Threehour hearing. This hearing is called to order. Good afternoon. Let me say to folks are attending i apologize the hearing was delayed in our start time. We had a series of votes on a singapore that just concluded and so welcome. Welcome to our witnesses. This past april the subcommittee held a hearing on social media buys with witnesses from facebook and twitter. As i noted then, in inquiry into big tech censorship practices must take an especially hard look at google. Thats what were doing here today. Googles control over what people here, watch, read, and say is unprecedented. Almost 90 of internet searches in the United States use google. Google domination of the Search Engine market is so complete that, to google, is now a commonplace. With that market power, google can and often does control our discourse. And sometimes Tech Companies talk about their products and the effects of those products as though their forces outside of big text control. As weve heard time and time again, make tack favors defense is a wasnt me, the algorithm did it. But google Search Engine is in some supernatural force. Its a Computer Program written and maintained eye people. So every time we search on google, we see only the webpages that google decides we should see. In the order that google decides we should see them. Type a few letters into the search bar and google will tell you what you should be looking for. The same is true of google subsidiary youtube. The second most visited webpage in existence. When you search on youtube, programs written by people at youtube provide you with the results. When you watch the video, a Program Written by the people at youtube, suggests what you should watch next. And when you submit a video, people at youtube determine whether youve engaged in socalled hate speech, and everchanging vague standard meant to give censorship and air of legitimacy. This this is a staggering amounf power to ban speech, committee manipulate search results come to destroy rivals, and to shape culture. More and more americans are demanding accountability from big tech for that massive power. One thing is certain. Congress never intended to empower Large Technology companies to control our speech when it passed section 230 of the Communications Decency act. That provision section 230 day Tech Companies special privileges that nobody else gets. If the New York Times or the wall street journal or to publish an oped that libeled a private citizen, they can be held responsible. This is the case even when those organizations dont write the content that breaks the law. They can be held responsible merely for publishing it. Not so for Companies Like google and youtube. If someone uses one of the services to commit slander or two transmit classified material or to traffic guns or drugs, far too often google is off the hook. Section 230 makes it immune. Big tech gets a perk, a subsidy, that no one else does. Fox news, msnbc, or anybody else this Community Immunity was part of a a deal. It was a treat. Section 230, the text of it, refers to the internet, as a quote, a a form for a true diversity of political discourse. That was the trade at the heart of section 230. This is because we expected Tech Companies in the business of carrying other speech wouldnt favor any side when they did so. There wouldnt be a conservative internet and the liberal internet. They would be the internet. That market today is falling apart. Big tech continues to reap the benefits of a section 230 subsidy. Of the American People do not. The American People are instead subject to both overt censorship and covert manipulation. I believe its time to rethink that deal. If big tech cannot provide us with evidence, clear, compellg data and evidence that its not playing big brother with its vast immense powers, there is no reason on earth why congress should give them a special subsidy through section 230. And that takes us to the heart of the problem. Big tech is anything but transparent. Google is happy to collect data on everyone everywhere constantly. On you, on me, on all of us. They make sure they know what you search, what you shop for online, what you like. They track your location within a matter of feet so they know when you visit a physical store. But the information sharing is a oneway street. This must change. Google google cannot simply hidd its algorithms. Big big techs algorithms and sh engines only do what humans and Companies Like google tell them to do. Just as big tech needs and wants data on all of us, the American People need and want data on big tech. They need it to profit. We needed to protect free speech. And i hope that today google will start to answer some of our questions fully and candidly so that we can assess how we can Work Together to protect the robust marketplace of ideas that american political discourse has been built upon. Senator coronel. Thank you, mr. Chairman. The counter says july 16 but it feels like groundhog day and the United States senate. A little more than three months ago the subcommittee held a hearing to explore allegations of anticonservative bias in the Tech Industry. My friends on the other side were critical of witnesses from facebook and twitter. They claim a vast conspiracy to silence conservative voices. After listening to some of the comments from that hearing you might think that some liberal mastermind set at the controls of those platforms looking at 510,000 facebook posts and 350,000 tweets posted every minute. And remove anything that might align with the Republican Party platform. I repeat now what i said then. Claims of anticonservative bias in the Tech Industry are baseless. Study after study has debunked suggestions of political bias on the part of facebook, google and twitter. In june of this year the economist released the findings of a yearlong analysis that ran on search results on googles new staff pick a town no evidence that google biased its results because conservative. In april media matters completed a 37 week study into alleged conservative censorship on facebook. Found that rightleaning pages actually outperformed, outperformed, leftleaning pages in terms of overall interactions with users. Earlier this year twitter perform a fiveweek analysis of tweets set by all members of the house and senate. It found no statistically significant difference between the number of times a tweet by a democratic member is viewed as compared to a tweet by a republican member. One of our witnesses, professor Francesca Tripodi come has done own research in this area and she found no evidence that google censors conservative content either in its main search product or on youtube. In fact, she found conservative commentators like mr. Prager, another of the witnesses today, are extremely adept at optimizing their content for a google Search Engine allowed them to capture massive audiences. Undeterred by this evidence here we are again three the initial hearing with facebook and twitter. It is not googles turn to be raked over the coals. Google will be accused of political motives for some comments and actions that are entirely within their rights. Just like we saw at the president s socalled quote social media summit last week. President trump invited a rogues out a social media leading racist and conspiracy theorists to hear about supposedly censorship i Tech Companies. But none of these people have actually been banned from any platform. Each remains free to use the megaphone social media provide to spread their messages of conspiracy and hate. This comes at a cost. Fears of being targeted buys as may Tech Companies hesitant to do with the real problems of racist and harassing content on their platforms. According to a report by vice, twitter is afraid to use a proactive algorithmic approach that uses to remove isis rated content to read the platform of white supremacist content. The reason, twitter is afraid it might also catch content posted by republican politicians. Youtube dragged its feet before taking any action against conservative commentators steven crowder, despite being informed of his twoyear homophobic Harassment Campaign against journalist carla. When you two did finally take action, it took a half measure of removing advertisements from the videos rather than removing him from the platform entirely. Browbeating for a problem that does not exist also this attention away from the real problems with google and other Tech Companies. Last month and year times investigation found that you choose recommendation engine served as a roadmap for pedophiles to find videos of younger and younger girls can sometimes as young as five or six shoes old. That followed a wide report on the way pedophiles use the Comment Section of youtube videos to identify and share videos of children. A recent wall street journal investigation found that youtube is overrun by videos pushing phase claims false claim for catechistic this is after you to stoke the flames of the antithaksin over to the point that measles has returned to this country. Another near times feature documented the radicalization of a young man who followed youtubes recommended videos down and altright rabideau. Google is a big successful company. It employs some of the smartest people in the country. Theres the question in my mind that it can solve these problems, real problems. Unfortunately, as long as we are busy making google defend itself from clear and convincing evidence no less, from bogus claims of ethic at the concertd it has no incentive to address these real issues. Im hoping another of her witnesses can shine some light in this area. Andy parker is a father of journalist alison parker. Alison worked for cbs affiliate wgbh j in roanoke virginia. August 2015, she and her colleague adam ward were conducting a live interview when they were attacked by a gunman. Alison and adam died at the scene. Video of the shooting quickly spread on social media including googles youtube. For the first past four years andy has sent letters to google first met with google. He has flagged videos on youtube. He has begged and pleaded that these videos come down. Despite his efforts, you can still find videos of tragic on youtube to this day. I want google to tell us why that is. I look for to hearing from andy. Is work to shine a light on googles failures honors alison memory. It also provides a great Public Service as a hope this committee the full Judiciary Committee and the senate writ large start to focus on the real problem presented by the Tech Industry and demand action. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Now happy to introduce our first witness. Mr. Karan bhatia, currently heads loopholes googles department. He served as deputy undersecretary of commerce or industry and security from 20012003. As assistant secretary of transportation for Aviation International affairs, from 20032005, as deputy u. S. Trade representative from 20052007,2, and as head of general electrics Government Affairs division from 20082018. He is a graduate of Princeton University and columbia law school. Thank you for joining us, mr. Vendee. Would you please stand and be sworn in. Raise your right hand. Do you swear or affirm the testimony about to give for this committee would be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god . You may make your opening statement. Thank you synergistic my name is karen petit. I lead the Government Affairs and Public Function at google that proves major hazard ice served george w. Bush administration and early in my career i spent time at the Heritage Foundation and Claremont Institute and a coach i was editor of our conservative publication the princeton tory. I am a firstgeneration american. My parents imparted to me and abiding passion for the principles of free speech, democracy, and free markets. And the same passion makes me enormously gratified to work at google. A company that embodies these values every day around the world. Google is a proudly American Company growing across the u. S. We are investing more than 13 billion to expand our presence in 14 14 states this year, creg thousands of american jobs. We are also a Global Company and a big american export of competing vigorously with competitors from around the world. Through our grow with Google Program were proud to work with thousands of small american businesses and abe lincoln to tap commercial opportunity of the internet. We are a company focused on the future as well investing billions annually in r d and innovating new products to all people live better lives. For example, by point Artificial Intelligence to enable earlier detection of cancer or predict natural disaster. But above all we are a company of more than 100,000 people with a wide range of views, nationals and backgrounds, dedicated to the companies mission of organizing the worlds information and they can get universally accessible and useful. We live in an amazing time for the free flow of ideas, never before in history of mankind has it been possible for so many people to share so many ideas with so many others at solo a cost and through so many different avenues for internet platforms have been transformative and powerful tools for the marketplace of ideas. Among the many beneficiaries of the internet have been political groups. From the Tea Party Movement and the United States to the arab spring. The internet has enabled people to spread political messages and build political communities. Providing a a platform for shag a broad range of information is core to our mission. It is also core to our Business Model. Google needs to be useful for everyone, regardless of race, nationality or political leanings. We have a strong business instinct to prevent anyone from interfering the integrity of our products or results we provide to our users. So let me be clear. Google is not politically biased. Biased. Indeed, we go to extraordinary lengths to build our products and a force policies in an analytically objective, a political way. Our platforms reflect the online world that exists. Our job which would take very seriously is to deliver to use the most relevant and for authoritative information out there. And studies that show that we do just that. Objective thirdparty studies including most recently a comprehensive yearlong assessment by the economist of the googles results have found no evidence of bias in either direction. Additionally, in may of this year our Data Scientist and lies daily click through rates on search results to the official websites of members of congress. The data showed no difference in these metrics whether the member was a republican or a democrat. Also analyzed official Youtube Channels for all senators who have been, and we consistently found a a balance between republicans and democrats. Our platforms such as Google Search or you do you with massive amounts of information, i can imagine the we rely on algorithms and temperament testing and evaluation by thirdparty raiders. None of our systems are designed to filter out individuals or groups based on political viewpoints. Operating at the skill we do we are bound to get criticism from both sides, and we do. From time to time political ads may violate our advertising guidelines and we disallowed as for both democrats and republicans. From time to time our knowledge pans which help you find quick facts when you search for information about topics like Hillary Clinton or the california Republican Party may reflect erroneous information from the web and will need to be corrected. We work hard to learn from our mistakes and improve our products but these mistakes have affected both parties and are not the product of bias. As technology plays an increasingly essential role in the lives of americans we know that users expect the highest degree of integrity from our products and that we must meet the expectation every day. If we dont our users will go elsewhere and that is why we invest heavily in the systems and tools that help us serve as the content is most relevant to our users in an analytically objective a political way. Thank you for this opportunity. I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you, mr. Bhatia. My first question will not surprise you. Its a simple question. Does google consider itself a neutral public forum . Senator, we operate a number of platforms and they are constructed and operated to be politically neutral or a political. So let me come does google, the Google Search page, but she spoke of that for a moment, does google consider the Google Search page to be in neutral public forum . We construct it, we build and operate it to be politically neutral. Does google consider youtube to be a neutral public forum . Similarly, senator, we build and construct and maintain it without algorithms to be politically neutral. Mr. Bhatia, i asked my staff to give you a hard copy of a document that was released recently that we also sent you ahead of time so this should not be a surprise. It is a document that at least purports to be authored by google. The title of the document is the good sensor. How can google reassure the world that it protects users from harmful content while still supporting free speech and it is dated march 2018 . Is this document in fact, a document that was prepared within google . I seen the document. Seen references for. I understand it was, yeah. So want to refer to you and a copy of completely alteration only alteration to is when britain page numbers on it just for ease of reference. Other than that this is identical to what we printed from online. With no objection going to get a copy of this in the record with the notation we did right page numbers on it. I want to refer you initially to page 14. On page 14 this google document says an up or use federal statute from 1996 supports this position of neutrality and it describes how under section 236 mentation decency act tech firms have legal immunity from the majority of the content posted on the platforms. That is protection is about youtube facebook, twitter and read it to great space for free speech without fear of legal action. Google itself understood on the face of this document section 230 that immunity is predicated upon as though the knot of thie says, neutrality. Now i would like refer you to page 65 of the documents. Put this chart as well. So on page 65 of the document, this google document says tech firms are performing a balancing act between two two incompatibe positions. On one side great and immediate marketplace of ideas. When hundred committed to the american tradition that prioritize as free speech for democracy not to do like reading spaces where all values including severely norms are always open for debate. Thats on the one side and googles own assessment. On the other side is create will order spaces for safety and stability 100 commit to the european tradition that favors dignity over liberty and stability over freedom. By censoring, and i will note this is googles words, censoring, racial and religious hatred even when theres no provocation the violence. This google document lays this out as a balancing act 202 incompatible positions, but yet two pages later pages later in the document on page 67 google concludes in the eyes of the tech side has won out and, indeed, according to google document, the good censor, google says tech firms have gradually shifted away from unmediated free speech and towards censorship and moderation. So i guess my first question is, is this i could . Does google engage in using your own words, censorship and moderation . Senator, first to place a time and context, this was as ii understand it sort of a thought experiment, and discussion underway among our marketing team. It was a marketing document. Andy was thinking about sort of broader tension that exists between, on on the one hand, bg a forum for free speech and on the other hand, seeking to introduce certain rules of the road or Community Guidelines to make sure that the online environment is one that is, you know, one that users will want to participate in. And so it was discussing that tension and its not reflected necessary of the views of the company as a whole. It is not let me then as my question again, mr. Petit. Is this document prepared within google, is it i could google is engaged in come the terms used, censorship and moderation and moderation in this context i understand not to mean being moderate but rather actively moderate the speech. Is that, in fact, what google is doing which is censoring and moderating speech on its platform . I would not say we are censoring speech on the platform. Fact a, as a major opening remarks, remarkable opportunities for every part of the political spectrum to participate through the online platforms. We do have come for instance, like take our youtube platform. We do have Community Guidelines that precludes for instance. From uploading videos that might contain violent extremism, that might contain hate speech that would prescribe or encourage, incite violence. Youve got the logos if i recognized them correctly for facebook, twitter, google and youtube all on the side towards censorship and moderation and, in fact, the chart goes on to say create will order spaces for safety and stability. And that it has three words, politicized, editor, and publisher. Are those accurate descriptions . Is google or youtube editors and publishers . No, sir, senator. I dont leave your carpet and not sure the context in which those words were placed up there. But no, we are not. So this google document come your position is, its just wrong . My position is that many documents that get produced where your task teams up often think about whats going on in the ecosystem. I think this document reflects thinking thats been done by a marketing team. The next page of this slide deck what you dont think i have a larger form but i will read it for you, page 68 says for a long the gentlemans time has expired. We thought of censorship in terms of governments and nationstates. I think where now an era in which people are starting to realize that private companies probably more than ever before control peoples ability to amplify their voices and whether or not their speech stays up or comes down. Also what they see and what they can listen to and what they can read. There has been considerable debate including an argument either Ranking Member of this Committee Just a few minutes ago that there is no censorship, that no is engaging in any censorship. This document, and, in fact, the court i just read reflects the concerns of a great many people, that google, and Massive Company with monopoly power, is choosing whether to amplify peoples voices, whether their speech stays up or comes down, what they see, what they can listen to and what they can read. Do you agree that is, in fact, what google is doing . No extended it. Just to be clear its a quote from some third party. Its not but google put in this presentation so it presumably to reflect the discussion that is going out in general, in society, about whether platforms in general which have on the one hand, in many cases a mission, a goal of trying to be available for free speech, for new voices, for diversity voices to be heard. And on the other hand, creating spaces where certain kinds of speech, filed extremist speech as an example, which is clearly potentially damaging and threatening to society and to the community of users, is not permitted. Thats a natural tension that exists at a think again its not our quote but is not an unreasonable thing to expect companies to be thinking about. Let me ask the last question, my last question for the first round. You have repeatedly made reference to violent extremism and hate speech. One of the companies that has been be monetized by google repeatedly is Prager University. Dennis prager sitting here. He will be testifying on the next panel. Mr. Prager is in my judgment a highly learned erudite individual, studies and well thought out a great many issues, and in my experience ive always found that i learned when listening to mr. Prager whether happen to agree with a particular issue or not. And yet you to actively censors the content mr. Prager is producing. Is it your view that mr. Prager son of disseminating dangerous ideas or ideas that fit into the buckets you were talking about of violent extremism or hate speech . No, senator. Mr. Prager is a youtube success story. Mr. Prager has more than 2 million followers as i understand it. Mr. Prager, at all of his content is available on youtube, the main youtube channel. We do have a very small percent of our subscribers opt for what we call restricted mode. These are mostly institutions like churches or perhaps schools where theres certain more mature content that they choose not to have access to. This is less than 2 of the overall youtube watchers, but we do feel its important to give those institutions that degree of control. There is a small percent of his overall content as i understand it less than a quarter of his content that is deemed to be in that category of more mature. And so for that very small percentage, they will not have access to mr. Pragers more mature content. Other than that, it is complete just be clear, this is content, for instance, may be perfectly acceptable to watch but perhaps reference to violence to war, rape, things like that thats the basis just for the record, Prager University has produced 325 minutes it is an you to the censored 56 of them. So roughly 20 . Among those that are censored included video on the Ten Commandments. Another one censored includes a video on the history of the nation of israel. The restrictions are reportedly for blocking things like pornography, but apparently in youtube world talk about the ten commitments and the nation of israel is comparable and should be blocked . Respectfully thats not right. What i was trying to explain is all of the ten commandos, all of those are available the 98 of youtube viewers. 98. 5 i believe. 1. 5 of our viewers have activated, again, restricted mode, churches, schools, maybe libraries, that dont want to have their viewers exposed to more mature content i believe the Ten Commandments video contains references to murder and at least potentially nazis in world war ii, something along those lines. Other videos have in that category, the number you referenced 56, whatever it is, that may make reference to rape, thats the reason that theyre not censored. They are available to anybody whos using normal youtube. They are not available to the small subset of chosen to activate restricted mode. Senator hirono. Thank you. Its very clear that all of these forms, the doing of certain types of content. It is not the issue that the chairman richmond focus upon inquiry the premise of the sink is not the removal of, for example, violent speech. The premise of the sink is the target removal of conservative speech or content. So thats what that you would like to focus us on. Apparently the ten commitments of video has nazi imagery so that might be one of the reasons that is restricted. Does google discriminate against conservatives in some way . You have an algorithm that somehow identifies i dont know, the world of conservative content . You just mention that mr. Prager who puts a lot of this kind of content on various platforms, he has, what, five 2 million followers and most of his content is totally available on youtube . I find it really amazing that he is here to testify that he is being targeted for content removal. So anyway, does a google discriminate against conservatives whether on Google Search, youtube or any other platform . No. Does Google Search discriminate against conservative content . No, madam senator. We dont factor political leanings into our algorithms at all. What role does a user critical Party Affiliation play in applications, googles content moderation policies . We dont know our users political you know, it bears no relevance into our algorithmic returns. You mentioned, obviously youre familiar with dennis prager. He is a witness on the second panel and he has sued google for alleged censorship of his videos on youtube. So youre familiar with his organization, Prager University. Was i in. Approximately how many of his videos are available on youtube . I dont have the exact number. 672 soundbite . That could be right, yes. How much does Prager University page also speeches on youtube . I dont believe we charge anything. How many times have prager u because been viewed on youtube . I dont have an exact number for how many views. All of them have, but again i i know he has millions of subscribers. Would it surprise you to learn they been viewed nearly 1 billion times on youtube. Was no, it would not. Have any prager u videos been removed from youtube, totally renewed . No, maam. So i want to show you a chart. This is a version of a chart google submitted in the lawsuit i mr. Prager. It shows the percentage of different organizations videos that are not available in restrictive mode. It shows fewer than 23 of prager u videos are unavailable and restrictive mode. This is less than the percentage of videos unavailable and restricted mode from the Huffington Post, box, the daily show, the young turks and other authorizations that are generally viewed as liberals. You notice a lot more of the socalled liberal sites have a higher percentage. So to your understanding is this chart which was a underpaid of the perjury accurate . Yes, senator. Is googles treatment of prager us, google isnt doing a very good job of it. So to go further, andy parker is in the audience and will be a witness on the second panel. His daughter alison as a nation was murdered on Live Television while conducting an interview in 2015. Footage of that americans to be found in youtube to be provided him with andy for support google about having footage taken down, googles response was that andy and social to identify any videos of the murder and like them to google for a takedown. Google is an 800 billion company with nearly 100,000 employees. Why should why should a father have to search for, watch and flagged because of his daughters murder in order to have it removed from youtube . Why cant google do this itself . So first of all let me start by expressing my own and on behalf of google, you know, deepest sympathy to mr. Parker for what he has gone through. We have engaged with him over the course of time. There are a number of potential concerns with different kinds of his. The first are videos that are hoax the district would videos that were put out that essentially tried to make the case that the shooting of his daughter had not happen. Those videos, violate our are policies and we have indeed taken all of those down. The second set of videos you are referencing article writer and videos that may be, for instance, news footage or other things of the shooting. There are a a couple of concer. What is the question of copyright. In other words, are these videos that are owned potential by mr. Parker understand theres some evidence of that. If there is obviously we would seek to respect the copyright holders, but where there are simply news videos that a a mar news outlet mightve put out that we contain portion of the footage, that didnt becomes part of the, what we were generally ten to leave up. That i think what were trying to work our way through. You have taken down some of this footage. The ones you legally can take down. Can you give us any idea of how many, whatever the right term is, how many of these individual posts that have been put up, that you all takedown . With respect to this video i dont have a number but we can happily get back to you on the. Are we talked about 100,000 of these . In general if you talk about videos that we takedown, there are hundreds of thousands of videos that seek to get uploaded everyday of the week that we take down for violation of a terms one way or another. Just to put in skill, every minute that are 500 hours with the video that assad to be uploaded to youtube. Are you still taking down these kinds of videos relating will refine videos and we de, we deploy machine tools, but algorithmic tools to try to capture what is a violative of legal restriction or policy, d we do indeed i to take into based on those tools. Are you taking action really to do these, or is it only as somebody points out that there is another video . No, senator. Again, given the quantity of video we have out there, we have to depend upon machines. Spot videos that are violative of our policies, our Community Guidelines for others. We use that as a first instanced. We then also do look to members of the commuter to inform us or us two things that i also think should be taken down when pointed out to us with human reviewers look at it and taken down as well. When mr. Parker first came to you it was more than unfortunate that the messaging he got from google is left and find all these yourself, that was definitely not a good thing. Understood. Not a good approach for you folks. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. Senator blackburn. Im sorry, do we have speedy we had seven minute rounds. You want to take more time . Sure. Of that five minutes. Just this week weve been able to find more footage on her murder on youtube. And again it seems as though visavis mr. Parker that google has infinite resources, near infinite resources. I would like to know that you are actively taking down on your own volition these videos. And i think a screenshot of one of the videos Still Available on youtube, and the person who posted the video made no attempt to hide its content. The title is quote breaking wdbj shooting video footage. Like screaming. The game is on the loose after coming two broadcast journalist and shooting those captured on Live Television. I understand content moderation can be a difficult task but it doesnt look like it should be in this case. Its right out there. What possible explanation does google have for widest video slipped through the cracks and is remain available on youtube since august the 2015 . Again, im not familiar with this specific video that you have a picture up there, senator. It again would depend upon the nature of the video that had been put up, if it was against a hoax the of some type. Clearly would transgress our policies and would come down. It should come down. If it is news footage that another lets assume its not any of those categories. If it violates our policies, they should come down. I would know why it would be up. If it doesnt violet are policies obviously is that in and of itself breaking, wouldnt that raise a lot of red flags . It would depend really upon the nature of the video. In all honesty, there are sometimes news events that would be things that might be difficult for viewers to watch but nonetheless would be, put out there on major news channels and would be probably a properly concluded. But again i cant tell from looking at well, is this the same screenshot . This is a screenshot from may 30, 2019, showing that this was flagged. Do i think google did in response is labeled the video as adult content and ask users to confirm their eighth before watching the video. I would think this would just be taken down. What is google going to do to ensure this video and others like it are removed from youtube quickly, and that they dont come back . Why would you allow people to view Something Like this rather than taking it out . Again, senator, difficult for me to comment on this specific video without knowing what it is. There will be videos that will be news footage that may be disturbing to people but nonetheless its legitimate news footage, in which case giving the appropriate label may be the outcome consistent with our policies. On the other hand, if it violates and transgresses one of our policies, whether its a policy against hoax videos, whether its in of of the policies we might have, we would then look to take it down. Again, difficult for me to say but happy to look into. Because a a certificate of t sure where i am with the timeframe here. I i think i have about two minus left. [inaudible] im so sorry. Well, you all are being very nice. Thank you. Thank you. Senator blackburn. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Bhatia, thank you for being here. We appreciate it. About a year ago i said that if the like 2018 marked the end of the age of innocence for the internet. And if you look forward to the summer weve got facebook that has been hit with a 5 billion fine from the ftc. In my opinion, thats not enough. It shouldve been 50 billion. We all know they have been in violation. Their privacy agreements, you all at google are facing a Justice Department inquiry. And if microsoft explains with her 20 year at the trust sauget is any indication, then i hope you realize this is very serious and its a serious inquiry. It seems like the problems around the deck as it has become a mature industry, that they are just mushrooming. And when we talk about privacy or lack there of, data security, lack there of, offenders and that of the biggest the worst offenders, unfortunately for you all, people put google at the top of the list. So we appreciate that you are here. I want to start with you talk a little bit about prioritization of search results. I think this is important to do because i will tell you, id like you all pushed the boundaries entail your hand gets slapped. As a mom and a grandmom, i would tell my kids, you know, dont do that again, and they would try again and it which i begin. Thats kind of what i see with you all. A big Business Company like you are not to be having such childish behavior to do something and you get your hand slapped, waiting to see if were going to get after you or a federal agencies going to range of fact in figure always out there pushing to the limit. And in doing this you have a practice that seems that you suppress competition, and we know that you have come that google has, through google you have advertised search results over yelp and trip advisor you did that until a local search providers really pushed back on you and said you cant do that. Now we see what you were doing is consolidating many of the travel offerings together. And so youre trying to push forward to dominance in the travel market, and you are doing that to an app called trips. And now youre going to be armed with all of these details, all of this data, all of this circuit data from people that use your service. And youre going to use that prioritization to wipe out competition from travel booking sites. And im concerned about the threat to competition that google poses and how search privatization harms new startups that are seeking to enter the marketplace. So let me ask you a couple of things. Does google actively prioritize googles own local search results, yes or no . We seek to provide users, senator, with responses to their most relevant and authoritative. Yes or no . Do you prioritize . No. No, unless our services and what we would put forward would be more relevant. Does google know if its own search results are better than thirdparty competitors . It would depend entirely on the different search that speedy you all the data that you are not quantifying and are not prioritizing . Are billions of searches that get run every day. Sometimes we would surface information that we would have speedy the answer is yes, you do prioritize and yes, you do use that information. People are not dumb. They can check how the search results come in. When the ftc investigated google from 20112013, it discovered a business practice that is called cooccurrence signals. That is, google products would be triggered to the above that ten blue links when the appearance of a competitor occurred and the page rank results. Does google still use any form of cooccurrence signals to suppress the competition in search results . Senator, you are deeper into that that i know the meat answer to that i had to get back to you on the i will take the ftc speedy wideout is that something in writing for the committee so that we have that . This is a practice you are not supposed to be conducting at this point youve been investigated for it. Okay, on monday you claimed an oped that google is not politically biased. Yet you acknowledge that google could limit the reach of conservative content in accounts and i did so mistakingly. If you want us to believe that google is an equal opportunity Search Engine and not an equal opportunity offender, let me clarify exactly what an equal Playing Field with look like for you all at google. Google should equally promote video reporting in its search results whether the article is from cnn or fox news. Do you agree . We have both cnn and fox news in our news okay. Should google equally promote news articles in search results whether the article be from the Huffington Post or breitbart . We surface the results that are should youtube equally promote videos from time in silk at the same time as videos from john oliver . Was against both are in thank you. Ill move on. In december 2018 reports surface google employees sought to block right part from Google Adsense less than one month after President Trump took office. Google employees to use court end quote what they called hate speech as a pretense for banning breitbart from taking part. The emails show ultimately these google employees did not succeed in the efforts to censor breitbart. Has your advertising platform ever enacted policies that tended to favor certain viewpoints over others . No, that of senator, we dont use Political Initiative to influence our ads. Okay because google ever blacklisted or attempted to blacklist a company, group, individual, or outlet from its advertising partners or its search results for political reasons . No, maam. We dont use blacklist, white list to influence our search results. For what reason does google blacklist a company . As i said per your previous question, we do not utilize blacklist or white lists in our search results depend lyrical lyrical speedy i i have one lat question to in march 2019 google set out to form a a council one future of Artificial Intelligence. That is something very important to us here at this committee. One topic was fairness in Machine Learning. Yes been. Of the eight member appointed to the council only one conservative was appointed. That was the president of the Heritage Foundation. She is widely respected as a leader in the conservative movement. Her appointment cost 2500 google employees to sign onto a letter opposing her appointment here the panel fell apart after she was unfairly targeted for her policies. These days we hear a lot about implicit bias. What has google done to address the widespread implicit bias against conservative values that persist throughout your corporate culture, and we understand this is in the physical sense and in the virtual sense . So first of all with respect to our corporate culture, let me emphasize we are 100,000 people. We are in many states around the United States, including tennessee. We are a Diverse Group of people with many different views. But we do recognize that there could potentially be challenges with implicit bias, and thats precisely the reason that we construct our Search Engines and construct our platforms in such a way that bias does not get built in. And quark to that is a system of making sure that any change in the algorithm that could be proposed or used is one based through a rating system, such a search radius which consists of thousands of people throughout the United States, i think 499 states throughout the u. S. And any change for both one change the algorithm has been more authoritative would need to be reviewed by we appreciate that and in this credit will be due a deep dive into the issues of privacy data security, antitrust, repetition, censorship, prioritization. And we hope that you will come with an open mind to the table and be willing to work with us. I yield back. Thank you, senator blumentha blumenthal. Thank you, mr. Chairman, i thank you for having this meeting. Looking to the committee and thank you for being here. I want to first ask about an allegation which actually the president surfaced on monday, the present threatened to launch a treat investigation into google for allegedly working with the Chinese Government, the claimant appears to be based on a comment, and i will ask that the report of that comment be entered into the record if there is no objection. Without objection. Apolitical article dated jul. The claim appears to be made on allegations by peter seo that google has been somehow involved in treason. A league of its software or private data in chinese intelligence . Absolutely not, we take extremely serious threat of any penetration of our system. And if googles software, private data,management is breached by a foreign intelligence agency, including china, will you commit to notifying this committee . Certainly sir and indeed we work closely with the Law Enforcement agencies of the us. Thank you. You know, i want to make an observation which i think perhaps youve already sensed from the hearing but also from comments made well prior to this hearing by myself or months, years and my colleagues on both side of the aisle. The hourglass has run out on antitrust, on privacy, on moral imperative. I think most particularly google is in the midst of a perfect storm and it will require a restructuring and repurposing of what you do and i hope that you are thinking radically, if i may use that term, not radically politically but radically in terms of the role and responsibility that you have in modern american society. Because i think it has to be changed profoundly. My complaint about the facebook settlement prior to what we know of it right now is not the abjectly inadequate amount of supposed penalties, five billion dollars is barely a slap on the wrist but the apparent lack of any structural behavior or leadership reform that will be required. Which is precisely what the outcome will be, i think it is more than a missed opportunity, it is a forsaken obligation that there is no radical order to restructure and change facebook. On the issue that brings us here today , i want to first disclose that Robbie Parker is a former constituents of mine. He his eldest daughter, a sixyearold daughter ella emily was killed in a shooting that would be painful for any of us, if you recall. But most especially for him. And i want to thank him and pay tribute to his bravery and encourage in your assessment time and offer any full interest, i should tell you that the connecticut firm representing him, alex jones , is one where one of my sons, my oldest son works as a lawyer. But he and i have not discussed this case. Mister parker and other parents of those children repeatedly went to google. When alex jones and others use youtube to quote, and im quoting him, regurgitate demonstrably and undeniably false information about the sandy hook shooting. While simultaneously typing victims families for profit. These lies were more than just false, they were illicit, they were cruel, the incited harassment, physical threats. They forced his family literally every day to relive their loss. And as Robbie Parker told us last time he was here for too long, google and its peers were quote unquote, complacent to the threats. This stuff is not speech,its incitement, harassment, defamation. I respectfully suggest whatever your machines are, theyre not working. Would you agree . Senator, if i may again, our hearts go out to Mister Parker and his family in that tragedy. We, and absolutely we believe that hopes videos of the kind that you referenced and he had to experience have no place on any of our platforms and we have taken the challenge, the need to address that very seriously including most recently amending our policies earlier this year or Community Guidelines to make clear that any such video comes up will be taken down immediately. We do again given the quantity of video that gets uploaded at any point in time , we have to depend on tools, on machines to try and find those videos. We constantly are trying to improve them. And they are improving. We are we miss something and it gets caught by another viewer, we then take action against it. Speaking for mister Robbie Parker who is not here today but any parker is, these kind of policies, guidelines, you give me platitudes, are no substitute for effective enforcement. And i have said if i said it once, i said it 100 times, the best policy, the best laws that we make our dead letters unless theyre effectively enforced. I say that as someone who spent most of my career in enforcement, not legislation. And i have to conclude given what i saw before today and what senator hirono showed you that the machines are not working. And that you are dependent as much on the victims coming to you then often the victims not believe or not he did. And i guess im looking for a commitment that youll do better by machines or have different ways of detecting and different ways of enforcing but not just guidelines or policies but actually investing in whats needed. These policies and guidelines real. You absolutely have our commitment, my commitment that we will continue to invest inthat space. All i can tell you is we dont want those kind of videos. There is, its certainly not conducive to the kind of community where looking to build youtube. It is given the ship, quantity of video that gets uploaded, it is acomputer science challenge but we can continue. Individuals will be responsible, you happen to have a provision of law that from the inception of the internet gives you in my view a very excessively broad shield of immunity, we can debate the merits of section 230 at another time, but you cant simply unleash the monster and say its too big. To control. You have a moral responsibility, even if you have that Legal Protection and again, with all due respect, i think there is a moralimperative here and hourglass has run out. We agree that it is a responsibility that we and all platforms have to make sure that videos like that dont appear on our system. And what specific steps are you going to take to try and guideline mark. A lot of it will come down to improving the outer rhythms. Excuse me, improving the effectively the tools that Machine Learning tools that we have two spots videos, to spot violent videos. I will say that there is dramatic improvements happening in this case as Technology Improves and were already catching far more people, people will sometimes put up videos that contain snippets or will contain a bit of video and enter spliced with other forms of video so theres all sorts of tools that people sometimes try to utilize to get around our policies. Were training machines to try to catch those as well. Ultimately, technology is going to have to be part of the solution here and were working. My time is limited but i want to ask you one more question, has google committed to an independent audit of how it enforces these policies . We consult with many people on trying to figure out what the best way of meeting these challenges are, senator. We look to them for input on how were doing were looking for advice on how best to meet the challenges. Without an independent audit, facebook and twitter have promises, have you committed to it . The answer is no. Not along the lines of what youre referencing i think. The answer is no, why not let in mark. Are you talking about against hoax videos specifically . Committed to anindependent audit of how their guidelines are enforced. Again, there are a lot of individual policies and guidelines that we apply, so youtube humidity guidelines is an example, our advertising guidelines, our search guidelines, there are a lot of different guidelines. Each one we utilize different forms of effectively testing and verification to see how were doing im not sure that a single audit of the entirety of what our guidelines or policies are would be viable. Is committed to an audit of guidelines on specifically on civil rights. Which is what has brought us here today. Have facebook committed to that audit . We have not yet. Its something we will be looking at. You certainly have a great deal of, we look to the civil , we have engaged with the Civil Rights Community and leadership, to figure out how. I want to ask you and i apologize but last month, one of your colleagues told the Commerce Committee and i was doing some of the questioning that recommendations for harmful misinformation have dropped by over 50 percent in the United States. These are views from youtubes Recommendation System erected by youtube itself. Systems that controls. Why have the number of views for harmful content dropped by only one half, doesnt that, might that be the amount of traffic that youtube itself is driving dropped to zero . You can control that. Im not sure i entirely follow the question but let me, so the Recommendation System that youre referencing before hand, we have seen a significant diminution as we implemented policies earlier this year that are designed to sort of get at some of these kinds of content that youre referencing before so maybe hoax videos or content that tends to be antivaccination content, marginal content. Significantly the prioritized as we have improved our algorithms are what is recommended. So we have seen a significant decrease in that and were going to continue to work on it. With respect to, im sorry, i didnt follow the other part of the question. I guess the question is why have you reduce it to zero and im going to yield back mister chairman. We actively continue to engage, thank you area. Happy too, thank you. Senator holly. You said google takes its content moderation responsibilities. , thats her testimony here. Is that fair to say . You strive to be evenhanded and neutral. Yes, we construct our algorithms to be politically neutral. Analytically objective and apolitical were yourexact words. You dont impose filters based on political viewpoints, thats her testimony. Thats correct. Despite the fact that almost exclusively your executives and employees donate one Political Party i think one percent of the donations that came from google in 2016 when the republicans are donald trump, all the rest went to the other party, the democrats. A short testimony at you never use constant moderation to advance an ideological agenda. Yes senator and we, it is both contrary to our mission, contrary to our business interests and it would be incompatible with the systems that we build to work political bias in their which i think is why weve had thirdparty studies including the ones that i referenced demonstrate that we do not have political bias. And its consistent with your basic values. Consistent with our values. Except when you do it in china. Youre happy to censor for the repressive authoritarian chinese regime like for example with google. Cn, happy to censor anything away any mention of tnm and square, happy to help the Chinese Government maintain control of all information. Happy to help them control the information flow to their own citizens, youre happy to do all of that. Recall that censorship with an ideological agenda mark. Dont offer almost any of our products in china. Are using google cn did not include censorship tools based on what the regime out for wes and mark. We have not, we have not. Google cn did not include censorship material mark. Are not familiar with google cn . Im referencing the fact that we exited china in 2010 and we did so because google point in addition to being under attack, we felt that the censorship requirements that were being applied to google were not compatible with the products that we were able to. But you did offer google cn you developed and included censorship tools that would have screened out things like the mention of the evidence where. Are you referring to project dragonfly . I wasnt because thats a separate thing but since you mentioned project dragonfly, is it active right now mark. Its not. You abandoned project dragonfly . We have terminated that. Are you willing to commit that google will not agree to participate in any form of censorship with the chinese regime in china against chinese citizens or will you commit to that . You will not agree to any information orrestrictions on data flow in china, the Chinese Market im trying to imagine hypothetically what youre referencing. We dont provide sir , we dont represent chinas search in china. Fundamentally in china we do very little. Certainlycompared any other Major Technology company. So you wont block search terms for concentration camps or tnm and square, you will do that . Im asking you wont because we know you have in the past, thats what google the end was. You contemplated it with project dragonfly, and asking you now for commitment, im glad you use a project dragonfly has been canceled so that the deer because theres news reports its still active area. We have no current plans going to china in the search bar. Thats great. And youre committing to be here todayyou will not in the future do so and not engage in censorship in china. What we are willing , but were willing to commit to senator is that any decision to ever look at going back into the china Search Market is one we would take only in consultation with key stakeholders. Senators blumenthal question about whether you not submit to an audit wasthe longest know in the english language, now youre not giving me a yes, sir a no. Go to a question that senator blumenthal asked, your confidence google hasnt been infiltrated by the chinese intelligence . What do you think about general dunford, his comment at the Atlantic Council that typically, im putting them, if a company does business in china are automatically going to be required to have a top member of the communist party in that country and that will lead to the intellectual property finding its way to the chinese military, you write about that, wrong about that . We do as i mentioned before barely any business in china so i dont you have tried to. Since 2010 we exited the country. That wasnt that long ago. 10 years ago. You been, my point is this. Youve been more than willing to engage in ideological censorship and the largest market in the world. Youve been happy to partner with the most repressive authoritarian regime on the planet all for profit, whatever it is that is good for google. Why would anybody believe you now when you say you wont submit to a thirdparty audit, you answered senator blumenthal noted that, you want commit to me that you wont engage in censorship when it suits your purposes in china. Why would anybody believe you now when you say we dont ever impose an ideological agenda . What assurances canyou give us much in mark. I think what i can tell you is that in china today, we dont offer any of the products that youre referencing. I mean here, why would we believe you now when you say in the United States or anywhere that you do business, why would we believe anything google says about what it does or does not do in terms of promoting an ideological agenda. We know you do it when we it suits your bottom line. What assurances despite your own testimony. I fundamentally disagree that these are practices of our bottom line. I would tell you that google has a demonstrated trackrecord of building Search Engines that meet the needs of consumers here and around the world. We are a trusted brand. I dont know what answer youre looking for. What im looking for is a little honesty and im also looking for some accountability. Let me get another shot senator blumenthals question, will you submit to a Second Party Audit of your practices . We have plenty of people looking at our content moderating, the economist a yearlong study. Thats not an independent audit. It was entirely independent of google. So is that a yes western mark. If third parties want to moderate is this a yes . Im telling you that google, that googles content moderation has been looked at. So sad. He asked about you to, china seems to be difficultfor you. Youtube is also apparently very difficult for you. Isnt it, what is so hard about ending automatic referral of videos the drink minors to pedophiles, why is that difficult. Why doesnt youtube just do it. Why wont you just do it . Im not sure. We. Im familiar with the issuethat youre referring to, based on our policy decisions that we made earlier this year , we have eliminated referencing or recommending videos that contain minors in risky situations. Risky conditions. So youre telling me youve turned off, taking them out of the algorithm and turned off the auto referral, youre no longer recommending westernmark. Not all minors, there will be situations where their perfectly legitimate video footage containing minors but videos that contain minors in risky situations, risky conditions. We have stopped recommending those videos. How much money doesyoutube make from videos featuring children . We dont break down money that way, senator. Dont know, because i thought the response of the New York Times is it would be devastating for your Business Model. I dont know. We dont, i can tell you that the kind of videos that youre referencing, we dont, we have no desire to see pedophiles utilizing you to. Thats the reason weve takena number of steps. You may know that ive introduced a bill that would codify this into law. It sounds like the ones you say you voluntarily have taken so will google support that bill that would stop any company, viewers or others from automatically preferring videos featuring minors in this way . I havent looked at the bill but id be happy to look at it and its an area it sounds like we have a common interest in working as well. Its an area in which the American People have an interest in protecting their children just as the American People have an interest in getting information that is fair and free, just as the American People have an interest in having their data protected, having companies that describe themselves as a probably American Company, those are your words from not doing business with, sharing secrets with or promoting the worst most authoritarian regime on the planet which is china. So i would disassociate myself with the remarks all of my colleagues here, clearly trust and patience in your company and in the behavior of your monopoly has run out. Its certainly run out with me and i think its time for some accountability. Iq senator holly. You talk about the google values being a trusted brand. I will tell you i think that trust has been severely eroded. Google as i understand it was founded on a motto of dont be evil. There are more than a few americans who have skepticism. That google is living up to that promise. You answered senator holly at the economist and others have done studies. Did the economist access to googles internal records . No senator, i believe it was done externally. They ran a series of tests basedon results that they were plugging into our Search Engine. One of the frustrating things about this topic is there are very limited data. Much of this topic gets argued by anecdote. Which is a less unsatisfying way to consider any topic or analysis and yields things such as Democratic Senators saying there is no censorship. The problem is, google has all the data as does facebook and twitter. Lets see if we can get a little bit of that data. In the year 2018, how many ads by republican officeholders did google lot. I think political ads . How many add by a republican officeholder . I dont have a number, i would say the vast majority of ads that get submitted get ron. Will you commit to answering that question. Would be happy to come back. And i will as a mentor, how many add by democrats did google lot. How many videos by republican officeholders did youtube lot, how many videos by democratic officeholders. Those are objective. On the latter question, we looked into that. There were no videos blocked by republicans or democrats members of the congress. My understanding actually is one of the members of this committee , senator Marsha Blackburn had one of her ads blocked because you deemed shockingcontent. Ads again distinguish ads from videos, i thought you divided those two. Ads, weve had both democrats and republicans on occasion the block and in the case of senator blackburn, yes. It was added that she submitted. It involved one of the people on the ad voicing an obscenity. That. That was bleeped out. That violates our policy. It wasnt clear what was apparently so we went back, talked to the senator. I appreciate your commitment to answer these questions and i would ask them to you inwriting. Google answers and straightforward questions , provide the data. That may go a long way either to exonerating google or to demonstrating theres a real problem and not only on the metric of republicans versus democrats, also in the metric of how many prolife at. As google refused to run. This committee has heard testimony for example that the movie unplanned, the true story about a former employee of planned parenthood will refuse to run their ads thats a question id like an answer to. How many prolife ads it did google refused to run and likewise how many pro israel ads as google refused to run and how many antiisrael ads western mark those data right now, google is a black box and nobody knows. What was the average ad rates google charge the Trump Campaign in 2016 campaign . Address senator are set by auction. Democrats, republicans, its entirely based on when they would want to run it . There is an average ad rate, it would be the average of the rate you charge across the board and im going to ask in writing with the average ad rate the Trump Campaign paid on the clinton Campaign Paid and if those two numbers are roughly equal, that will indicate one thing. If those two numbers are wildly different, indicate Something Else right now, it is google knows that as far as i know, nobody knows. If i may again on ads pacifically, all ads are not the same. In other words if youre running a better headline on youtube, maybe a higher price than a lower less price. That would be fabulous and youre more than welcome to bring down average banner ad rate for the Trump Campaign was asked and the average if theresthree different types of ads, down in whatever category but compare apples to apples. We do have all of the advertising spending all members on our website where we publicize this. Theres a transparency report that we put out annually on spending. By candidates. Its all up there, youre welcome and ill be happy to pointed out your staff. Somehow asked who would possibly think that google was discriminatingagainst conservative views . The senior leadership, does it lean left or does it lean right . Senator, the whole team consists of people from a variety of different perspectives. From outside of the United States, from america. Are doing something remarkable which is your managing to be less candid and mark zuckerberg. Mister zuckerberg when he testified before this committee met at Silicon Valley is overwhelmingly liberal and anyone operating in the realm of simple reality acknowledged that. Would you agree with that . I go back to 100,000 people, 7080 different countries. Leadership teams pulled from all over the world. I dont think its a matter of easy caricature. Lets focus on simple data. Data is helpful. I did an sec analysis in 2016 of Senior Executives that google, people who have the title of some form of executive, Vice President or directorand found 88 unique senior officials that google made contributions to the Hillary Clinton campaign, 88. Do you know how many Senior Executives at google made contributions to the Trump Campaign . Its not my business to look at that. Care to field a guess . Zero. Not a single one. You cant say gosh, i dont know anything about the politics here. That is disconnected from reality. Lets look at another example, senator blackburn asked about Theadvisory Council that you put together on Artificial Intelligence. One of the people on the Advisory Council was james, head of the Heritage Foundation. You work with the Heritage Foundation. Did you consider the Heritage Foundation some range organization western mark. No senator, i consider a conservative organization. 2500 google employees signed a position to have missed james removed from the council and they said quote, by appointing james to the atac, google elevates and endorses her views, implying that hers is a valid perspective. Worthy of inclusion in its decisionmaking. This is unacceptable. 2500 employees at google saying that mister james who by the way is an africanamerican woman wasone of the first women to desegregate the richmond Public Schools , 2500 google employees saying that her view is not valid or worthy of inclusion. Google in response to this dissolve the entire committee. The understand when you see that kind of bias saying a conservative africanamerican womans views are not valid and not worthy of inclusion that the American People would say these guys are silencingvoices they disagree with . Senator, the 2300 amounts to something around two percent of the google employees. But good luck on the recommendation, you have the committee. What happened was it was against committee that consisted of a number of members. As time progressed, a number of members of the committee other than ms. James decided to fall off the committee, to withdraw from the committee. Is your testimony Mister Bhatia because im finding this difficult to compress. Is it your testimony that google did not dissolve the committee because your employees were mad that anyone right of center was included . We dissolve the committee, i think we were clear at the end of the day that it was not going to be viable to continue the Council Given what we were seeinghappening with other members of the committee. A march 18 email to 17 other google employees, google employee liam hopkins stated that quote, Jordan Peterson and schapiro are all patsies, this is a quote. Are using dog whistles, you further suggested that google isolate this quote farright content. Is it your judgment that Mister Prager, peterson our nazis . No sir. At least two of the three, Mister Prager and mister schapiro are Orthodox Jews. Are you familiar with any Orthodox Jews who are nazis . No senator. Is that not a horrifically offensive, nutty statement . Senator, we have 100,000 people in the company and there are five, seventimes the number of people working in congress. We have people who will say things on chat rooms and other things. Other google employees on that email, did even one object to this characterization . I dont know, we have alot of these chat rooms that go on. People say things in chat rooms that dont reflect the views of the country. It is not unlike many other workplaces around the world where people may say things that dont reflect the views of the leadership or management. It is what it is. The understand why people would be skeptical ofgoogles judgment and the radical politics of googles employees when you believe Orthodox Jews like Mister Prager and mister schapiro are secretly nazis . Again senator this is a statement made by an individual employee on some chat room board. Google executive jen and i was saying that google is quote, training our rhythms with an eye to prevent Something Like 2016 from happening. Thats what google is working to do question mark heres the quote, were training our algorithms like it 2016 happened again,when we have the outcome, with the outcome be different . This was taken i believe from the project veritas videos where she is a google employeewithout responsibility for our search algorithms. It was secretly videotaped without her consent. Her reference that youre quoting here and that video essentially wait made was to activities that we have undertaken to make sure that election interference that was a foreign state interference of the elections that was seen in 2016 does not happenagain. Thats what the references to. I think one of the best things to come out of this hearing is your commitment to answer the clear and direction questions from this committee with real numbers and specific, hard data on googles practices. That will go a long way to providing transparency that has far too long been missing and let me echo both senator blumenthal and senator holly that i would advise google submit to an independent thirdparty audit that has no bias, no extra grind. With access to googles records, an audit that doesnt have access to the record is meaningless. Your competitors are doing so and i believe the American People expect transparency from this tech. Senator hirono. Just for clarification, my understanding is google has a different Business Model than twitter or facebook so while those entities can agree to a thirdparty audit, that would include i guess content, looking into their records in a way that they can, that still enables them to retain their i dont know, business methods or whatever it is but youre in a different kind of category. Is that why youre having such a hard time saying that you would submit to a thirdparty audit of your content moderation practices western mark. We are in a different situation, were not a social media platform the way the other companies, facebook and twitter you referenced are. We are many different platforms and we have gmail, androids so there are a lot of different parts to our business. Certainly that adds to the complication. You were asked whether regarding your ads, i understand that this model is very different. You were asked whether youve taken down prolife, prochoice, proisrael, antiisrael and do you have an out rhythmthat flags out these words . No. How would you even be able to respond to a question if your algorithms dont flag out these kinds of, these ads based on these identifying terms westernmark. We are, as i explained before, what were trying to do is what we do is create algorithms that tried to surface the most responsive results. We dont factor in whether they contain the word israel or abortion or any of the other things so theyre not constructed that way. So google is a multibilliondollar business so regardless of your employees citing their First Amendment rights, whatever things they want to put out that you dont even agree with, google is a business area does it make is this for google to start doing content moderation based on somebodys political affiliations or their views . Is that even make sense . Absolutely not and if we lose user trust, it will be damaging to our business. Thank you. Thank you Mister Bhatia, thank you for your testimony, i appreciate you coming in the senate is in the midst of the three vote for what were going to do is were going to briefly recess this committee, go and test those votes. Theres three votes though with the tail end of the first vote, we will vote on those three. I will ask members of the committee who vote at the beginning assoon as we do so, we will come back and convene the second panel. For now, the committee is temporarily recessed. Good afternoon everyone and welcome back