to extraordinary length to higher new people to take a harder look at their sort of social responsibility in a journalistic and Public Information way. But mostly of these companies and ive heard this from many of my friends and colleague and people who have gone there from the Journalism Community they said say this is a culture of engineers and the idea of sort of larger editorial social concerns is a sort of Foreign Language in many cases and that is more than a minor point. In this only paist want to answer in that respect. But isnt there a bit of a dichotomy in fact that it was mentioned First Amendment and not in the other countries these are American Company pas which are on a global scale. And how can that impact . You british and probably european perspective what we see is effectively is Large Company ies that have is large number numbers of people in the United States impacting the party and potentially a deeply negative way particularly in relationship when youve got russia on your borders, so to speak, on borders of europe in that regard. Do you think therefore, that effectively that that that dichotomy is it therefore the situation that effectively whatever the, if there is to be any form of regulation or any form of requirement things with data in europe that the company such as facebook, google, twitter will have to effectively up its game globally because threatened to trade in those countries so this almost takes away almost from a american i would say it means that they would have is to do something. Any thoughts . Well i mean i would say thats absolutely one of the Biggest Challenges is that degree to which anything thats going to happen in the Digital Space is global at this point, and were in the world have very different ways of viewing of applying law or not applying law to it. And at a legal session one of the small conferences that was up at the center up at yale earlier all of the folks that were from a legal perspective said that is the greatest challenge over next decade is us figuring out how were going to have any kind of global approach to this. That can cut across a boundary but it has to exist, and you know, not only the con tengt but the audiences, that is constantly going across, Cross Platform and Cross Country and cross cross the seas. If it is the case here in the u. S. One of the greatest tensions is between a very, very longstanding support for freedom of exfor example are and freedom of the press and if we compare that to 3 different countrieses that we survey, the u. S. And many of these areas are freedom of expression, far outside what that Global Medium would be. Now, americans are feeling that tension of that up against what is misinformation where we have twothirds of u. S. Adults that agree even across political lines that, made up news is causing a great deal of confusion about basic facts around Current Events and so thats where the tension exist now. And you know whether its whether its regulation or other solutionings, we now vp nine and ten pus adults who are getting news online which means, its those or that are or more more or less connected to the the news on a regular basis more or less aware of whats actually going on in Current Events. More or less digitally savvy in terms of how to actually make their way through the kind of information they see. And who are more or less politically drin and politically motivated. Anything else . I just want to comment briefly. Both got long question. You talked about the damage that this causes in society and i did, i do think we need to be very careful here because, obviously, what is what is Bad Information subversive information in one place is Vital Information in another. And these remarkable platforms provide Vital Information not just in the sense of our of our politics but in health and in medicine and all kind of things so i think we just need to factor that many in and define these terms which is so vitally important. Do you think therefore, a very good point. But do you think therefore that we need to talk about less about the User Experience in the Consumer Experience but as to what every platform talked about . And talk more about Consumer Rights and approach in that direction and right of ownership as you vs a individual and a freedom right something that is actually about freedom in that respect. Is that the way in which that effectively we can, we can square this circle, so to speak . Well, i think any perspective is going to raise all of the challenges around what gets included in certain types of information or not. As claire was talking about this spectrum and different definitions. You know, if we put what would be completely made up news in perspective, one of a study we did recently it was that a case study of stories that were linked to on twitter about immigration, 42 came from what we would be calling around this table you know identify News Organizations. Most of which were legacy so theyre not just dimmingal native very few that identified with any outlet that was named on a fake news list. The same if we lock at sort of the coverage establish News Organizations of the Trump Presidency during first 100 u days we saw very different assessments of the actions. Of the presidency based on the audience makeup of that particular outlet, and so theres a lot of different kind of misinformation and whether a consumer will think about my right to another type of content can get very complicated as well. Regards to the consumer right aspect i think it is very significant and we saw it actually play out with the russia investigation here in the u. S. And facebook and twitters response to the socalled information operation. And actually it came from in some ways citizens applying pressure to the companies to disclose if they were exposed to foreign propaganda and so by the pressure of citizens to the lawmakers who then pressured the xeanls in the hearings to ask would you tell american citizens if they ten gauged with foreign propaganda that was impersonate ing their own citizens and then therefore facebook and twitter have made some steps to tell people if they have been exposed to this. It beginses to move us towards the direction of is are we debating about encorship orb privacy rights, and disclosure rights, and the right to know who is behind things and the same applies to the issues of, you know, who is paying for advertising so the transparency of advertising and you know are we pushing the platforms to adopt the same kind of know your customer principle friers in the finance industry to prevent things like Money Laundering if we have sort of similar high stakes disclosure issues at both the business side and the the consumer side just calls for further demand for transparency. Well, another question basically is what do advertisers think of this. Of this debate right now . What the advertisers think and what appreciate they can bring on these companies and to ensure when theyre paying the money over, theyre getting what they actually fade for. Incentive to be sold accurate of the audiences that theyre buying. So there is a tremendous business pressure on the companies to have accurate audience measurements which is another force to weed out bad actors in system who are defrauding the advertising ecology by impersonating fake click on amplifying fake impressions to cheap the whole industry out of its own revenue. So we are so theres a significant incentive there. But the question is why isnt that sufficient to eradicate the huge amount of fake accounts already . I mean the fact that Facebook Says it removes about a million accounts a day, and twitter is constantly removing accounts, the antifraud incentives arent even significant to eliminate this problem. So obviously we need to do more. Yeah. But if we it [inaudible conversations] a facebook account or twitter account, and i wanted to use that account and to retreat i mentioned this in first hearing breaking copyright that would come down in minutes. And probably would be band on my about the deleted, et cetera. Why is it that i could decide to actually on another person. Now get another account going to retweet it and get it out as much as possible yet that could just stay there. How is that possibly fair . So, i mean, the copyright issue is huge, and it was a great question to ask, and, i mean, they did give a useful answer had had is we have the technology to do that and we shared feel to create database of known inaccurate content when they said we can compare against it we should be start ising to create databaseses to give them that. But of course o theres a financial reason why they have moved much more quickly on that and as an individual were not going into, and with the ads you know primary league will, and going back to advertising as a financial aspect of this question is main motivation of making this kind of con tengt you know if you talk to brndz if they were here this is one of the Biggest Challenges the fair of having their quality brand advertised against one of these terrible sites about and again were now in january, february 2018 within the the fact that we havent seen significant shifts on this. That most brands still say we dont trust that were not advertised against something thats poor quality is astonishing and you would believe that financial incentive would have put more pressure to stop that and i havent seen it so when you try to understand what is going to move needle is finance in this country what will and are they not losing any money . A hugely, huge problem and amount of stuff thats upload ptd every single day the wac mole element showed me the lust of url created this week thats all over facebook an fact that we cant stop this stuff and every single day it is started. It is a scale that is eye watering but frustrating to say why are we still here but mostly the scale of this challenge. Not having this third ability to do it at scale. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] its worth remembering to a extent where all of these, this is all new stuff. These were guides 25 years ago sitting in sheds coming up with incredible platform that we now accept every day and there was a big kind of mel gibson cry of freedom when, you know, they arrived. And suddenly we have thing like arab spring happen hadding and it gave every individual a voice and this cant be a bad thing. Now i dont know about you guys but i sat here ai watched people who are like blinking in the sunlight. They werent expecting to be where they were today. And this is not where they came from, so my impression is that you know the very is thought of editorial control the five bairveg tenants of journalism. Truth and accuracy, independent fannish and humanity accountability. All of those things those things arent in their mind when they created they media they are not journalist but not proposing a journalistic regime upon them. First of all, i would leak to get your impressions of what do you concur with me on that. On how they form today, and secondly, how do we regulate that . I mean, where would you come from to start with because theyre not expecting it as far as i so saw. Certainly the case they were begun with news in mind none of them started as News Platform but even twitter was about sort of hearing things conversing with your friends so news is thing that found its way to each of these platforms as more spent time there and companies wanted to keep there and part of what peoplemented over the course of the day was the news to find out whats going on so it is not way thing were not initially structured around being a news provider per se. Its interesting because i was chief at cnn when aol merged with time warner and we have manage if people could get the weather any time they wanted. [laughter] and then we started seeing some, you know, instant messaging and the speed of it. And as it was with cnn when cnn was created as it was when aol first platform people had starses in their eyes but they had no idea of the critical mask and power of the sheer volume of correspondents and impact that has and married to that was nowhere in this process was a journalistic mindset or principle imposed on creation of that ecosystem so in the right way, in journalism done the right way, has gait keepers and those open and shut gates before information goes out. Not after the information is out. Done right. And there is a system of accountability and theres a theres a finite number of people and theres an chart and a you feel that puts order to that. There is no order to this social media process. And ive always pushed back tbens those who talk about crowd sourcing and citizen journalism. Citizen reporters maybe point a camera are at something saying heres what happened is one thing. But the journalistic true journalistic train a mindset is not something that just grows ran tomly. And that is part of the gigantic disconnect that we now have. We do not have a system of check, balances, accountability gate keepers thats the Culture Shock that i was talking about a molt ago. Absolutely. So the question is what is the way forward that companies should be linking linking with academic world more to give them control and would give him guidelines and how would you guide them . Yeah, i think i completely agree with what youre saying people who started Companies Really believe that technology was going to to make the world a better place and i said if they spent more time down they would have realized that places it is a dark and messy place and being a journalist requires you to make tough choices and what impact of those publishing decisions are, so i actually think weve talked about this in terms of threat modeling but i think a lot of these companies have not actually sat in a dark room and said whats worst Case Scenario here an theyre not sharing data enough or thinking through what this might look like so i think theres an element of bringing in academics but we didnt talk about how much so much of the same con tengt travels across same platform theyre sitting in their silos we have to say they should be sharing data about how the same content is traveling across. So i think we with need they will to get darker we need them to think about the worst that could happen and to actually do some actually think through what might happen and how can question with respond to meal time and not how two years later to have a bunch of inquiries we should be ahead of the curve we should be thinking what is happening and close messaging apps we havent talked about today. Virtual augmented reality if we regulate today were in trouble we should be looking to the future. Ask this funnelly from what you saw today u do you think that they are going to become entrenched or are they up for change . From the evidence you saw earlier today . Theyre up for change but they dont know how to do this they have lawyers intrnlly who are terrified about them opening up and they are work. They Work Together around terrorism extremist content there are frameworks that they can Work Together on but theyre not sure how to take a step from where they are to where they need to be and to get in front of that i wish we could do it the other way around. Journey and we have arrived here. Thank you. [inaudible conversations] i i just wanted to explore briefly what steps from a Consumer Protection point of view might reasonably be taken to about going with panel on opening up the box as it were. Im not sure i have exactly the answer for that based on our restroom. One step that News Organization rs have taken is different around transparency within an understanding that by being more transparent with their readers with their audiences with their users, theyre livelihood coming back this creative relationship is going to be greater. And when News Organizations you know, the other conferences that are happening a lot is around trust. Right how thats a loss of trust and news ofertions feel, et cetera, and a lot of steps those organizations is taking around transparency sharing what they know and dont know and that doesnt speak to the same were talking about here had. But it does go towards create in a relationship and by your users. My experience pursuing voter data firsthand is importance of the british and european Data Protection model. This the idea of the a legal subject in a legal controller which forms basis of creating transparency and we heard this morning by for example, facebook it was quick to acknowledge it has to abide by the u. K. Data protection act and as i mentioned they are beginning to be adopting the ease gddpr. So i think these models show how Consumer Rights can be expressed through Data Protection. Rules and also shows how these rules apply transnationally. That is i was able to take advantage of british law in this case because my data was processed there. And the requirements of gdpr on all citizens will force companies to abide by that. But even within that, the significance of being able to understand what your data that you get and how does it shape your experience and how can it be an understandable piece of data and in terms of the accountability problem it is to the transparency problem in how is my news feed being shaped by and how is my behavior on other websites affecting the things that im seeing i dont think that consumers have a strong understanding that all websites has their facebook attached to it and that allow people to retarget them on facebook and we saw for example, or Internet Research agency probably used this technique to retarget americans aCross Platform so we dont have a general consumer dont have a clear understanding about how their data is used in various ways sometimes against them. It is wort pointing out i think that you know, in all of this more responsibility on the part of the consumer. And propose as david is looking at his information in figuring out whats going on there. So people are allowed to set and turn off certain things whats the population that will take advantage of doing those things or taking the time to understand the data about themselves and how it would be used. Facing an information situation not unlike food situation we pass. There amazing amount a it is of food available to you and its all labeled but people eat what they want to eat and we have o obesity problem in the world that is getting really bad. Because they eat junk food and if we consume this kind of thing, too much we have very, very serious consequences. So i think consumers have to be engaged and they have to be educated in a much more profound ways that needs to build in these socialed Media Companies and traditional Media Companyies need to acknowledge that and immediate to develop a series of guidelines many News Organizations have that. They have their ethics codes and they have various practices. That spell out specifically from a consumer perspective what the end result should be and lay out levels of accountability along the way. They have played out because theyve lived it what happens when really bad things happen. And that has not yet happened social media. Were on the verge with Media Technology im sure youve seen them where i can take one of your sound bites and change your wordsage put out a piece of video and look like youre saying something you never said. Uhhuh. And now we create a whole new reality that ease go beyond just social Media Companies. So this is starting if not ending and i think first thing we need to do is create partnerships. Maybe impose partnerships with some of these companies. To be thinking about these things in a much more detailed way and coupled with research that pugh are doing to be brought in to these corporate cultures. I was going to say one of the best things to do is say to somebody buy an ad on facebook when they have to go u through the process to see how you can target those ads, you just see peoples eyes pop so i think as a kind of Literacy Campaign to get people towns how their data is used we need to get people towns whats happening to them. I can imagine the company and dissents mindset might be. Well we dont charge for that. We give it away free grow are dont like it butt out but thats not good enough. Thats absolutely true. But i think when the people are not paying theyre giving up data. People dont understand that so ting that choice that you dont pay because youre giving up your data people unked that properly they could make an actual choice about whether they want to be there and longterm implication of companies have in our personal data that may be first year if not that damaging but start getting older and older amount of data they have on you starts to be able to be put together in ways that can be potentially very damaging. Thank you. Thorning very much but i wanted to touch on media background on how much the misinformation spread i decide is having a knock on efnght on conventional board craft media in terms of the fact that its it almost teaching people not to trust anybody. So where do you go and bonify journalist do to combat this raised with us actually by Mark Thompson at the new york time the in particular. This is probably the most concerning thing of all is that we have created now a culture of doubt around any information wherever it comes from in the public and it is said by politicians who point the finger and scream fake news again we need to defy our terms and be disciplined about that and who refer to journalism as a enemy of the people. Not only is that not help hadful it is very damaging and it has created echo chamber of traditional media. I think we food to be very, very careful when were talking about traditional media. Word media is a very plural word and there are have many and many distinct differences so in the United States i would make distinction between talk tv and talk radio and certain other media where the in talk media and Talk Television radio rather the volume is particularly loud. And where these kinds of false reports drive a about drive a kind of an opinion, focus discussion that has the efnlgt of confusing vast numbers of u viewers and listeners as to the distinction between opinion and informationd whats correct and whats not and seen a plummet and we can talk about a plummet in in, in a further ideological line of trust and media. And just in the last year. Its getting worse. And so the real concern that we all should have that you should have is Public Officials is how do you reach and inform a public . How do we make sure that they have the basic information they need to participate in a democratic process where they are called upon to decide things and to elect you and to make those decisions based on if information, in fact, not just propaganda. So on the converse i would also say because this has happened to me. A twitter storm was caused something i said was misrepresented and put out there. And my local press picked that up because it got so many hits. So they didnt investigate what actually happened or o check up the facts of the story but they thought it was a story. Because of the hits that it had on social media and you can say where does this end because it was make news theyre picking up and theyre reiterating it. It is very hard especially in the world of real are time news whether its right here or Cable Television or o online things to ignore something that is happening and playing out in real time in front of you even if its wrong. Right, and then you have the well it is generating this much traffic or its out there we have to correct the record. And so you you have the very distorted kind of view. So we need to perfect what i like to refer to is language of live to a very different place where we are telling people very explicitly, what that tweet was what the controversy is around it. And that is a increasingly difficult thing to do in the rush to be first. And fast and loud. Can i just buzz something that concerns me. We have to be careful going as you did refer to earlier the legislature or the regulation. This to cause not another problem because would it not be right that there will be other players waiting to come into the space wanting to set up wantses to play your pick news that must be a danger as well well across the world. Yeah, i thinks i coming back to something julianne said whatever we do in europe, we can do it for the best of intentions what it means it will be a blueprint but also other rts part of world where there are not protections of free speech or media and we have to be careful that we can be careful about our definition is what wii trying to protect but about in a different way in another context so we have to be careful about that. But i think to your point too about the media i think one question were not talking about or not thinking to enough is that if youre a disinformation agent the thing that you really want is amplification by the mainstream yeetd theyre targeting Mainstream Media because they see debunk planting folks information and have been since 2014 and before that they will then resuscitate now and say it has been arnsd for 2014. And ultimately the point of what many disinformation agents are trying to do is simply to cause con potion and not about any one particular rumor but getting any company to appoint we cant trust anybody anymore and my fear is were getting there pretty quickly. I dont know how we come back from that. But we get focused on how to twee fact check a claim or rumor its not about that but much wider ecosystem. Thank you. Thank you. Chris thank you, just a quick couple of questions here, and mr. Carol, when you have got general subject access request return, was the day accurate . The information accurate . So the Voter Registration information was perfectly accurate. The information about the election returns in my district were mostly complete but not fully complete. And then the political model was, you know, subjective so do o i think it is accurate . There are ac aspects of it that are disturbly accurate and aspects that are impossible to understand. So part of a legal challenge in the ico complaint is that its important to be able to understand, for example, how this political model was generated so that i can understand then how it might have been used to target me from messages. And when might choose to answer this because of our Online Activity so this isnt just the Voters Registration data for example, and you know no assumption it will be a fair reflection of what we do because it had been generated by our actions online and that make it is more accurate. The company says that it you know, it uses our commercial behavior data to link it to our voter file and then make these political models. So thats why it becomes so important to understand the sourcing. Because if it is the websites we visit the products we buy, the Television Shows we watch, et cetera, that is then used to determine our livelihood to participate in election. The issue ors that we care about most. People dont understand their commercial behavior is affecting their political life. Organically. Thank you, thanks. Thank you very much. I think thats thats good. So the issue for me is how is how did cambridge litigate get that information . Because you know facebook tells me this morning that they wouldnt share that information with anybody. So from these plot platforms u how is it possible to access the information if you dont have access to facebook or twitter account or whatever . Its my understanding that the company could purchase commercial data from commercial data brokers. And from ad Tech Companies and from media ratings agencies. And then use all color risms to reconnect that commercial data back to voter profiles. So thats a thing that were trying to ascertain through the ico through legal challenge. Moreover into that cambridge those who model modeling methodology and techniques did use facebook applications to gather data from users who signed up for their application. And thats how they collected if facebook leaks. And used facebook likes to predict personality also things like political affiliation gender, sexual assault, whether their parents got divorced, whether they smoke, drink job use drugs, et cetera. And so, we have some understanding of how these are used. But we are looking for more transparency to figure out how it was actually used. Thank you. That concludes that panel. But thank you all very much for evidence it has been very informative, and thank you this civil war in syria and how turkey relationship with ethnic kurds complicates the u. S. Role in the region. We knew we have to get people on board. We also had to interrupt how they caught. Challenging people in our own moment sometime