General election. We have multiple factcheckers who focus on the spanish, as a nguage. In the last four years, we have seen some unprecedented taxi on our Democratic Institutions, our social norms, the ways in which we conduct ourselves in this democracy. Many would say on truth itself. And in todays society, you cant talk about truth without also considering the impact of social media and social media platforms. So, if i might, mr. Zuckerberg, and mr. Dorsey, free discussion and open debate are core values of our society. Whether you wish for it or not, the escapable fact is your algorithms, your policies and your Business Decisions shape billions of people across the world and the working majority of people here in our nation expect to be true. Thats the case for election, for potential covid19 vaccine, for Climate Change, for hateful and dangerous stereotypes and many other critical issues. I wals waalso want to recognize small part, led by your hard work and resolve built these companies and revolutionized the way the world communicates. We need that same resolve to reckon today with what needs to be done to win our societys battle for truth. Zuckerberg, as you know, yesterday i sent you along with 14 of my colleagues, a total of 15 senators, we sent you a letter urging facebook to do more, to address hate speech and calls to violence on the platform. We focus particularly on antimuslim bias, on an issue that warrants specific attention, given the tragic consequences of antimuslim hate speech in myanmar, in sri lanka, new zealand and right here in the United States. I appreciate that facebook has taken actions with response to this issue, but this points out why we need better in the tricks. My colleagues and i urge better enforcement in particular in your call for arms tragedy which could have made a difference in the recent tragedy in kenosha. Can i count on you to provide specific and written responses to each of questions in this letter . And then can we discuss them again . Senator, yes, i read your letter. And i commit to getting back in detail with our team to address the important topics that youve raised. And one of your questions that i can actually answer right now, i believe its your second question, about reporting in our quarterly transparency reports that the prevalence of hate speech that we find on our platforms, we will actually be adding that metric into our transparency reports this thursday. When we announce our latest round of our latest transparency report. Well, thank you, mr. Zuckerberg. Let me just make sure i hear you right about prevalence because thats one of my areas of concern, is the absence from the report of the prevalence of hate content. You mean, youll be reporting, not just what percentage of hate speech on the platform youre identifying catching proactively, removing, but the total volume . Senator, thats my understanding is, yeah, the prevalence of that content as a percentage of content on the platform. Nd over time, our goal is going to be to get into more detail which is the subject of some of the questions that youve ked here. As well as weve already committed to an independent audit of the Committee Standards enforce hucement reports so tha people could have full confidence in all of the numbers were putting out. Weve ben doing these reports for less than a few years now. And well continue to flesh tem out and add more details. That way, people can apply the appropriate oveight and scrutiny to the work. Ank you. I want to move on for a moment, f i could, about your callo arms policy. You said earlier today that facebook made an operational mistake in not taking down an event page that called for people to bring weapons to a public park in kenosha. As i think we all know there was a tagic incident in kenosha where a young man brought his ar15 in ilnois to kenosha and ded up with two protesters dead and another injured. Facebook had just adopted its militia policy a week earli. And contractors witht specialized training didnt pick up the violation. I apprecia your frankness in your answers to senator durbin. But your response to senator disturben been mention that the events page violated a separate arms policy in place for over a year, that contractors arent tasked to enforce. I have to ask you as a followup, why didnt you before and also today, reference the call to arms policy when reviewing what went wrong in kenosha . Senator, my understanding is that that post did not necessarily violate that call to arms policy at the time. The call to arms policy is not does not permit anyone from saying, you know, lets go get our guns and do something. You know, for example, people organizing a hunting trip. Thats obviously going to be something that should not be against the policies. But what we do, on some of these policies which im glad you took the opportunity to address this, some of these are content specific. And just require a higher level of context and expertise in the area to enforce. So, we dont necessarily have all of the 35,000 reviewers assess every single one of these policies. So, i can followup in more detail if youd like on the call to arms policy and the nuance there specifically. But that also a bit on how we opertionalize these policies. Thank you r that answer. I do want a followup. Beause just facially, it seemed to me this was a violation of your own call toarms policy. But i look forward to that information. Mr. Dorsey, if i might, in a House Energy Committee hearing i think it was two years ago, you committed to something that i wasust discussing with mr. Zuckberg. An independent civilights audit, butn your case of twitter. The audit relsed by facebook in july has proven invaluable to key areas in which facebook does need to improve. Will you follow through on your commission of thi independent audiof twitter . So, we work with civil Rights Groups all over the country and around the world. To get feedback and constant conversation with the. And we do believe being more transparent and making our transparency record a lot more robust which today we still have some gaps is important for any entity to auditndependently of us. We believe thats important because an audit like that could take away from the work wed like to do. Wed rather provide the information so people can do that work. If i heard you right, you arent going to pursue a civil rights audit but you are going to continue to release data and consult with civil Rights Groups. Id welcome aore thorough answer, as to in whi way ving an outside audit would actually harm your transparency efforts . I dont mean it wuld harm it. I mean that we want to provide enough informatio so that people can do this work. And on their own te lines, thas where we need to make transparency with work more robust. As i said, we have regular convsations with these groups and take a few back regularly. You do, mr. Dorse have policies against deepfakes, against related media, against media violation and thingshat violate intgrity. But you dont have a standalone climate ange misleading infortion page, why not . Well, misleading information is a huge problem, its hard to define it cometely and cohesively. We wantedo scope our approach start. To focus on the highest severity of harm. We focus on three area, nipulative media which you mentioned, sicivic integrity around the eections specifically and public health, specifically around covid. Want to make sure that our resources that we have have the greatest impact, where we believe the greatest severity of harm is going to be. Our policies are living documents. They will evolve. We will add to them. It will be important that we focus our entities and prioritize the work as much as we could. Mr. Dorsey, ill close with this, i can think of a greater harm than Climate Change which is transforming literally our planet. And caution harm to our entire world. I think were experiencing significant harm as we speak. I recognize the pandemic and misinformation about covid19, manipulated media also caused harm. But id urge you to reconsider that, because helping to disseminate climate denialism in my view further accelerates one of the greatest existential threats to our world. Thank you to both of our witnesses, thank you. Senator. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And mr. Zuckerberg and mr. Dorsey, thank you both for being here with us today virtually. And for your commitment to constantly improving the way your platforms are serving people across the country. There has been a lot of talk today, many of us have been listening from our offices or online, about this censorship of ideas and news on your platforms. And these are the things that have been at the forefront in the leadup to the election, as well as the week since our 2020 general election. And, you know, the people that i hear from, of course, believe that conservatives were wrongfully being silenced while those on the left were given basically free rein of your platforms. And one of the points. Contention that is often brought up is that you do recruit heavily from california which leads to your Employee Base skewing quite heavily to the left. So, my first question is for both of you. Do you have concerns about your ability to monitor disinformation on both sides of the political aisle, equally, given that the majority of your employees typically do lean towards the more Progressive Side . And, again, to both of you, how have you taken any steps then at all to make your Employee Base more representative of the country as a whole, when it comes to political affiliation . And mr. Zuckerberg, if we could start with you, please. Thank you, senator. I dt know if this is those are both really important tops. In terms ofassessing what is misinformation, i think its imrtant that we dont become the deciders on everything that is true or false ourselves, which is why weve tried to build a program, an independent factcheckers that we can work with on this. And those factcheckers are accredited not by us, but by the independent Pointer Institute forournalism that is part of the internatial factchecking network. And it includes factcheckers that, i think, span the political spectm, as well as, i think the majity of them who would call themselves apotical. So, weve tried to address the issue of making sure that there isnt a bias in ouractions, by actually having us n be the deciders on that type of content ourselves. And to your second qestion about taking steps to diversify thEmployee Base, we this is a sensitive area in that i dont think it would beppropriate for us to ask people, onhe way in, as theyre interviewg, what their polical affiliation iswhich, of course, makesit hard to know what the actual breakdown of the company is on this. But one of the aea where is im mor optimistic over time is i think were going to see more people working retely around the country. And also around the world, which will mean that fewer people in smaller percent of our employees ll have to come to, you know, the cities and are like the bay aa, where our headquarters is. And well be able to employ an increasing number of people across all of the different geographies acrosshe country. Very good. Thank you. And, mr. Dorsey . First and foremost, the most importa thing is that we build systems and frameworks independent of any one particular employee or individual in our company. And inclusive included in that system, are checkpoints. Checkpoints to make sure that we are removing any bias that we find. Checkpoints to d q and a and monitoring and all of the decisions that we make. Havingn appeals process which is an external checkpnt, whether we make correct action or not. We want to do something independent of the people we hire so that is our focus. Second, like mark, im really excited that we are at a stage where we can decentralize our company even more. That we do not need people to move to san francisco. We can hire people all over the country. They can stay wherever they want to be, wherever they feel most creative. Thats not just in this country, thats around the wor. And i think the tools are in a state where we can do that more easily. Weve obously been forced to do it with covid. And i dont think its a state that well return from. The days of having one centralized massive corporate headquarter in one particular city are certainly over for us. And i think many other entrepreneur and starting Companies Feel that. Really good. I really appreciate that. I think that covid has taught us all an important lesson. For those able to work remotely, i think you will find greater diversity and thought which is very important i think for the types of platforms that you both represent. Now, id like to move on to an entirely different topic. And since i began my career here in the senate, i have been committed to, of course, protecting those who need it most, and folks, our children are the most in need and its our job as lawmakers to respond to the ongoing threats against them. And social media has created a whole new world for all of us. And it can help us share that information. And resources, with the public, about human trafficking. And Child Exploitation. And it can also help us keep track of sexual predatorsnd ensure that our children are safe from those known threats. And, in fact, ive been working on legislation that would help update what information sexual predators have to provide about their online identities. And as we all know, however, social media can also be incredibly harmful. Child sexual abuse material, csa mch csam is present on nearly every single social media platform that exists. And in such polarized times, i am grateful that it is the subject that we do find it doesnt matter if youre on the left or the right, we can come together to find solutions for this issue. And, mr. Zuckerberg, i know all that and iwhen we spoke over th phone. And mr. Dorsey, i hope you find initiatives to fight these. And mr. Zuckerberg, i do understand that facebook is planning to outfit Facebook Messenger with endtoend encryption. And how dowel ho you hope to pra dissemination of child information if neither you or facebook can access that messenger data . Is the some sort of apparatus that you ha in place to help with those situations . And then, mr. Dorsey, well go to you next as well. Senat, thank you for this. I think youre rit on every count in what you just said, bh that child sexual explitation is one of the gravest threatshat we fos the most on. And it is also an area that will face ne challengesas we move endi endtoend cryption across the messenger systems. He reason were moving to encryion, people warrant greater privacy and security in their messenger systems. And to move to systems that are providing more security and thats why it makes sense to offer encryption broadly is good. But it i going to mean that were going to need to find and develop new tactics. A lot of at weve found around the best ways to identify bad actors on our system is not actually by looking at the specific content itself. But by looking at patterns of activity, and where is it that a group or person is not behaving in the way that a normal person would, so you can flag and review that. And weve grown increasingly sophisticated at that. Th goes across the foign interference preferenvention wo that we do that. Andit also will be a factor here. And ill beappy to follow up on more detail on what we have planned. Overall, this is snis something were very focused on. D i agree with your concern. Thank you very much. And, mr. Dorsey, you as well, for those on twitter making sure that Law Enforcement would have access, if at all possible, if you could give me an overview of that, please. Child exploitation is absolutely terrible, and we dont tolerate it on our service at all. We regularly work with Law Enforcement to address anything that we see, inclusive of the patterns that mark just mentioned. The majority of twitter is publi so, we dont have as much activity in private channels, so, its a different approach. But itsstill, you know, we still see the same tivity. And its one of our highest priities in tes of severity thank you both for bei accessibleto us today. Truly appreciate your input. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you, mr. Zuckerberg, i really want to appreciate what facebook has the area of Sexual Exploitation of children. You all have done a very good job helping Law Enforcement in that area. For the second time in three weeks, youve been called before the Senate Committee over claims that your platforms are supposedly biased against conservatives. The fact of the matter is, these allegations are completely baseless. Everyone who has systemly looked at the content on social media, from media matters to the Cato Institute to john kyle has found absolutely no evidence of anticonservative bias and they show far right content from the likes of fox news, the most engaged pages on facebook. All of your employees are left of center is relevant of nothing. Certainly not relevant of some sort of anticonservative bias in terms of your moderation. The way i see it, this hearing is a transparent effort by my republican colleagues to work the and in my view it is working. Two weeks ago the Washington Post reported that facebook has bent over backwards to avoid claims that it was biased against conservatives and it removed a strike against donald trump jr. s instagram account. One of several strikes removed from the accounts of trump family americans. The american first action was allowed to post material rated false by facebooks thirdparty factcheckers without penalty and these are just a few examples. And they are nothing new. In 2019, facebook included breitbart, a website described by its cofounder as a platform for the altright, as one of its trusted news sources. Facebook selected the daily caller, another site with White Nationalist ties, and the wall street journal has reported how joe kaplan stopped changes designed to make facebooks algorithms less divisive because the changes would have disproportionately affected conservative users according to kaplan. Mr. Zuckerberg, you founded facebook, a company with a market capitalization of approximately 80 billion and you control the majority share of the companys voting stock. Mr. Zuckerberg, im wondering at what point you will stop giving in to baseless claims of anticonservative bias and start exercising your control over facebook to stop driving division and actually, to quote you, build community and bring the world closer together, end quote, as you claim as facebooks mission. A recent study found that President Trump was the single biggest source of votingrelated misinformation in the runup to the president ial election. Since the election, President Trump has only continued the lies on twitter and facebook. Also claiming that he won reelection and that the election is being stolen from him. But the truth is, joe biden won the election as Major News Network and is the Associated Press have confirmed. In response to President Trumps lies, you have, at most, added a warning label. While still allowing the president s misinformation to remain online. You defended the labels claiming they point people to a broader conversation around the election. I have serious questions about the effectiveness of these labels since President Trump and his allies continue to spread lies. What evidence do you have that these labels are effective in addressing President Trumps lies . Response, please. And i think mark mentioned this earlier as well, were doing a retrospective on the effectiveness of all of our actions to the election. We believe the labels point to a broader conversation that people can see whats happening with the election and with the results. We dont want to put ourselves in a position of calling an electi election, that is not our job. Were pointing to sources and pillars that have traditionally done this in the past. And that is the intention of the policy, thats the intention of the labeling system. Mr. Zuckerberg . We view the additional context that we put on posts as part of an overall response and effort to make sure that people have reliable information about the election. So we dont expect that its just going to be when people are seeing a post that maybe casting doubt on a legitimate form of voting or may have misinformation that we can correct and help people unrstand how they could really vote, for example. Thats why we put the Voter Information Center predominantly on the top of facebook and instagram for months leading up to the election and kept it up afterwards so people can see reporting on the results. As i mentioned in my opening statement, 140 million americans visited that. I think this was the largest voting Information Campaign in the history of our country. So i think when taken together, these actions are were quite strong of an effort to communicate accurate and reliable information to people at the times when they needed it about how they can vote in the election, encouraging them to vote, having confidence in the election system, knowing who and when the election had been called. Thats just partof an overall system. My time is running out. All of the information the actual information, voter information you provide, that is good. But were talking about all of these misinformation actually, lies that are put out by the president and you he these labels. I really ve questions about whether or not this ki of labeling and im glad mrmr. Mr. Dorsey is determining whether these labels do anything to create a larger frawork for discussion. I will seriously consider whether that is actual happening. Since im runni out of time, i just wanted to get to donald trump asresident, a t of his posts get on whether they contain misinfoation, especially whether he won the election and covid. You name it, the fraudulent elctions that he alleges, et cetera. What are bothf you prepared to do regarding Donald Trumps use of your platforms after he stops being president will he still be deemed news wor worthy andse your platfor to spread his misinformation. Snator, let me clarify, my last answer, we are also have academic study to the effective of all of our election measures and theyll be publishing those results publicly. Interms of president rump and movingforward, there are a small number of polici where we have exceptions for politicians under the principle that people should able to hear what their elected officials are saying and candidates for office. So if the president or anyone else is spreading hate speech or inciting violence or posting content that delegitimizes the election or valid forms of voting, those will receive the same treatment as anyone el saying those this. And that will continue to be the case. Remains to be seen. Mr. Dorsey. We do have a policy around Public Interest where for Global Leaders we do make exceptions in terms of whether if a tweet violates the terms of service, we leave it up. We leave it up behind and people are not allowed to share that more broadly. A lot of the sharing is disabled with the exception of quoting it so you can add your own conversation on top of it. If an account is not a world leader anymore, that particular policy goes away. Thank you i am running out of time. I have mr. Chairman, i would like to enter into the record a number of studies particularly november 1st, 2020, article in the Washington Post. May 26, 2020 article in the wall street journal entitled facebook executive shut down efforts to make the site less divisive, three studies from media matters finding no anticonservative bias, and an artic titled, no, bit tech isnt silencing conservativism. I would like to enter the into the record. Without objtion. Senator kennedy. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, each of you has founded an extraordinarily successful company. And theyre both american companies. And i think i would be remiss if i didnt say congratulations. Im very poud of the fact that it was American Ingenuity tha did this. I think we c also both agree that both twitter and facebook have enormous power as a reslt of your success. Your not companies. Yore countries. At least in terms of power. I want to test a point of vie here. Imot sure i subscribe to it. But i want toet your thoughts on it. Mr. Dorsey, do you believ everythinyou read . No. Why not . I think its healthy to have skepticism about everything and have a mind set of verifying it and using as much information as possible to do so. Do you have somebody on your staff who protects you from reading things that they think you shouldnt . No. Mr. Zuckerberg, do you believe everthing you read . No, senator. W why not . Because a lot of things are incomplete or incorrect. So you exercise your own judgment . Yes, senator. All right. Do you have somebody on yur staff whose job is to filter things that they think you should not be reading . Senator, not not externally. Although i would he that the teams that i work with internally do the best to make sure that the information that theyre presenting meith are always accurate. Okay. I want to here is a point of view. Im not sure i subscribe to it. But it is a legitimate point of view, i think. And i would like to know your thoughts on it. You have th and this is directed to each o you you have both democrats and replicans upset wh you. The democrats are upset with you, this point of view holds, becausehey want you to publish im not using that word a a term of art or science here with any special meanings. The democrats want you to publish stuff on yo platforms that they agree with but the dont want you to publish stuff that they disagree with. And this pnt of view also lds that the republicans are upset with you because they want you publish things on your platfos that they agree with, but they dont want you to publish stuff on their platforms hat they disagree with. What if had a rule, what if your companies had a rule, this is a question, not a suggeson. What your companies had a rule that said, okay, peoe arent morons. I wod like to treat people as they treat me. That is that i can read what i want to read and exercise my o good judgmentabout whether i chooseo believe it. So heres the rule were adopting. If you go on twitter or facebook, you ct bully people. You cant threaten people. Maybe this is a subt of both of those. But you cant commit a crime with your words. And you cantncite violence. But other than that, you can print any damn thingyou want to. And well let our users judge. Give me your thoughts on that. Those are generally the rules we have. Our focus on these policies no, you dont, mr. Dorsey. Excuse me for interrupting. But youre censoring right and left, trying to make both sides happy. And youre making neither side happen. Thats not the intention i know its not the intention. But its the result. I can see why you might say that and might perceive that and thats why we do think its important that we add more transparency to how we moderate content, that we give more control to individuals to oderate their own content and focus on algorithms. But a lot of our policies are focused on ming sure that people feel that they can express themselves in the first place and not driven away. Everything you mentioned about bullying, harassment, illegal content or violence, thats what our policies are i know. And excuse me for interrupting but my time is limited. Youre starting to censer content. Why not have both mr. Biden and mr. Trump able to see whatever they want to often your platform, so long as they dont threaten, bully, incite violence and commit a crime. Im not justifying the use of either twitter or facebook to hurt the row rohingas. Whats your thoughts on censorship . In principle i agree with what you are saying, although i think there are more categories of harm than just the ones that youve mentioned. But i think the basic principle behind what youre saying is a definition of Free Expression that says that people should be able to share their opinions broadly, except if its going to cause imminent or irreparable harm to another person. Even the most ardent First Amendment supporters agree that you shouldnt be able to yell fire in a crowded theater if theres not a fire because that could put people at risk of imminent hard. You mentioned terrorism and Child Exploitation and bullying as forms of harm. I think the debate is, what are other forms of harm. Were in the middle of a pandemic and weve assessed that misinformation about covid and treatments that could put people in additional risk of getting the disease or not seeking the right treatment if they have it, that those are also things that could cause imminent harm. Weve taken the position that mr. Zuckerberg, let me interce interrupt. Im not saying youre wrong by doing what you just described. But that makes you a publisher. And that creates problems with section 230. And i just think one point of view it is, at some point weve got to trust people to use their own good judgment to decide what they choose to believe and not believe. And not try to assume that were smart and theyre stupid and that we can discern believable information and information that shouldnt be believed but everybody else is too stupid to do it. Okay. Im done, thank you, mr. Chairman. I think you put your finger on a really maybe the central issue, senator kennedy, how do we let people make up their own minds without what theyre saying, creating violence or threats to others, very complicated endeavor. Senator booker. Chairman, can you hear me . Yes, and to our witnesses, we have two more senators and well be done and i appreciate your patience. Senator booker. I appreciate that, mr. Chairm. I appreciate listening to this hearing. I really want to bring just focus back to what i think is why wer here which is the 2020 election. And ive been saying . This coittee for many months now about the tragic consequences of us normalizing things that should express considerable outreach. Theres not a person on this committee that doesnt know who the nextresident of the United States will be. President elect joe biden and Kamala Harris will be the president and ve president of the United States come january 20th. But what is going on right now is dangerous. And it is a threat to our decracy. For the first time in amerin history, we are seeing a sitting president of the United States make wild and baseless accusations that undermine the democratic process. That donjust delegitimize it. What the president of the United States is doing is trying to thwart our democracy. Donald trump is waging an allut war on the truth and our democratic systems. And one of his weapons of choice in this disinformation war is social media and specifically the two gentlemen here, their platforms, twitter and facebook. You have the tools to prevent him from weaponizing these platforms, to degrade our democracy and our Democratic Institutions and to cause such damage that even after january 20th, it could one of the first times that millions of americans think and believe that this election was baselessly being charged by donald trump. And so lets be clear on whats happened. Donald trumps shameful and shameless lies that are persisting about voter fraud and the outcome of this election were some of the most engaged content on social media in the days after the election. By one measure, during the week after the election, his posts on facebook made up all, every single one, of the topmost top ten most engaged posts in the United States and 22 out of 25 of the topmost engaged posts in our country. And his number one post, the top of them all, was a false declaration of victory. On twitter, his tweet on falsely claiming victory was viewed by millions of users. This was and is not just a disInformation Campaign by the president of the United States, but literally the most powerful person in our country doing an allout assault on the constitutional ideal of a democracy that he was sworn to protect. So lets take a step back because i think this would be bipartisan if we looked at what was happening in another country. If we saw im on the Foreign Relations committee and i know how we come together on issues like this, if a strongman leader of a democracy has denied his loss of a democratic election, made consistent and constant baseless claims about fraud, if he fired military leaders while his foreign minister talked about a smooth transition of the defeated leaders next term, even in jest, we would be putting out statements urging calm and calling for the peaceful transfer of power. And so were seeing concrete consequences right now of President Trumps rhetoric. We are actually in the midst of the fourth largest mass causality event in american history. This is not just something that should not be treated with calm and normalcy. But we all, people, who believe in country should be standing up and talking abiliout the consequences. We have his political appointee, the General Service administrator, refusing to say joe biden is the president elect. It was not that long ago that the 9 11 Commission Said that one of the things that undermined our ability to meet the terroristic threats to our company happened because of a treason sigs that was undermined or excuse me, a transition that did not happen in the normal course. President trumps actions should shock all of us, all of us who care about the welfare of our democracy, who care about our norms. And i hope the platforms here can maintain the highest levels of vigilance. To the gentlemen before us today, i would like to ask specifically, have you taken any steps to modify your platforms algorithms to ensure that blatantly false election disinformation posted by election official and is specifically the most powerful person in the United States, donald trump, isnt amplifying that his posts that might get a lot of interactions that are dead wrong dont somehow get boosted by your algorithms. If you could both respond to hat as quickly as possible. Senators, ill go first. I share your concern on this. And i think its unfortunate that we had to put in place a policy around prematu or false declarations of victory. T we had to do that and we anticipated this back in septeer when we put the policy in place. A lot of what were trying to do is help distribute reliable infmation which we attach both to posts on the topic by President Trump or any of the other candidates or elected ficials who are talking on the subject. But more importantlye put that reliable information, icluding about Election Results at the top of facebook and instagram for everyone to see and that supersedes what the algorithm i appreciate that. I would like to get this is information i kn. Jack, if you wa to respond on the algorithm, if u want to respond out the algorithms too. Do u have specific measures that youre taking to prevent your algorithms from boosting false content . Ye sir. Many of the labels did change how thelgorithms amplified content. And then, you know, President Trump right now is spreading dangerous misinrmation about our electoral process. Its going on right now. And maybe if you guys gentlemen would cogently through this process, this ongoing process right now, are there steps you will be taking that you have not already delineated as we are going into what could be unprecedented waters in this country. Are there any additional steps that you will be taking right now in the coming days or weeks to stop the further amplification and undermining of our democracy, we are heading, potentially, depending upon the behavior of a president who has shown himself to be erratic, are there steps that you are prepared to take in the coming days and weeks to dress this misinformation that were seeing as coming in an unrelenting manner . Were this is, unfortunately, an eventual yalty that we planned for. And weve taken a number of steps not just including the factchecking program that we have set up broadly, but we stopped recommending all civic and political groups as an example because of risk of misinformation or harm growing there. We have temporarily paused all political ads because of a risk of potential abuse or inflaming tension or potential unrest or violence. And there are a number of other steps that weve taken like this as well. That weve done in other countries when there are risks of civil unrest that weve shown have worked. Ill be happy to follow up on the details. Thank you, your team has been helpful. Mr. Dorsey, any new steps that you want to give me . Im treading on the indulgence of the chairman if you could be really cogent. New steps. Were going to continue to rain vigilant around our enforcement of civic integrity. I think its important that we ay agile and we need to learn. We need to learn about the effectiveness of this work and how to carrit forwd. If the chairman would indulge me one more question to mr. Zuckerberg, i wa really pleased that theroup stop the steal, aroup formed on facebook trying to delegitimize the election, i was grateful that youall suspended that account after 24 hours. But im concerned about what lessons yove learned. Becaus clearly outside groups like t center for encouering digital hate flaed that groups posts hours befo facebook did. And m wondering what you all he learned about speed, theres an old saying that a lie can travel halfway aund the world while the truth is still putting its pants on. Wh does facebook factor in in terms of speed, in trying to cbat surges of disinformatio about this group. And maybe anotherexample additional sort of addendum to that question, mr. Zuckerberg, mr. Bannon,twitter, for example, permanently suspended mr. Bannons twitter account after he made horndous steps about acts of violence against dr. Fauci and fbi direcr wray. But yo but not only i guess im just simply king, why would facebook not take the similar steps and silar stand . Mr. Zuckerberg, very cogently, could you talk about the speed issue, and when your platforms diverge, im really wondering why one platform in twitter saw that as a standard to remove but you all have left did not follow in that decision. Thanks, senator. Im happy to address both of those. On speed, youre certainly right that thats important and part of what we focus on is figuring out which types of messages are things that are going to go viral quickest. Because you its not just about trying to get to everything within, you know, five hours, for example, its actually much more important to get to the harms that are going viral quickly within an hour, even if some things that are probably not going to get much distribution at all might be deprioritized for a little bit longer. And so i think making sure that we stay on top of what are the hashtags, what are the groups, what are the messages, who are the bad actors who are trying to spread this content and as we see the threat evolving, we are typicallyable to evolve and move faster as we. So were very focused on that. Thank you very much. Anything else i just want to give you an amen, chairman. The second part of that question, i would love to get on the record. But i want to say to you, you mentioned earlier and i know that you said chairman graham will be chairman again. But i think you said something about the effects of social media on our kids. I can cite many studies who said kids are on social media twice the rates of eating disorders and image concerns. I know that the two gentlemen would welcome the opportunity to discuss this with other experts. But theres something really going on in terms of the selfesteem, wellbeing and flourishing of our children who are deeply affected by these platforms. Theres enough evidence that these platforms and childrens engagement on them is causing heigened levels of a deleterious effect on them. Thank you very much. Last but certainly not least. That is correct, and i appreciate that. Even though my colleague from new jersey went twice his time, i am going to begin these are senate minutes. Yes, theyre senate minutes. I will agree with my colleagues who have talked about the impact on children. The distribution of information that damages women and children that leads to violence against women and children, human trafficking, the utilization of these platforms by pedophiles, this is something that were going to continue to work on. When i was in the house, we passed legislation to put more tools in the hands of local Law Enforcement to fight this, but you all at these social media platforms are going to have to do your part to work with us on this, to protect our children. I will also say that were keeping an eye with each of a you yesterday, i talked about your financial components, square their for mr. Dorsey, and libra with mr. Zuckerberg and the application of these components to your sites. Were talking about 2020 elections but were also looking ahead to how we clean up some of what transpired in the before the 2022 elections. I think its fair to say too, that you all probably are now fully aware that theres great frustration with americans and with this committee, with the way you act invensable, the way your employees act as if youre the invincible gods of the silicon valley. Even youre beginning to conduct yourself as news publishers and distributors, my colleagues and i have asked you all repeatedly through the years for Greater Transparency and to accept responsibility. Youve chosen to do neither. So it is going to be up to us to change existing law and to hold you to account on behalf of the American People. Section 230, the reforms that were going to put in place will take away this liability shield that youve turned into an opaque wall that you and your content m content moderators are hiding behind. And the online freedom and Viewpoint Diversity act, i thank chairman graham and wicker for working with me on this. This is set up for a markup in this committee on thursday. Mr. Zuckerberg, you were stating earlier that we needed to put some definition in place. Were going to do that. Were going to take away language, inciting personal harm, inciting terrorism, were going to do that and clear that up for you. Mr. Zuckerberg, facebook is more like a government than a Traditional Company is a statement that you have made. Theres a lot of power in that for you. Yes or no on a couple of questions here. Does facebook routinely censer a users account at the behest of a foreign government, yes or no . Senator, im not sure if theres anything in particular youre referring to. But in general, we well, there is some in particular that im referring to and ill answer it, yes, youve done that. You have 60 million users in vietnam. Of course, this is a communist regime. Under the orders of the vietnamese government, did facebook shut down and ban the accountf a vietnamese dissident becuse he criticized he governments land policy, yes or no . Senor, im not familiar with all of the details of that. But i believe that we that we may have done that. And that in general we try to follow the local law yes, you did. And you kept him off for three months. In turkey, does facebook have an antiblasphemy policy where it will take down phos of the prophet mohamed if asked to. We follow local laws. The answer is yes. In russia, under pressure from the russian government, did facebook take down a post advertising the rally and support of the dissident alexei navalny. The answer is yes. Do you believe its facebooks duty to comply with statesponsored censorship so it can keep operating, doing business, and selling ads in that country . Senator, in general, we try to comply with the laws in every country where we operate and do business. Okay. And i think that you prioritize profit over principle. When you look at these countries and also in communist china, they have banned their citizens from you. You cant operate there. And in china, twitter, you have an opponent there, youve got a knockoff, webo that is a Chinese Communist partyowned company. But your companies, youre still trying to do business in those countries. Mr. Dorsey, does twitter do business with huawei . I dont believe so but i can follow up. You helped launch huaweis 5g and its on thir marketing page webte. How about alibaba. Do you do business with jack mascompany with their links to t Chinese Communist party. Are you aware that they agreed to pay for the peoples daily and they did this so they could advertise and promote china to the American People o facebook. The point ofll of this and he answer to that, mr. Zuckerberg, you know that what theyre doing is gaining access to this market. This is why were going to keep a real close watch over what you all areoing with librand what you are doing with square because we see what has hapned. Its important for us to prect peoplend to protect human rights. And your election let me move to eltion content. And that moniring because we do have concerns ability se of the things that happened there. Have you heard of the trump countability project . Setor, im not familiar withhat. Okay. That is a project that is an attempt blacklist america who have served in the Trmp Administration and to prohibit em from gaining future employment. Now, in communist china, in putinsrussia, in totitarian states,he government regularly will issue a blacklist on their enemies. Enemies of the state are band from getting a job. If their names fa on the blacklist, theyre out. Now this seems disturbing that it would be happening here in this country. So mr. Zuckerberg, do you agree with me there is seriously something wrong with an unamerican blacklist tarring people from future employnt simply because they belong to a Different Political Party . Senator, i generally agree that people should not be discriminated gae discriminated against because of a political beef. Okay, that is a positive step. Now, on facebook i wrote in a post, and im quoting, the trump accountability project is the epitome of the cancel cultur our nation has long benefitted from robust political debate and this fort to silence those who support our president is vile. As you can tellrom this statement, nothi was said abouthe election o the results eitherdirectly or indirectly. But somehow i got slapd with your elecons flag sticker. Which each you need to realize, you say you don keep lists. Viously, you have lists. Because there are some of us who are regularly censored and called down by your content moderators. Do we want to ee these lists . Yes. How have you built these lists . We want to know. I wold remind each of you, you are a title i service. You are an information service. You are to be the ne public square. But hat you are doing wi your power that you have derived becauseederal law gave you the ability to stand up and grow without being hit by lawsuits, you have used this power to run amuck. You have use it to silence conservatives. You have used it to build your ist. You have used this power toact lik you hold all the power, that you can make these decision you have driven this cancel culture becau you have not called to account your moderators. You have refused toake responsibility for your employe and their actions so thery reining you in on the issues of privacy, data security, conte moderation, liability protectns, defining whois a publisher inhe virtual space. That up to us because you have proven you do not have the will,the strength, the ability and you will not accept the responsibility to do it for yourselves. I yield my time. Thank you very much, senator blackburn. To the two witnesses, you made it through. Thank you hopefully well understand a little bit better about where the committee is at and our concerns. Thank you for appearing. I wish we could do it in person, but i could understand why we had to do it remotely. We will have more hearings coming up in the next congress, im sure, to try to find ways to modify 230 to deal with some of the issues that were brought before the committee. I just want to thank you both and just say that you have been hugely successful in ways probably beyond your own imagination and weve got problems around your platforms that have to be dealt with and we will do it hopefully collaboratively. The bot litom line is, we want make the platforms better, we want to continue to grow this part of our society responsibly, without regulation and lawsuit, its pretty much becoming the wild, wild west and i appreciate both of you for being willing to try to find ways to come up with systems that will ensure more transparent, more choice, and more confidence. Mr. Chairman . Yes, sir. If i may just add my thanks to the witnesses a also to you for having this hearing. I think theres one certainty here which is that mr. Zuckerberg and mr. Dorsey will be bk, they will be back in the next session of congress. I hope that joing them will be google andmazon and otrs who should be held similarly accountable. I agree and to these two compaesthanks for stepping up to theplate and the other Companies Need to be he also. And i thank them and we need to have greater accountability by reducing the shieldhats now nearlycomplete, and i want to thank you, senat graham, for working on me on the act a number of our colleagues have rais the problem of child sexual abuse material. The best way to couer it is to act. Sure. When you really are serious aut all of this rhetoric, lets ben the journey with a single step. We can do it through the act. Its on the floor of the United States senate having been reported unanimously out of this committee. Lets have a vote. I agree. Change is going to come. Thank you, the hearing is adjourned