From public disclosure. Second the committee is discussing conducting this hearing in compliance with house regulations. It is being broadcast live on the committees website. Because of the threat posed by the pandemic remains ongoing, we are meeting remotely to ensure the safety of our witnesses, members, staff and public. While we wish we could return to all standard in person events, health and safety protocols dictate we find alternate means of carrying out obligations. Ok so, let me remind members of a few remote hearing procedures. First consistent with the regulations the committee will keep microphones muted to limit background noise. Members are responsible for on using themselves when they seek recognition or been recognized for their 5 minutes. Because there are sometimes delays, i would ask members and tonesses to allow some time ensure the last speaker has finished. Members and witnesses must have their cameras on at all times. If you need to step away, leave your camera on. If you encounter technical difficulties please contact Technical Support through the channels established prior to the hearing. Our technical staff will work to get you back up and running as soon as possible. Will at the appropriate time recognize members for 5 minutes in order of seniority starting with those who were present at the commencement of the hearing. Thank you for your patience as we proceed under these extraordinary circumstances. The vast majority of the committees work takes place behind closed doors. Takeve a responsibility to public testimony from those outside government and inform the public about growing trends that can endanger our nation in the shortterm and longterm. Building on prior and classified hearings today we examine the risks posed by misinformation, conspiracy theories, and infodemics online. Transnationalare and can originate overseas or here at home. Once they have taken root and begun to circulate, foreign adversaries can advantage their interest by amplifying inflammatory claims. Over the past several years a disturbing picture has emerged while the threat from without and a form of state backed media is real and substantial, we cannot ignore the threat from within which grows everyday. The online ecosystem and audiences that the kremlin exploited the main vulnerable to unscrupulous homegrown anarchists who spread seeds of falsehoods of their own. If left unchecked there could be here reversible damage not only to our nations discourse but to how we as a deciding we as a society discern fact from fiction. The very nature of social media can propel inaccurate limited bladed content, misleading claims and outright lies far and wide and at the speed of virality. Leading social media platforms have made significant changes in their policies and capabilities since 2016 but they have not changed the foundational features of their platforms that expose users and even recommend to them often extreme, sensational or emotionally charged content. The algorithmic engines that power social media platforms are designed to keep us scrolling and are often optimized for attention. They are difficult sometimes even for their own designers to fully understand that the algorithms are effective at their mission keeping users on the platforms as long as possible. It is a surprise that no one controversial, untrue content often engenders the strongest engagement creating Fertile Ground for conspiracy theories and misinformation to cross through the internets fringes into the mainstream. This has come to a careless head in a set of evolving conspiracy theories and twisted beliefs under the banner of qanon. Its precepts are byzantine but they echo antisemitic tropes and antiWhite Supremacy all while constituting the existence of an allpowerful cabal of evile leads people elites. Against the backdrop of the pandemic and lockdowns, the movement has witnessed a huge spike in visibility and followers. Ndemic videos pla with conspiratorial themes and misinformation about covid19 was boosted by qanon supporters and earned 8 million views prior to his removal from social media. It is incumbent on us to understand how it jumped into public view. Qanon is not just a Conspiracy Theory, it is a violent worldview with a devoted following of adherence who believe a bloody reckoning awaits their perceived foes. I report warned about potential escalating attacks driven by qanon beliefs. Some affiliates have already engaged in violent acts. Our men drive hundreds of miles to investigate. There was no basement, there were no captives and thankfully no injuries despite the selfproclaimed investigator firing his weapon. A woman was arrested after attacking two strangers in texas believing them to be child traffickers. And is accused of murdering a mob boss in march of last year, leaving he was part of the deep state which the movement demonizes for its alleged plotting against the president. The same man wanted to carry out a citizens arrest and political figures the president has targeted including myself. In response to the openly violent and hateful rhetoric of qanon, social Media Companies have begun to respond. Hours ago youtube announced a platformwide prohibition targeting the Conspiracy Theory and since July Facebook and twitter have initiated surges of groups and accounts. These are necessary for limitary steps. Such forceful responses are more difficult when conspiracy theories are at least partially egged on by the president of the United States. Just this week he twice retreated a Conspiracy Theory retweeted alleging that soleimani was still alive. Such a polluted online landscape remains ripe for exploitation. The fbi has warned that conspiracy theories and misinformation about voting or the pandemic are part of a Disinformation Campaign originating overseas this election cycle. Americans are voting right now in the midst of a pandemic. It could take days or weeks to count the votes after election day. That period will be especially susceptible to conspiracy theories and misinformation. Especially if amplified by maligned foreign actors which could potentially cast doubt on the legitimacy of the electoral outcome itself or make us doubt the viability of our democracy. That scenario goes to the heart of our National Security and evokes the oversight mandate of congress in this committee. Social Media Companies there some responsibility but the private sector alone cannot reverse these trends. U. S. Government must remain a partner to recognize and address these threats. We must be clear eyed that conspiracy theories can round up followers to commit acts of domestic terror. Each of us has a personal responsibility to do what we can to restore trust in authoritative information, to not share incendiary content or misleading claims knowing how quickly they can catch fire. To build bridges between the widening chasms that exist on both online and offline so that we can try to occupy the same shared reality once again even if we have different views about how to best turn that shared reality into a brighter future. And to step outside of our own personal information silos that are balkanized by society where we no longer seem to agree on the same set of facts. I want to thank the witnesses for joining us today and i look forward to an enlightening discussion of these issues. Lets move to opening statements. We will go alphabetically by last name. , researchjoan donovan director at the Harvard Kennedy Schools Center on media, politics and public policy. ,he second, Nina Jankowicz cindy otis, and finally, ms. Melanie smith. Welcome again to all of you, our thanks for your precipitation participation on your work. Dr. Donovan, let me begin by recognizing you for five minutes. Thank you for having me and it is a pleasure to be here in my house testifying for you all and thank you chairman schiff for organizing this hearing. It is a really important topic. This summer Disinformation Campaigns by foreign and domestic operatives targeted people seeking information, information about the election, the pandemic and the protests. , ithe Research Director lead 18 that is analyzing medium and Disinformation Campaigns for their effect on society. Today im going to speak about the sectors shouldering the cost of misinformation at scale. In january 2020 facebook published a really important statement and i quote, in the absence of regulation facebook is left to design its own policies. We have baystars on the principle that people should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them. Policies like this push Corporate Responsibility onto the public and other professional sectors. Inebook goes on to stimulate that statement that paid advertising will have to abide by Community Standards. Politicalappens when and media elites coordinate to blanket social media with falsehoods . In these cases advertising is not necessary for spreading lies to millions because all they need is the platform to work exactly as designed. Who is responsible for explaining why a consumer was exposed to certain falsehoods . Who was responsible for making public correction when falsehoods are identified . Yesterday we saw facebook and twitter refused to let their services be used to distribute these materials. Platform companies have taken similar actions on white supremacist manifestoes and covid19 misinformation too. It will take some time for moderation to become part of the design of social media just as it took a decade for medium to be leaders to scale their attack. Media manipulators. Suggested a new policy framework for assessing social medias negative effect on society. He compared social media to the Tobacco Industry because both focused on increasing the capacity for addiction by slowly modifying their products over time. Legislation about smoking had to move beyond the rationale that it was an individual choice and accept that Secondhand Smoke have Public Health effects. For some time families, insurance companies, employers and businesses pay the price for smokings ill effects on society. Identifiedh team has four clear impact zones charged with cleaning up after the damage caused by unmoderated, unregulated misinformation conspiracy. Adaptlists have had to over the last four years to the normalization of misinformation on social media and have developed a misinformation beach. Covering this information is a drain on newsrooms resources which could be better spent on sustaining journalism rather than moderating content. Second area of impact is Public Health and medical professionals. Increasingly Public Health and medical professionals including o. Have turned to my team for assistance. Doctors should not have to correctnfluencers to misinformation pushing miracle cures and bogus medical advice. Conspiracies link up with when conspiracies link up with medical misinformation, it can be difficult to advocate for the truth. Third, civil society. We are in a position where racialized disinformation is a seasoned tactic of domestic and foreign influence operations. Racialized disinformation refers to campaigns that either impersonate the ideas of communities of color or use racism to boost polarization. Testifiedins recently about these issues at a hearing in june where she highlighted how companies have hidden behind clarion calls to protect free speech at all costs without doing enough to protect those to misinformation and harassment on social media. Lastly Law Enforcement personnel and First Responders unfairly shouldering the burden of rumors and lies that are being spread where flashpoints or violence are permeated by calls to action on social media including the tragic events in kenosha. Are at a serious disadvantage when attempting to do their job amid rumors and conspiracy theories that are spreading like digital wildfire. I will close by saying rather than hold onto the stage of for a time when social media was not this harmful, sometimes it is worth asking what would it take to on inventive social media so that we can chart a course for the way we want that promote safety, equity and democracy . Thank you. Dr. Donovan, thank you. We now go to Nina Jankowicz. Distinguished members of the committee, it is an honor to theify before you today on exploitation by malign actors. This is a threat that is dismantling democracy. As americans right now exercise their democratic rights, it is critical the nation is informed about how disinformation might blunt their voice and their vote. I came to study this information through the lens of russian influence operations. My work has led me to an unsled unsettling conclusion. Not only have social media platforms all but abdicated their responsibility abdicated, domestic misinformation runs rampant. It is amplified in the media, online, congress, and from the white house itself. It does our adversarys work for them leaving us vulnerable to continue the manipulation and leading leaving our democracy in peril. I will outline three trends that i simplified the modern Information Space. The first is the increased use of information laundering to deliver foreign disinformation. Today malign actors like russia are increasingly amplifying their narratives using authentic local voices or organizations to conceal the origin and to lend legitimacy to a given malign narrative. Perhaps the most wellknown example of information laundering and one that this committee knows intimately is the nexus of conspiracy theories related to ukraine and Vice President joe biden. These unsubstantiated and misleading narratives corroded by self interested and corrupt individuals seeking powerful gain were endorsed by the president s advisors, treated as fact by the media and legitimized within congress. Asividuals that served sources for these theories have been discredited, sanctioned and revealed to have active connections to Russian Intelligence Services and this week we are still talking about these theories. Actors andlocal information laundering makes tracking down on disinformation through content moderation alone much more difficult given First Amendment protections. This is why they take advantage of social platforms to feed malign narratives and contribute to todays second trend, conspiracy convergence. When adherents of one theory are exposed to and encouraged to spread others. This year as americans search for answers about the pandemic, closed spaces online have become a Fertile Ground for feeding and amplifying disinformation. Found,opanelist has conspiracies run rampant across platforms and cross pollinate communities and indoctrinate new members. This is a problem on facebook groups. Toebook has made changes soften this phenomenon but they leave aside the most pernicious source of disinformation, high profile accounts to which facebooks Community Standards do not apply. President trump pushes content including falsehoods about the safety and security of mailin balloting which is against terms of service to nearly 30 million users on his page alone. Unlike what facebook policies implied, this Information Campaign does not begin and end on election day. They are built over time in emotion and trust to undermine the democratic process as a whole. When our information ecosystem gets flooded with highly salient junk that keeps us scrolling and angrily reacting, civil discourse suffers. Our ability to compromise suffers. Our willingness to see humanity in one another suffers. Our democracy suffers. Profits. Ook in 2019 facebook generated 90 of its revenue, 69. 7 billion from ads. The third trend relevant to our bill and Brilliant Panel is that disinformation often target women and minorities. We know the ira disproportionately targeted black voters to separate the black vote suppressed the fact suppressed the black vote. Today an ongoing project has observed an increase in individuals spreading false narratives against senator Kamala Harris ahead of election day. These campaigns are meant to affect american women and participation in the. Emocratic process every american should categorically reject them. Overall, these trends that mean that foreign adversaries no longer need brute force to be successful. They need only sit back and watch, regurgitating and amplifying what is already endemic to our society. Just 19 days before voting closes in the election, i believe we are more voting vulnerable to foreign and domestic sources than ever before. Any of the recommendations we discussed today need to have an underlying recognition that any government that claims to fight disinformation originating from outside its borders cannot do so while it embraces the same methods within down. Disinformation is a threat to democracy no matter what Political Party it benefits. Weis long past due that address this challenge to the foundation of our country and its values. My written testimony details the urgent changes necessary to heal our information ecosystem. I look forward to discussing them with you later today. Thanks so much. Thank you. Otis . Tice thank you. I am honored to appear before this committee. Im here to lay out the threats as i see them from the range of actors both foreign and domestic who are amplifying false information to influence and manipulate the american people. By theysis is informed decade i spent at the cia as an officer of analysis serving our country under both republican and democratic administrations. It is informed by the years i have spent since leaving disinformation investigations in the private sector. Almost four years ago, the Intelligence Community release it assessment on russian interference. The report it stated that, russian efforts to influence the 2016 u. S. President ial election represent the most recent expression of moscows desire to undermine liberal democratic order. These activities demonstrated a directness level of activity and scope of effort compared to previous operations. Since the release of the report in 2017, i have seen a failure to take necessary action to combat foreign and statesponsored interference itself. As a result and inspired by russian efforts, more countries than ever are using false information to advanced domestic and Foreign Policy goals such as china and iran. Many of these foreign actors are targeting Political Divisions in this country to an oblate and influence american citizens and to degrade americas standing in the world and the credibility of our institution. In the last four years i have written on the number of both foreign and domestic commercial entities and financially motivated individuals who sell Disinformation Services under names like social media influence. Like foreign governments they see an america more divided and they are more than happy to spread conspiracy theories if doing so lines their pockets. We are witnessing a rise of activities by political campaigns and democracies around the world including ours. They embrace tactics that sound much more like foreign influence operations than the tactics of good digital campaigning. In the United States Political Division with false information may win a candidate votes, it also makes democracy an easier target for foreign adversaries. Most broader discussed on american institutions that should be working for them and discourages people from engaging in democratic processes. These actors know that peddling disinformation works, it has become effective tools and campaigns are cheap to produce. There are no meaningful consecration consequences and no real recourse for those who fall victim. Be it a foreign government, Domestic Group or a forprofit entity, youre seeing the impact of an american Information Space uttered with voices trying to mislead and to be late. In a pandemic when facts are true facts and truth are the difference between life and death, the situation could not be more dire. Americans are largely doing it to ourselves. The Technology Platforms have failed to address the problem. Live at can go viral instantly while the truth takes longer lies. Their users easy targets for disinformation actors to spread content. Americans are losing trust in what they read and see online. We are desperate for information but certain groups feel they cannot trust the traditional institutions upon which they used to rely including the media are now threatened and blamed for the event that they cover. Americans are gravitating toward more extreme ideas and sources as well. As a result dangerous conspiracy theories and groups such as qanon and antifinance voices are on the rise. In just three years to a nonwent from being a few posts to being a mainstream talking point qanon. Many americans may have discounted conspiracy theories as harmless before the pandemic but we are seeing transparencies translate into realworld harm such as violence, threats to marginalized communities, refusal to follow Health Recommendations and the targeting of young people. Foreign actors are taking advantage of that. We can still take action but the longer we stall the more difficult it will be. Actors have taken their time, the time we have given them to hone their tactics. We must act now. Thank you and i look forward to answering your questions. Thank you. We will now go to our last panelist, ms. Smith. Thank you. Smith and imanie grateful to have the opportunity to talk about my research with you today. I have been study studying qanon and i watched it evolve from a french Conspiracy Theory into part of mainstream discourse. When i first began researching, it was just one of a long list of communities that represented a concern for election integrity. Now i believe it to be the most threat to Public Institutions and democratic processes. If you no longer support the conspiracy theories that emerged in 2017 when an account begin posting messages, i mentioned these theories revolve around the belief that their members who are indebted in government, media, finance. Qanon represents a dualistic worldview with a good, an evil and many villains. I want to tackle two misconceptions i hear. These are that qanon has been infiltrated by foreign actors and it is driven by fake accounts. While both of these may have been true at various points, i would like to stress that qanon appears to be a Homegrown Movement that engages real users. The real reason qanon poses a threat is that it fits the undermining of facts and truth on top of concern such as the integrity of elections, human trafficking, and the pandemic. In antisemitic tropes and it has called for the coordinated harassment of numerous individuals and organizations. Theerns are centered around subsection of the movement that has an appetite for violence and action. There are three observations from our research that i want to highlight. It is a Conspiracy Movement that has permeated the mainstream, it is highly adaptable and adept at reaching new audiences and as a result, it has become difficult for social media platforms to take meaningful action to restrict the spread of its content. When my team and i first created a map of qanon accounts, what we found was the most dense Conspiracy Community we had ever studied. The accounts engaging with qanon theories represented an extremely Insular Community that relied upon mainstream rightwing accounts to boost its messaging and content. By the end of the following year, 2019, it had become autonomous. These accounts became prolific in their sharing often employing amplifying misleading content. We tend to consider online Conspiracy Movements as restricted to the confines of the internet and this is no longer the case with qanon. The second of these observations is that qanon is highly adaptable and success appears to lie in its ability to shape shift. It is a flexible framework with a wide range of existing and emerging conspiracy theories. Coupled with the sheer volume of accounts, these boundaries enable the movement to be highly adaptive to the new platform. 2018, 1100 Network Ramps on a wide range of online conversations taking place around the world. 195 of these contain at least one cluster of accounts that are primarily defined as qanon supported. These conversations about topics that are seemingly irrelevant. The fire at notre dame cathedral, the boycott, brexit and alternative medicine to name a few. This means that the new audiences are likely to be exposed to conspiracy content through more benign topics as a gateway. As a consequence of two and on becoming mainstream and as a result of its ability to develop existing Conspiracy Movements, it has become difficult for platform to take meaningful action. I am pleased to see new efforts being announced to restrict the spread of qanon content. It remains to be seen how consistently and comprehensively these policies can and will be applied to a movement that evolves at such a rapid pace. We have already seen the qanon humidity try out a number of actics Community Try number of tactics. A significant proportion of difficulty was with the spread of the content in its detection. With much of this content needing to be removed from social media platforms. Qanon poses a more nuanced challenge. Detection is not a difficulty and appropriate policies to contain the influence of this content without compromising freedom are not obvious. Taking meaningful action against this threat will require attention from researchers to understand how it is evolving, creativity from platforms, and renewed efforts from entities tasked with ensuring that trust in government, Public Institutions and processors cannot be easily eroded. Thank you very much for that testimony. All of the panelists, we thank you for bringing your expertise to bear today. We will start the q a now. Let me start if i can, ms. Smith, where you left off. That qanon as you have indicated has cross pollinated with other conspiracy theories similar to other groups of individuals pushing other misinformation and conspiracy, how do the platforms go after them, how effective do you think the steps that have just been announced by youtube and facebook and twitter will be if this keeps morphing and evolving . Does that mean it ultimately all gets back to the algorithmic amplification of extreme content . Is that ultimately where the answer must lie given the morpheus and adaptive form that groups like qanon take . That is a really interesting question. There are a few changes that i think can be made by social media platforms in various different areas. Reminder of which is a that alternative platforms are important. Slightly closed off platforms becoming increasingly arelar and the places that apparent conspiracy theories are more deadly. Social media is used to amplify these ideas and garner support for them. The few changes i think should be made, we need to be talking to alternative platforms about restricting content and making a concerted effort in that space. I think there could be changes in Platform Engineering to restrict the exposure of new audiences to the reinforcement of some ideas, that is something dr. Donovan has done. I dont think the content removal piece is important to consider the impacts of pushing content to french platforms fringe platforms. Qanon will retreat to the fringes and they will not be able to be exposed to new audiences. I think removing the financial incentive is a third possible way for them. Thanks for the question. Thank you. Dr. Donovan, i would love to hear your thoughts as well. Perhaps you can at the same time respond to one of the other points that was made which is you now have actors in the United States knowingly amplifying this false content including qanon content with people running for office amplifying it with the president himself pushing it out. What challenge does that pose to the platforms particularly in the political speech which is given the broadest amount of protection under the first electedt when you have officials including the president of the United States who are the purveyors of some of this false information and Conspiracy Theory . The question. Or and to comment a bit on what Platform Companies are recently doing, because it is such a mixed bag approach, we do see a lot of shifting between platforms. These groups who are essentially trying to make up for lost infrastructure. The points that melody made about these groups being extensive, adaptive and resilient are really important in terms of whatever approach policy is going to take. The other factor there is there is the way in which facebook has redesigned the junk news eire to , there has era been recordings to nbc about this. The recommendation of these private groups is actually producing what we call hidden virality. We have a really hard time studying what is being served in private groups on facebook. Some of these private groups can be tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people. It can be really difficult to understand even the extent and the scope of this. Monetization and reducing incentives is a really important aspect here because some of these groups, particularly influence there is, this is content and if the content does not make money, they make other content. That is important to understand, especially as they talk about a different kind of Feedback Group which is essentially a white propaganda Feedback Group, you know where it is coming from. Ins is what you are saying terms of, when we seep see politicians using social media as a lever to cause misinformation cascade throughout our entire media ecosystem, this is a very important topic because it creates an enormous waste of resources by shifting the attention of journalists who then have to write an entire story about something that is not real because that piece of misinformation or that propaganda is now already reached millions of people. Beings points about this over time is really important as well because this has been going on for one decade now. Social media is no longer new. Its fullested into the now and know what patterns of behavior are. And so that cascade effect is what i am talking about when i am talking about the true cost of misinformation, who is paid to clean up all of that . It is an enormous task. Ultimately i think Platform Companies are showing that they are capable and they want to be in and responsible when they want to be. ,nd we need to encourage that especially as conspiracies do what nina was talking about, converge. That is they lay these so we have to think about how to dismantle those rails to have any impact in the long term on our entire media ecosystem. I have some questions i am going to go to mr. Heinz for our next fiveminute round. Mr. Heinz, you may begin. Ok, am i going through . You are now. Andhank you, mr. Chairman, our witnesses for a very interesting conversation. Toant to direct my questions who said two things that horrified me, misinformation is mantling democracy if members could make sure they are on mute, because we are hearing background noise. Misinformation is dismantling democracy and said something that horrified me even more, that governments are fighting disinformation. I sense that was said approvingly. Was growing up in latin america in the 1970s, but i had a close relationship with spreadents that misinformation. We started going down that path, we are not just breaking democracy, we are breaking classic liberalism. I have really just two questions and i acknowledge eyes that we are pretty terrible, we shouldnt be in the business of misinformation, so we outsource to people we are critical of like Mark Zuckerberg and jack dorsey, say, you do it, which strikes me as a lame way to address what may or may not be a problem. What evidence is there that this is dismantling democracy . I dont think millions of people are in qanon. I want to see information that people are seeing this information and in a material way dismantling our democracy through violence or political organizations, because if we are going down that path, i need more eyeballs for how this is dismantling our democracy. Secondly, if you persuade me, how do we get into the business of figuring out who should define what misinformation or disinformation is . That strikes me as hard. We are talking a lot about qanon , but i remember the previous president telling the American Public if they wanted to keep their private Health Insurance plan they could do it and it turned out not to be true. Should zuckerberg go to town on that . I am looking for the evidence of dismantling of our society and what do we do to fix that rather than admiring the problem . Thank you very much, congressman. I understand your aversion to the idea that government would fight back against disinformation and the use of that term has been basically the foundation to some very inconian fake news law places like russia or singapore. I do not believe governments should be in that business either, and i will get to the solutions in a second. There ist question, two news stories that point to this from the last couple of weeks. The first as related to the kidnapping plot against michigan governor blech gretchen whitmer. The social media platforms played a huge role in allowing that group to organize. It allowed that group its seated the information it seeded the information and as a woman who has been getting harassed a lot lately, i am acutely aware and hollow how that stress online can be transformed into the real world to prevent women from participating in the democratic lifess and keeping us from. There was another example in the u. K. Documentary about how you how the Trump Administration two Cambridge Analytica target to targetblack voters. A lot of the best disinformation is ground in a kernel of truth. I go through other examples of how allnight action has led to realworld action. This isnt something that is just staying on the internet. Time. Ont have a lot of do you think both examples you offered up, the plot to kidnap the governor of michigan and your other example pass the test . This country probably got into the spanishamerican war hundred 30 years ago because of the works of William Randolph hearst 130 years ago because of the works of William Randolph hearst so we have had yellow journalism and media suppression and Voter Suppression for years. Are you sure that both of those examples pass the but for, wouldnt have happened except for social media misinformation . I do, because they allow these groups without oversight, and they allow the targeting of the people they will find the most wrong honorable and are most likely to take action. Vulnerable and are most likely to take action. That is what our foreign adversaries do. Town time. I would love to talk more. That is language i like to better understand. I would like to continue this conversation, if this is the problem you say it is, what do we do about it . Thank you. Thanks to all of you for being here. I want to follow up on what mr. Himes was talking about because awful, people hate groups have been around since we have been around. During jeffersons campaign for president , there were people on horseback spreading lies and nixon was a big liar. Now theiggest issue anonymous nature of it that makes us scarier and more difficult than past hate groups and disinformation . I will be happy to answer if no one else is going to jump in. Go ahead, joan. I am happy to yield. Of my of the specialties research is looking at how White Supremacists get organized online, and i agree with you, they have been with us way before the web and they were very early adopters of blackboard systems, email, newsletter type technologies all along the way. Have beenemacists early adopters of different technologies and have use them, turning them to their advantage in terms of organizing them, growing their ranks to ranks, and using more targeted messages for recruitment. But what the shift is here is one, they can use these platforms to raise resources, that is money. They make money doing this. The second thing they do is they broadcast their events, some of which are there is a case where there were a Vigilante Group at the border with mexico that were hunting people and arresting them and broadcasting it through facebook live, and all the while asking for donations. That is not the case somehow White Supremacy has a differentthere is i will say it is the case that there is a different set of advantages to using social media and not having anyone at the control switch to say, this is content that could mobilize other people, recruit other people, and also incentivize this kind of behavior. I will hand it over to nina she wants to respond as well. When they succeed at this, going back to past efforts, when nixon seemingly was the bigger the lie, the more believable, and you said they have gotten better at their messaging, do they succeed because of that, or is it the types of things they are talking about that seem to be more successful in gaining interest . It used to be that you had the hoax of journalists or had to do something really big in public like a cross burning to get on the cover of a towns paper, so they have been able to circumvent and deliver that messaging directly. In 2015, when i was researching White Supremacy White Supremacists use of dna ancestry tests, when you search on google for white nationalists, it took you directly to white nationalists welcome boards where they whelped blackboards where they welcome you with open arms. We have fought hard as researchers to get platforms to realize that kind of recruitment strategy through the web has important consequences, especially when we talk about whoone like dylan roof, entered into conversations about White Supremacy through searching on google and other onrch engines for black white crime, and that as well documented in the book algorithms of oppression. Thank you all again for your work and for being here. Go down to mr. Castro. Mr. Castro, you are muted. You are on muted but ike unmuted but i cant hear you. Having trouble. Mr. Castro, i will come back to you next and hopefully we can figure out the technological glitch before we do. Lets move to mr. Heck. Andhank you, mr. Chairman, my appreciation to the members of this panel, which i frankly find extraordinary and provocative. I want to preface my question with a confession, which is on some level i have a difficult time getting my arms around realizing the magnitude of this problem because of the sheer absurdity of the conspiracy premise. Frankly and bluntly put in my mind, how could anybody in their right mind believe that . That is exactly what i want to get at. You are all incredible experts on the sociology of this, but what im interested in hearing from whichever one of you would be best suited to describe it, is not the sociology but the psychology, what are the characteristics that make people be receptive to that which is so selfevidently, patently absurd, ridiculous, harmful, crazy . I ask this question because i think in order for us to be able to deal with this, it is important that we not just understand the systems and the sociology, but what causes an individual to buy in to such i will use the technical term crap. You came thesmith, closest to getting there with information about qanon, but anyone. In. Would be happy to jump i will preface this with im not a sociologist or psychologist. I completely and wholeheartedly agree with that. I think we are seeing such a mainstreaming of what would have been absurd, so the way in which review qanon content is through mainstream, nonabsurd topics, so we are seeing an explosion around child sex trafficking and sex exploitation , with their save the children movement. Ideas, there is a a sexite and trafficking does exist, so when you encounter this on social media, the first thing you come across may not be particularly absurd. The issue is with the way social media functions and the reinforcement for drawing the user down the pathway where they content. And the the vulnerabilities are interesting. You could unpack them at a psychological level. I come from a background of study of extremist movements. In that discipline, there are quite a lot of time and effort what to understanding makes people susceptible to extremist content. Some of those are basic human desires and needs like a need for community and a need to feel like you belong to something. A perceptionpeople that they are part of something that is good and that they are fighting against people, and that is a natural human desire to be a part of a movement and feel like you are on the right side of history is not something that is particularly likely. Basicallyth, that is an argument that the innate desire to become tribal is met by this, and you described the glide path in, but it stops short of helping me understand how it is that you set aside all reason. Tribe fanatic member of a faned gonzaga basketball that it doesnt cause me to set aside my rationality to do that. What vulnerabilities lead people thats blue . D say a bit on thee in way Political Polarization is playing into this. When political and media elites do with a wink and a nod suggest this is ok an appropriate content, and a movement we are following, then it is another signal. What is specific about qanon and very unique as there are so many ways in, and the theory evolved with breaking news, so one of the main hooks was the jailing of Jeffrey Epstein and the stories around Jeffrey Epstein, and all of the intrigue about his island and elites. Aboutn we are talking these conspiracy theories having a kernel of truth, what it has done is laid itself out across the internet for anyone to find the easter eggs, so it has these elements of participation that involve information seeking that is rewarded by the platforms themselves, and you bring that information back to these online spend, and some people hours upon hours a day doing just that, or repackaging that is a Youtube Video so that people can follow along. But because this Conspiracy Theory evolves with the news and with corruption in some places as well, it is a very live wire that is different from coming into it from understanding even that it is playing on antisemitic tropes, which only when you go into the theory and start to dig around and you know what those tropes are, do you understand what the language is really calling for. Thank you, dr. Donovan. Before i go back to mr. Castro, i want to let our viewers know, i am not just calling on the democratic members. Republican members were invited to appear. Regrettably, they have decided not to. We think that is a disservice to their constituents and to the discourse. Lets try again with mr. Castro. Can you hear me . I just switched out for my computer to my phone. You said if we analyze these media, social social like other industries produces a product, and in this case that product may be damaging to american self and democracy and public discourse. Over the past few years now, as chairman of the hispanic congressional hispanic caucus, i have taken on the stereotypes that entertainment produces about various different people, but as a kid, there were certain products being released. As the course of the media has developed, the standard line has been the best counter for lies is truth, but we presuppose this , these ideas that everybody is attuned to and paying attention to, and truth and lies will be told and we will be able to sort out fact and fiction. As we have seen with social ofia, it is more a matter kind of asymmetric conversation where people are going through various different channels they agree with or get suckered into and end up believing it without ever actually being exposed or confronted by fact or by the time they are, they disbelieve the sources or the countervailing information. Things,nk about these what is most important for me, do you believe there is any kind of common marketplace of ideas in the United States where you really have this battle between fact and fiction or truth and lies . What is the state of American Media we try to figure out whether regulation is appropriate . Ms. Donovan and other panelists, as legislators, as we figure out what our role is, whether it is taking away tax incentives. How do we handle that . What is the state of American Media . Is there a common marketplace or not . There is some great writing on this and the markets have ontten the interesting piece why we should think about the marketplace ideas when we think about the internet. It gets to the point which is in the title of this hearing, we are living through an infodemic. There is such an abundance of information that credible information and inaccurate information are circulating in the same basis, so when you go onto Google Search and type in a keyword, what the algorithm does , sorts, and prioritizes certain information to return it to you. In the midst of the early part of the pandemic when we were still calling this coronavirus, we saw an unbelievable surge in urls using the term coronavirus. As people started to change to call it covid19, we saw another spike of the use of urls with that word and it. If you look at the urls, you figure out that grifters are through the space first. It is maryland covid relief, is the url, and if you are trying to find information about unemployment or to get tested and suture on google for maryland covid 19, you might bump into this website which was actually a front that made it look like you were applying for information and unemployment, but you were really just submitting your information to a firm that was going to call you and give you Legal Services and try to gin up business that way. Talking 100000 and more domains in that moment that were meant to and some instances, or instancesd in some , were just parked, but others were about clicking on the link where people thought they were going to buy masks, toilet paper, or hand sanitizer, or applying for government funding fromere do you fall government being heavyhanded to being completely withdrawn, as i think we have been so far, or somewhere in the middle, where do you recommend . Needs tovernment incentivize Platform Companies to do better content moderation in terms of cure ration. Be employing librarians to make sure when you search for something on the platform that has money or your life consequence on it, you should be getting true information and not just what is fresh and relevant. Mr. Welch. Thank you very much. Pick me up from where you finished. I do believe the flood of misinformation is a threat to democracy, but i also think the threat is the ethic now that you can believe whatever you want, and it is not just social media, and certainly not just russian interference when you have politicians like the president taking the damage of this. A business model, fox news, they basically do monetize a type of journalism that is largely obviously from my perspective, pretty fact free. What is absent in a more extremely than even the yellow ,ournalism mr. Himes mentioned is any editorial function at all. That is the breakdown of institutions and the breakdown of any structure in media where there is some obligation to stand behind what you publish. Of course, the platforms that we have have exemption from any liability for whatever goes out onto their platforms, so the questions i have is number one, this problem that you are articulating with disinformation , isnt that part of a broader change in the whole media landscape, not just social media . Talk a bitmber two, about the remedies, because to the extent that we are giving orerence to Mark Zuckerberg jack dorsey to the side, this is a Public Function and how do we have a Public Function to maintain some standard of editorial confidence without there being censorship . Dr. Donovan . Sorry. K you, im i feel like im speaking a lot, but i do have ideas about what we do when we have this kind of feedback loop when people are charging the platforms with censorship and they are trying to do content moderation. It all mattered a lot less 10 years ago when people didnt really think about social media when they thought about, where do i get my news . This is what the fundamental change is, social media is not additive to the information environment. It actually really let me be a little more directed. Number one, should we eliminate that liability waiver for platforms and what they publish so they take some burden much like newspapers do . Number two, should there be discussion about restoring the fairness doctrine . It really opens it up for an enormous amount of opinion based news in the fox news model. And then third, the third question is, do we need a new agency that essentially would be on behalf of the public making obviouslysubject to with legislative authority, as opposed to having that delegated to the tech giants . I am very much in favor of a new agency that would evaluate what the actual impact is on the other sectors and our information economies, and then come up with recommendations. Right now, i dont think it would be advisable to really restructure 230 without a plan for how to go ahead. I do see platforms that social media provides an enormous amount of good and the ways that people communicate with each other. It is the features that people the features that are becoming a problem and the way that people can pay to play, paid to push their information or news across these platforms, so i think we need a special regulation around the itertising component as relates to honesty, not just in terms of the content, but who is behind it, who is paying for it . Transparency,that people will not know about where they are getting their information and know who to trust. Are you seeking recognition . I would love to hear from her. In. Am happily able to jump i will jump in on the fairness doctrine. I couldnt i would welcome this return to our country. Fore is a point to be made investing in journalism as a public good. Per person per year on public media and im sure i dont need to tell any of the members, the service that the corporation for public broadcasting provides, especially in news deserts, is the onlyd pbs journalism that is trustworthy and exists, we could extend we could stand to invest more in that dichotomy and make sure that people have somewhere to go so there is not a vacuum for junk to fill the vacuum. We would benefit from an oversight issue. A new set of e rules or the rules they have themselves have been enforced fairly and equitably. Relying onhat we are are researchers like the four of us who are going under the hood, so to speak, and finding the stuff out, doing the platforms diligence for them and were elying on leaks and what the platform tell us which i dont trust the whole picture. That the platforms are doing heir Due Diligence by their users. Murphy. You, mr. Can you hear me, chairman . Can. Es, we sure thank you so much and thank you to the panelists for this discussion. I guess, let me throw out this to ms. Smith. Some ways, dealt in you know basically jihadism on as being a real threat to our National Security and in parallels what qanon, there is clear and magical thinking, here is black and white morality plays and conspiracy theories abound and my have tanding is that we done a decent job in dealing media influence of jihadism and isis to some extent. Im not positive. If im correct about this, is to learn from n what we did there from this qanon theory. I understand that intelligence are ies in other countries actively thinking about dealing with it. Maybe we arent yet, but maybe like to and i would know how. A really great question, thanks for that. On the potential content. Ion of jihadist this is a different issue which quite ntent which was easy yes and no games should be layed with the content that needed to be swiftly be taken down from social media gruesome the propaganda that we saw from groups like isis that was horrificnd harmful and in nature and quite clearly contravening community guidelines. We have with t some of that content, it fell in gray area, take, for example, when isis recruiters that future recruits were turned off by gruesome propaganda, they adapted into emphasizing the Healthcare System and Education System that set up in the territory that they were occupying. The issue we have with qanon s the gray area, such a vast proportion does not violate guidelines. Target violently content, content that can induce real world harm. Proportion. I am not a policymaker in this sense and i have very few for how to ons restrict the amount of content platform is on the that does not contravene community guidelines, i would earlier that Platform Engineering does play a large rabbit preventing the hole that were seeing people being drawn into more and more content of the same nature. Got it. Let me get a question yes or no question. We rule out that there are any foreign actors that are social media non conspiracy theories . Not. Bsolutely ok. That was an easy answer. And thats what i thought. I have noticed that the qanon to europe. S spread has it spread to russia as well . Thats a good question. In 27 Different Countries now on different platforms. The data that we get through a. P. I. S. Access not one we have to. The facebook equivalent in russia. I would be surprised if there is movement that is in east adjacent to qanon russia. In europe, its been astounding and rapid and terrifying. I would just say, mr. Chairman, this is an excellent on asthat we should drill we get closer to the election. We have been talking about russian nfluence and influence, active influence and concern that its playing a role here with qanon. Might be ways that we able to in effect the conspiracy qanon conspiracy web with other ideas or stories that are so confusing and discord and cause it to collapse in on itself . In other words, kind of embed crazy things that might pit groups against each other within within . Going to say briefly about this which is that one of the things that that do on certain platforms is the lly reinforce circulation and algorithm and recommendation systems. Recommendation systems actually to that kind of excitement and so there is an nverse system of rewards for the ways in which Platform Companies would react to that nd then how it may or may not disrupt communities. One of the key features of the communities is that they keep and so ersation going there is already a lot of back chatter about what Different Things mean. Like snt a group that is ideologically whetted to one specific idea. It is the discussion itself. Thank you. Thank you, representative demmings. Thank you so much, mr. Chairman. Witnesses or the being with us today. My connection is a little bad. I apologize for that. Want to first of all thank you for reminding us that really allowed the platform for those who plotted u. S. Governor to take place. I think that is extremely talk aboutnd when we threats to our democracy, we ertainly know that women, blacks and other minorities are always targeted. Here may be different means of targeting, but the mechanism is that is to same and instill fear. This is a ieve that significant threat to our democracy. You know, here we are again. Important n discussion and i would think that we would have learned so foreign her its interference or whats going on and what me from 2016 did. Ussian aid could you please tell me what lessons ve were the learned and because this environment does seem so ripe discussion about qanon right now, if you could just tell me what Lessons Learned and what are some of the gaps, if you will, that still exist that need to have an immediate ocus on or bring immediate attention to. Thank you, representative demmings, i will be brief and hrow it over to cindy who can expand on this as well. Thanks of the recognition of and women minorities played by disinformation. Two quick statistics. Tracked the disinformation on parlor and chand, two offplatform sites used by the folks who have he same sort of inclinations that the folks kidnapping did, during ther Vice President ial debate, we sexualized and disengendered information over harris. They increased 631 and 1,078 . Just because the event was getting talked about and she was in the public eye. He number of individuals latching on to these theories is growing. I think thats an important thing to say. And what weve learn, i am not sure that the nited states has actually learned very many lessons. I think the past couple of days have shown that we have learned at least have become ore circumspect about how to refer on hack and link materials, things that might be providence. We have no learned from our central europe, we have to learn about foreign and disinformation. As the hearing demonstrates by the lack of folks across the is present, this issue has become politicized. Really knows no Political Party. Thats the biggest recognition that we need. Think youre all setting a great example of that by partisanship today. That to see more of future. Im tossing it over to cindy. Thank you. I think we have learned some interesting things since 2015. I think disinformation of the ord has become a kitchen tabletopic. It certainly wasnt an issue prior to 2016 and social Media Companies have and these are s some social Media Companies have to adjust this issue with increasing their investigative capabilities, concept g their moderation capabilities. Theyre still lagging hip and out what real world harm is and what kind of content harm. Es real world they often conflate harmful just the ideaits that being personal political opinion and particularly when domestic d by individuals, but what we have seen throughout investigationsing across the Different Number of topics is that a diet of false content g sensational that encourages violence does lead to real world violence and lead to things like people not voting or changing their sort of political belief of thing. Ort just quickly, one of the things hat i would like to see moving forward is a greater investment in nonprofit organizations that like grants and funding to do the work that they times on so many behalf of social Media Companies media elp inform social companies. Theyre seriously underfunded. Theyre also doing significant education, munity working in particular, some of doing just s are a tremendous work in young people, they see the same threat but in different ways. I would like to see greater those ent in organizations doing critical work. Thank you very much, mr. Back. An, i yield thank you, representative spear. Unmuted now . Yes, you are. Thank you, thank you mr. Chairman. You, its each of for a whole vocate i think genre of area that we whole lot more time. I must say that i think there is cyber war going on that we abdicated any for. Nsibility most of us, ill just speak for yself, are pretty ignorant of how the system works. Or instance, many have referenced this interest of having some oversight entity. If reddit was able to identify back in 2018 blem their e them off of platform and yet we are two years later and we still have platforms just now waking p to it, i think that suggests that we do need to have some uniformity in how we address issues. These as part of the democratic caucus, we spent some time with facebook in the last an months and there was institute for Strategic Dialogue they were in june and july comments on email candidates, republicans and male ats as compared to candidates and found that there were dangerous tray comments pace made at a much higher or women than men, so your comments about misogyny are really important. I would like for you to give us as wensight, particularly look at the first Vice President candidate in a very long time, minority, and how one comment by one former state went lyman in california so viral that its become part disgusting commentary about harris and the memes that have been generated are so rotesque and violent, many of these platforms own mission tatements and yet they are so slow to take them off. O i guess i would like some commentary on what you would ike to see in terms of dispelling the misogyny and rules they have set up for themselves. Thank you, representative absolutely oure right. The i. S. D. Report is an excellent one. Working onthat were now is drawing off of a twomonth time period looking at candidates here in the united also female candidates including in new zealand and the u. K. And canada variety of journalists and activists who have been targeted with this sort of thing. Research has shown that the kremlin uses these against woman in countries to keep them out of public life. Its not only an issue of our is a National Security issue. What i personally would like to is much more user friendly reporting mechanisms so that these ho are seeing comments in a twitter thread or the victim themselves can really these things a lot more easily and quickly. Mentioned, i have been going through some of this harassment myself. You have to send an individual single post ery that comes up, you cant track them. Ou have no idea where they go when in reality these are part of targeted harassment campaigns certain inate with users and they use code words the same as melanie and jones talking about qanon. These arent things that are ecessarily going to get picked up by a. I. They arent your normal dirty language that you would expect to see. Whats is going on with senator harris as well. So well have a raft of recommendations coming out with report, but i think in addition to looking at how to reporting requirements, we also need platforms to recognize the undue burden that places on victims and especially women of color as ell as understand that this does translate to real world harm. It translates to psychological me, i want to get one more question in, i have 29 econds, i apologize for interrupting, one of the things number of there is a different sites and they make a the identical g information at the same time and it algorithmically has the pushing it up. Acebook, the top 10 posts, the top 10 pages, nine of them are right wing or conservative. Can you speak to that and how is using the system . I raised that with facebook, you guys can do that, too. Manipulating the system has become very is onplace for some and counterproductive for whats in the best interest of the American Public. Can take that because think what you are talking about are coordinated influenced masquerading as news networks. We do need Platform Companies to how ch more responsive to their algorithms are manipulated by that coordinating posting style. Ou have a little bit of resources and pay interns, people, that they will respond coordinating posted, posting networks. And one thing that is important to understand is that is a feature of the platform, but feature that people with very little resources can actually use. These are people who are being to post. And weve seen that happen time troll e again with also farms that do what is just talking about network harassment where people are being incentivized to do this kind of behavior. He other thing i want to add quickly if i may, about the network harassment problem which is especially when its down ballot candidates, sometimes campaigns sment target the people responding to them. K constituent and want to ask someone about their campaign or platform, you might be the subject of harassment. Look at Maxine Waters mentions to see how that works. At you start to look candidates that have much less attention online and look at all of the comments about them, its disgusting, but it also gets in the way of people who have an interest in learning about the candidate. Thank you. Thank you. Y time has expired, thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you. We concluded the member questions, i have two followups if i could. May address the first, thank you for your years of intelligence the community, were very grateful to you. Analyst, what data would you all to be to able to analyze the growth of danger, the the cross utilization, what data are the social Media Companies not they should share to help you do your work . Thank you for the question, congressman. Media companies are very different in terms of the access that they allow to data. Research that you end up seeing on various focusesmation campaigns on twitter because twitter shows a lot of its data where some of platforms do not, facebook being one of them. Think that as researchers, as analysts, one of the most important things for us is what contentata on and what pages have been removed. N facebook, for example, you get an announcement every week or couple of weeks about the has been removed. We get a couple of screen shots maybe. Account, maybe a page, that sort of thing. After the content has been able to, ere not unless we were particularly tracking that thread or part of with, we ysis to begin are not able to go back and dentify the tactics and procedures that were used by thread actors to do this campaign in the first place. Data would be extraordinarily helpful as we look at things like how are hread actors shifting their operations, what new tactics are they employing, how is this on the platform. Thank you very much. Question for anyone, this is a dilemma i think all of us faced confronting these issues. Jackie mentioned, for example, on Kamala Harris by a state assemblimember. Glad she didnt repeat whatever the attack was, but were often in a position of to these crazynd conspiracy theories. Im the subject of some of them qanon myself, i have all too much familiarity with this. Try to respond, the more i understand youre amping by he Conspiracy Theory putting it into discussion. So what would you recommend way to confront this misinformation without contributing to its amplification . I can quickliway in. That is the same question that on this panel ask ourselves each day as well. The e looking to inform public, keeping them updated against the threats against therebut at the same time is a huge risk of amplifying of something that might not have or gone viral or making any inroads to begin with. Way we weigh it, is this something that reached to gh people that we need respond at this point or if we do respond, will that actually expand their p to message, and increase the reach of a particular narrative. I just want to do add particularly about there are for rent responses different professional sectors, journalists often have to weigh, are the audiences that typically read their journalism engaging it this and then does constitute a story . I think its actually important realize that ns sometimes things will be low evel on the internet, but youve been targeted by a Disinformation Campaign where hammering your mentions with these stories and fact tions and then the hat you do respond triggers a news cascade. That makes it a newsworthy story. Think politicians have to recalibrate what they engage we dont puto that journalists in this position of having to write about it because oliticians have responded to particular Disinformation Campaigns. That is the one part that is tricky for a lot of people, they often know that theyre targeted by these things and so it helps to look around and see, information thats actually circulating more broadly across the web and across platforms, or is this about, you know, me as a politician or me as a journalist Public Health professional and so i think its really important that newsworthy individuals, politicians, celebrities even learn that in the playing a role cycle of amplification. Thank you, all, so much for your testimony today. It couldnt be more timely or it rtant in many respects, looks like we have taken one step forward and two steps back we look at where we are now compared to four years ago. Is encouraging to see the press not so readily notified for materials as took place four years ago without putting that n context about why we were receiving information about hacked materials. 2016, the russians had to make up some of their content and push it out. The russians can amplify content even coming from the president of the United States. Backward. Steps way thank you for helping us appreciate the changing nature landscape. Eat were really grateful for your as the director today we are having a program of how well they anticipate the worldwide pandemic as a journalist