Next, a look at scams, profiteering and conspiracy theories from the coronavirus pandemic. Medical experts, victims of disinformation campaigns and legislatures from both the u. S. And canada discuss the challenges they are facing. Hosted by George WashingtonUniversities Institute for data, democracy and politics on tuesday. This is an hour and ten minutes. Welcome to our continuing conversation about the flaws of big social media platforms in response to the disinformation campaigns around covid19 pandemic, a very serious situation, obviously, where lives are literally in the balance. Im frank sesno affiliated with the institute of data and democracy in politics which is presenting this event together with the International Grand committee on disinformation. I will be your moderator and your timekeeper. I will continue this conversation with our distinguished panelists and guests. If you are a journalist joining us, feel free to put your question into the q a field. I will try to incorporate any of those questions to our panel in a bit. Social media platforms as we know, as we have discussed, are allowing unscrupulous actors to sell unsafe, illegal and overpriced medical equipment during this pandemic. That is one of many issues that we see across the social media platforms. This one is not a new problem. Social media platforms continue to allow these dangerous disinformation during covid pandemic. And so doing, they exposed just how dangerous and how irresponsible this kind of behavior can be and the role they play and continuing to allow it. Rampant conspiracy theories make the situation worse. Confusing people. Distracting people. Social media platforms have the technological know how and resources to fix it, that they have little kids incentive to do so. Weve got a distinguished panel to discuss these problems. We go on the front lines who deal with these issues directly and legislators who are trying to do something about it from two countries. First we will look at some of the issues and mistakes to launch this conversation. Big masks advertised on facebook by Big Companies telling the masks can filter out 99 of harmful particles. Heres what you pay for it and heres what you get. This is a counterfeit product scam. We knew we needed masks because we are responsible for overseeing these children, the health of these children, the welfare of these children. You warning from the fbi about coronavirus scams. I noticed an ad for a mask on facebook. I saw facebook as a legitimate company, so i ordered my mask on april 3rd and got the confirmation that they received my payment. Scams are on the ride with the increasing needs for these protective supplies. My initial auto reply from facebook ive got nothing from them. I absolutely thought about the fact that without these masks coming, that it put these children and their families and our organization at highrisk. I u. S. Lawmakers who are joining us. They are charged with Consumer Protection. Conspiracy theories around the coronavirus is called caused by my apologies for that video there. There was a technological glitch in trying to connect the world via skype. This is a learning process for all of us. Again, my apologies. Let me try this again. We have to leading u. S. Lawmakers who are charged for Consumer Protection in the United States congress and another another from canada who is also a leader in disinformation. Senator Richard Blumenthal joins us for consumer rights. And kinetic gets to attorney general. Senator blumenthal, its a great pleasure. The states attorney general and his work in the senate on the commerce judicial committee. I recognized leader in the senate. Congress woman schakowsky, from the great state of illinois. She shares the Consumer Protection subcommittee. You served as the Senior Deputy in the house leadership as well. Thanks to you for joining us. Were also joined by nathanael smith, i canadian member of parliament. He is on the Standing Committee on industry science and technology. He has been demanding action on this information for quite some time. I will ask our lawmakers to bear with me and allow me the time keeper role here. As i turn to our witnesses who are experiencing this disinformation firsthand. Randi smith is a mentor to rescue in round rock texas after a successful corporate career. He has become a house parent as you saw on that video. Mentoring a foster home. He is the kind of Community Leader leader as we seen this video that we would all like to have. We thank you and celebrate you and appreciate everything you are doing. Doctor stokes, an assistant professor at mount sinai icon school of medicine and a fellow at Johns Hopkins center for health and security and bio security. Shes a clinical attending physician treating patients at mount sinai, also serving at mount sinai covid19 best practices committee. Let us get a sense of what is going on with you out there in the world, and then bring that to our elected representatives for for the conversation. Randi smith, let us start with you. Go ahead and share your story. We saw you expressing your experiences and frustration, and the stakes of what this is all about. Go ahead, the floor is yours. Thank you, frank. When this pandemic happened we became concerned about our ability to serve and support the teams that were in our program. We mediately started looking at the need of the teams but as well the logistics of complying with the social distancing guidelines. We knew we would need to perform well, tutoring, rights to work. What we quickly realized as we were also going to be responsible for supplying food and other supplies to many of the families. Initially, when i found the masks, i found them on amazon but they were only the dust masks. Local stores were out so i followed a link to masks that were advertised on facebook. Knowing that facebook is a legitimate company, i assumed that they only allow legitimate advertisers, so i went ahead, purchased the mask from zest ads through facebook. Certainly later i received and an accurate order confirmation from zest ads which let me know that something was wrong. And looking into that i found a Facebook Group with over 1000 members most of whom had ordered from zest ads. By this time hundreds had posted information regarding the dispute on facebook and paypal, but it was very difficult to find anyone posting resolutions to those concerns. It was in just face masks. Hundreds had ordered these robotic robotic vacuums, drones and had become victims of the scam. It was apparent that facebook had been aware of this for several weeks. There were no secrets. People were getting ripped off. I imagine that one person that reported, there might have been hundreds that did not speak up per se anything. When i look at it, if i walk into a home depot store, there is a responsibility to make sure that i receive what i was sold. There is also regulation to protect my electronic funds. The platform of selling online needs to be held to a higher standard. The fact is, there often representing a company that does not have a historic. There is a seller that may not be based, maybe based outside of the United States, so consumers are powerless and confronting them. We cannot walk in and speak to the returns counter. It is easy to get ripped off. I think allowing this fraudulent practice to continue will only cause consumers to be more cautious about buying online. That is going to be at the expense of smaller Reputable Companies that rely on that platform to promote and sell their products. In the grand scheme of things, 200 dollars may not seem like a lot of money, but regardless of the amount, it is another persons precious dollars. For someone like me, a Non Profit Organization who serves in housing the youth on essential donated dollars, every dollar is absolutely vital. Let me say a couple of things. First of all, you say 200 dollars is not very much. One person, multiply it times 1 million, we are talking serious dollars. It is major, major fraud cast over a lot of people. I think this is very important. Your story is known and got told properly because of the incredible work at craig solomon and buzzfeed. Along with our institute of data democracy and politics. As they started looking into some of these, this proliferation of social media and emails, or billion emails wrapped around some of the things that they found. They found your story. I think part of what is so important is exposing these things so thank you for showing your story with them, so that it could be reported and thank you for sharing your story with us right now. We will come back to you. Doctor stokes, i want to turn it over to you for your perspective. Thank you. As an emergency physician in new york city, i have managed more than 100 cases of covid19, but i have lost count of how many people were exposed, not to the virus itself, but disinformation about the virus on social media. It is hurting my patients. One of my first cases at the beginning of march was an elderly woman walked in by her adult son. She had fever, cough, fatigue. Her heart rate was high and oxygen low. When i told her son the news, he did not believe me. He did not believe the virus even existed. He actually showed me his facebook and there was a post that said something like, covid19 is a hoax. It is made up by Drug Companies to sell vaccines. That same week, another patient was brought in by her daughter. Same symptoms, same diagnosis. But her daughter insisted to me that there was no way her mother could have the virus because she got off facebook that covid19 was prevented by antibiotics and vitamins. So she went to her Neighborhood Store and picked up these pills for her mother and theyve been taking that every day. There was no way her mother could have covid19. Ive had so many of these conversations since the beginning of the outbreak. After everything we have been through over these past three months, i am still having these conversations. Most recently on my shift, just last week. When i talked to patients and their families about the facts of covid19, they are understandably confused and scared, because theyve already been exposed to so much conflicting information. They do not know it is real or what isnt. The common reaction is to get angry and ask, how is it possible for a patient to have covid19 . They will say things like, my mother no never left the house. Shes not been in contact with anyone except for us. And we are all healthy. They dont make the connection that even though they themselves are healthy and have no symptoms, they can still have the virus and they can still pass it on. Eventually, after we talked, it starts to sink in. One of the things i will never forget is that look on someones face when all of a sudden, they realize they are the one. They are the one that likely have the veer virus and likely pass it on to their loved ones. I have seen that look so many times. It is something i will remember for the rest of my life. I have been told that the way to counter act disinformation is to put out good information. But social media is so fast i cannot keep up. In the middle of a pandemic, which is not enough time, we are fighting just to keep our patients alive on the front lines. We should not be fighting this war with information at the same time. It is not possible. We are trained to handle emergency situations. We are not trained for this. We need help. Thank you for listening. Wow. Doctor stokes, thank you very much. Not only are you not trained for this, you should not have to spend your time talking about disinformation. You should be treating patients. I want to ask you one question before going to senator blumenthal. The stories that you tell are really disturbing and very shocking, of patients who think that they can get a pill or take a pill and they will be immune from it down the corner. And all these other examples you gave. Are these and this is not scientific, this is just anecdotal through your experience that im asking. Are these rare cases, doctor stokes . Are these coming from 10 , 20 , half of the people . Give us a sense from your lived experience, how prevalent is this miss this disinformation, what you hear from patience. I would say, the overwhelming majority, just to give you a sense of this, at the beginning of the outbreak, some of the people who were actually looking at some of the information and questioning it or actual doctors. One of the things i do at mount sinai is look at the literature and make sure that we are following best practices. I dont think we do not understand what it was like in the beginning of february and march. We did not have enough information. I hate to say it, but i had colleagues of mine who would fall for some of these hoaxes that we read on facebook. Now it is much more clear, but if we are having people from the medical community who were not able to necessarily identify false information from good information, what can we expect from patience and do not know how it is possible. How can we sift that information and make decisions for their health that are based on actual, good information . Thank you, doctor stokes. Senator blumenthal, let me turn to you. You have taken on Health Insurance industries, big tobacco. Youve been an outspoken advocate for consumer rights. In this case, consumers as we just heard from doctor stokes, are getting huge amounts of Bad Information throughout social media platforms. The scammers who are selling useless pills like this. Leading people to think that now they are immune. Conspiracy theories that drive people and all sorts of different directions. Lets turn it over to you. Respond to what you have heard from doctor stokes and randy smith. What should be done about it . Awesome your muted, senator blumenthal. Can you and mutual self . Still muted. There we go. Thank you for joining us. Let me just repeat my thanks even more enthusiastically to you. To grant to randy smith and doctor stokes who so compellingly described some of the real harm that results from this this information and to my colleague, again schakowsky, thank you for being a steadfast warrior on behalf of consumers. I will tell you my reaction as i listen to the stories from the real world. I see them every day. I am so angry. And really, just outraged. I know we use that word a lot, but when you hear not only the threat to pocketbooks, as randy smith said, its only 200 dollars. 200 dollars here, 200 dollars there, were talking about a lot of money eventually. I was involved in class actions involving a lot less than 200 dollars. But with doctor stokes said so compellingly is that there is a real threat to human life and safety. So, big tech, which can be a great boom also can be the pain of our lives, a real threat, when they convey this information, and too often, they are complicit. I use that word very deliberately. They are complicit, aiding and abetting the spread with deceptive and misleading ads that can do grave harm to people and threaten. I will give you one or two examples that are particularly out of bounds across the line, where big tech has an obligation egg we are releasing a letter today. Were saying to the ftc that it should be taking action against the frauds and scams around the stimulus payment that are being issued by the federal government, all too often, people who are eligible for these stimulus payments are not receiving them. Due to lacking efforts. Now that we are discovering, people who go to google and counter, malware and fraudulent schemes and referrals. Google does or should know, our scams. We are asking the ftc to take action, not only against the advertisers or the con artists, but also against google, because it has taken action and the past against advertisers that engage in enabling frauds to mislead ordinary people. You mentioned exposing these frauds. Well, exposing them is very, very important, but enforcing against them is an obligation of the ftc and the federal communications commissions. They have a real responsibility. You mentioned faith cures. Absolutely astonishing. By the way, the projects that we are doing, the letter, is the result of the tech champ transparency project. But likewise, on faith here science of Public Interest has released 46 separate false cures. Dietary supplements, chemicals. There is no vaccine, as you know for covid19. There is no there pewter treatments, and certainly none of these are. Ive written to the ftc about that. Just to be clear. Hes 46 fake cures are being promoted and represented as cures . The platforms are doing or saying nothing to pull them down, to identify them, to expose that . Nothing on their own until we wrote to the ftc. Now they are down, but there are more on their plate. If you go to your key point, the platforms are failing to act against them on their own until they are ordered to do so by the ftc, and of course the ftc is limited in terms of its resources but also in the past it has lacked the will to do effective enforcement. We are also on the subject en masse, amazon, ebay, to ask them to stop selling masks that are in fact not only ineffective but potentially dangerous to people, and doctor stokes probably encounters a lot of people who say, i was wearing my mask all the time. It was supposed to be an and 95 mask, that they may be infected because of the miss leading information. You can go through price fixing, pockets hearing, price gouging, also the deceptive misleading ads and pitches. All of them, directly earn the result of these platforms complicity in false and fake scams. Congresswoman schakowsky, let me turn to you for a couple minutes. You coauthored this letter. As the senator was just talking about it. Would you talk about that . What exactly are you too calling to be done . I would like to ask you, as we are here now, we are focusing on scams, fraud, ripping people off in the name of covid19 safety or health, or cures, or whatever it is. Tell us more about this letter and where this needs to go . Congresswoman, you are muted as well. Sorry. There we go. There we go. There are a number of tools that we can use. When is going to the federal trades commission which really does have the authority, not only to force the fraudulent adds to be taken down but there are also penetrating penalties that the federal trade commission could use. We are calling at this point, we are calling out google to take responsibility. This issue of the immunity that these platforms its a really dangerous situation. Ive talked with senator blumenthal. Weve also written to facebook. They are allowing the sale of these inclined sleepers that have killed 100 children already. The Consumer ProductsSafety Commission says to not be sold. But they are selling them in their shop. On google. I also want to thank the transparency project. People are looking for information. So they go to the internet. If they just look up, who is selling the fraudulent items, including the mask that randy tells us, a terrible story. While there may be some that are legitimate, consumers have no way of knowing what the difference is. If there is not some regulation. I am very concerned about making sure that we act. One of the big problems has been the immunity that these platforms feel because of the Communications Decency act, which they think says that they can they are just hosting this vendor. They have no responsibility whatsoever. I think that is something that we clearly have to change. We have bipartisan support for that as well. We have seen the democrat walton, republican rather, along with the chairman, they have both sent a letter saying that section 2 30 should not be included in Foreign Trade agreements. You heard a member of parliament talking about that. He said he was worried that that would be there and Speaker Pelosi was worried about that. They want to extend what they see as immunity all over the world right now. This is the plan of big tech. Just like Big Pharmaceutical Companies wanted to protect themselves in trade agreements all over the world. Congresswoman, they will say, and i have heard them say in congressional testimony and elsewhere, yes, there should be some regulation. Yes, we want to be responsible. They will deny what you have to set. That they are just putting out whenever and either dont care about it or are not interested in doing anything about it. One of the things my tp found, is that actually, google was not even living up to its own community standards. They say well, we have someone, weve hired people, hundreds of people to check, to make sure. These are popping up popping out all the time and so we are not liable here. We just are hosting. We have nothing to do with this. So they have been very schizophrenia. Yes, we have heard facebook in a Committee Hearing that i had, apologize i dont know, i think about ten times for things during the years that they have done, that have put consumers or in this case, patients at risk. But now, it is time to act definitively. To set the bright lines for them that cannot be crossed. To require that the federal trade commission and force these bright lines and make sure that they are acting appropriately, to make sure that as you have said, this is now life and death we are talking about. Let us travel north a little bit, to canada. Let us bring in a member of parliament, mr. Smith. Different laws, different plays. Perhaps different considerations. But something youve been very outspoken about, but not a different problem. Let us hear your perspective for a few minutes and we would like to bring doctor stokes and randy smith back. Thank you. I think we have the same problem. We need to ensure that their lives reflect reality. We see data and information so easily across borders. We need to have international solutions. We have to work alongside for those who want to know more about this, this is over ten countries. They are now working together to identify the problems, to identify solutions and bring greater accountability to the social media platforms. Lets be frank. They failed to take action for accountability. You are not saying we are not taking enough action . We are saying we have failed to take action. I have been at this for a while, now. We have been asking for action to address the Harms Associated with social media platform, whether its misuse of data, or scandals, or a lot of harmful content and we are failing to take action on harmful content. In the case of covid, theyve taken action but insufficient action. What do we need in the end . We need Better Privacy and better protection laws. It is crazy that when i purchase a phone, if it is defective, i dont need to override the contract. But if i put an app on this phone, im expected to read the terms and conditions to protect myself. We need stronger laws for privacy for consumers. Secondly the content conversation, we need social media platforms to take responsibility for content on our platforms. At the International Rank committee, a year ago in ottawa, Twitter Facebook and google, all on public record. Do you take responsibility for the content of your platform . Each company said yes. What follows from that . We look at advertising, an example we hear from randy. We have registries of advertising and canadian context, we have Greater Transparency where we have the price on facebook, but on facebook and other platforms they require a registry so there is a greater accountability for third parties. In the case of randy, we would see hopefully that facebook knows, another a number of people they know the profits they obtain and they should not be profiting from illegal content. Last thing i will say, responsibility for content is this. A deters have been replaced. This is not a question of section 230 where they are merely hoax. They are promoting content. He said if its illegal content we take it down. We take it down if its illegal. But maybe we should not promote it. Of course they should not promote it. They should not profit from harmful content and we see the consequences in this covid crisis, were failing to take action because of that profit motive ultimately would will lead to lives lost. Doctor stokes, back to you for a minute. In the context of the covid crisis, maybe you can share your experience with the anti vaccine campaign. This is not new, right . Parallels do you see with that . I think the parallels are unending. Well before covid, we see how the Anti Vaccine Movement has deadly consequences to patients all over the world. Some of my background includes democratic republic of congo. In that country they had three outbreaks going on. Ebola, measles and covid19. With measles, there is a vaccine for that and yet, here we are in 2020, and we are still battling something as simple as that. One of the things that has been really disturbing with some of the research ive been doing is looking at how you mistrust not just on facebook but whatsapp, mistrust where its Health Care Providers actually becomes another new barrier for people already vulnerable and lacking access to care. To those barriers and sometimes turning deadly not just of the patients but the providers. People may not know this, but pretty much since the start of the most recent outbreak of a bullet at the democratic republic of congo there have been many attacks on the treatment centers, attacking providers. These attacks are intrinsically linked to disinformation that is going on on facebook and whatsapp saying these providers are trying to give ebola to their women and children saying the vaccines we are trying to give are actually poisonous and again, you do not have to have theoretical conversations about this. You can measure this and how many lives we are losing. Its a great place to come back to senator blumenthal. Let us make the distinction between scammers. It can sell uphill, get healthy and Conspiracy Theory theories that drive distrust, make prompt attacks like this. Senator, let us start with you. How do the media platforms themselves distinguish between these two and are held to different accounts. These are different things, right . It all falls under the big umbrella of disinformation. Its Bad Information. But the driving conspiracy is meant to confuse, it is meant to sow suspicion and maybe meant to prod violence or attacks. It is a different place, it seems. Actually, we think about the vaccine and we hope its coming down the line for covid19. There is going to be a huge problem when this comes around. It is a huge problem right now, because of the fake cures. You may distinguish them from the Conspiracy Theory. The simple answer to your question is, the platforms fail to oversee or scrutinize any of them effectively. They have very weak methods of review. Some of them automated, but here is the really important point. They say to the public, we review them. We do our due diligence. We oversee them. In effect, you can depend on them. But whether it is conspiracy theories or false cures, they have terms of services that is falsely telling people that they are overseeing or scrutinizing the ads and pictures and promotions that appear on their platforms. That is why, the ftc can and must take action. It is what i would call false claims, misleading and deceptive practices. Whether it is conspiracy theories or false securities, the heartbreaking horrendous results have real life effects on people across the country, around the globe. Here is the dirty little secret. You know it. They have these really powerful machines that can target individuals. It is not like a billboard on a highway. Whoever passes sees it. They can target individuals who search words and other automated procedures, and they are selling this hugely, possibly destructive capacity to the highest bidder. It is in fact, they are selling great evil. As anybody has ever seen this from shopping for tires and suddenly tires start showing up. Ads start showing up. We are micro targeted and every interaction we have. We have another piece of the video we started earlier. It kind of illustrates this Conspiracy Theory. It focuses on the 5g. Lets just roll that quickly and come back and pick a subpoena. Congressman schakowsky, ill start with you when we come out of the video. Lets look at this. There is Conspiracy Theory going around the coronavirus. 5g technology they started lighting cell phone towers on fire. 5g mast on fire. The passenger in the vehicle next to me was screaming, shouting that 5g is killing us all. I dont have any morals. Dont i have children . They will be ashamed of me. Im going to kill everyone. The next thing, the guy in the car next to me gets out of his vehicle tries to open my passenger side door and get into my van. Making threats. If he did get in the van, there was a clear physical violence threat that it was making. He seemed keen on carrying it out. Its crazy because ive seen so much on social media. It is free to post whatever you like. That can be quite dangerous. All congresswoman, your reaction to that and to these conspiracy theories that go away beyond sowing doubts. It really threatens lives. As you said, you can see how it can promote violence. It can promote uprisings. It can absolutely, these platforms can be deadly. One of them is that facebook made an apology. It helped allowing the promotion of the genocide that took place in myanmar before they finally did shut down the website that were doing that. We have to understand that as much as how our lives have been changed for the better, there is so much danger out there. But we also have to acknowledge that there are the tools that we are not powerless, when it comes to doing this. The platforms themselves say that they have community standards. They say that they follow them. If they are forced to follow their community standards, and if the Enforcement Agency would get to work, if we would reform 230, the law that they say gives them immunity when facebooks representative came and spoke before our committee talking about community standards. Lets remember, they have over two billion individuals that purchase on facebook. It is bigger than any other country in the world. All across the border, every language. Mark zuckerberg lives in california. While he was in washington saying, no, advertising, we are allowed to advertised anything. That is not our responsibility and we will doubled down even on political advertising. But it does not have to be au truthful. Big so we have a lot to worry about. When we talked earlier. In the panels we talked about the elections coming up. We want to make sure that there is truth online. Mayor smith, what is the canadian perspective from looking at these conspiracy theories that are out there . What do your laws suggest can and should be done to hold these platforms accountable . We looked at accountability because we know these platforms are not creating content but they are promoting it. Facebooks news feed as a very large example. We see rules around the world around accountability. For example, any federal agency undertaking to use algorithms that might have some harmful or negative impacts, they have to answer a series of questions. They have to explain what that algorithm is going to do. The input, and depending upon the risk profile and actions are required to address the potential harms. When you have such a large scale of information that is being amplified by these platforms, and in some cases can cause great harm. These platforms need to take responsibility and be held accountable for when they are profiting from content that they promote. We know that they are bright broadcasting scandals. And all of our countries. Ive heard intelligent ideas from academics. There are lots of ideas out there that we need to improve. Senator blumenthal, can we have a social Media Standards council in this country . Given who and what we are. You are muted. There we go. Thank you. I think we could well and who would be on that council . What would they be sitting in judgment on . Here is a potential model. It is actually included in a legislative proposal that i have made. It is bipartisan. Senator graham, the chairman of the judiciary committee, and he is a republican. Yes, we checked. He and i have proposed a measure that essentially would attack the problem a Human Trafficking that is done on these platforms. And of course section 230 is a barrier to effective action against the platforms as opposed to the traffickers. What weve have said is, we will establish a panel with our representation from all of the potentially interested parties, including the tech companies. And say to those tech companies, you have to comply with certain standards, certain terms of service, but they are essentially guidelines and standards as to what is acceptable behavior. Then you can earn your section 230 protection. This proposal is a very narrow and carefully considered targeted measure, that deals with the section 230 immunity issue that congresswoman schakowsky mentioned earlier. Remember, section 230 dates from a time when the internet was in the beginnings. They are now mammoths. They are more powerful than many small countries. That kind of Standards Panel, may be difficult to implement with respect to political and community ads, but it is possible. What i think is even more feasible is for the platforms to take real responsibility. When i began on this effort against pornography on the platform, they all said, we really cannot do any of the screening. We do not have the technology. We cannot have people search every one of the ads. Lo and behold, when they were given an incentive to do it, namely potential lawsuits, which as attorney general, i said we were going to do, they began to, lo and behold discover ways to police themselves. I think the same kind of self policing, internal responsibility, its part of the solution. They claim they do it. They do not really. You mentioned earlier how to best require them. I think that legislation ultimately may be the answer, whether it is the urn attacked or others like it. That target these kinds of disinformation, deceptive and misleading factors. I would like to bring in randy smith and doctor stokes again and give you an opportunity to speak to these very distinguished lawmakers. Randi, let us start with you. You experienced this incredible scam, a problem we have now learned about that you explained to us. You deal with that risk. Youre trying to do great things in the world. You are continuing to experience online, with platforms. You see these young people who you are trying to guide and shape and help. What would you say to these lawmakers, senator blumenthal, schakowsky, and a member of parliament from canada, from your perspective, really dealing on the front lines with this . What do you need from the platforms and from them . A couple things stood out that i heard. Certainly, senator blumenthal had a great comment about law targeted advertising versus drawing by and seeing a billboard. The biggest problem i see is what they are doing, the platforms, they are doing redirect. They are not only redirecting consumers from truth solutions, but they are bringing them now to false and incorrect solutions that do not solve anything. That certainly affects a large segment of the population, and certainly those we serve, because many of them are lower income. When they make a buying decision, they rely on the fact that it is going to happen, and it could be big masks, it could be anything. I would ask that we look at this as not just a stand alone case or cases, but the fact that it is redirecting from real solutions. Nate smith brought up a fact check. The point of being truthful the fact is facebook has a means for fact checking. I think it might go through the instagram site, but you can post something and within an hour it is down as fact check not correct. The question is, why are these scams still allowed to go on. It almost becomes in my mind, willful. My request would be that yes, i think there needs to be legislation. I think there needs to be fines levied. I think they need to be held accountable. All consumers should be protected. Especially consumers who are maybe not as savvy on business, internet purchasing, and have very limited dollars. Let me move that around because we are almost out of time. Congressman schakowsky, do you want to go first on . That senator blumenthal correctly said that these platforms are complicit. We, as congress, do not want to be complicit. By not doing what we need to do. I hear you, randy. I think there are things that we are required, at this point, to do to protect consumers. Id be proud to work with senator blumenthal to make sure that these things are not happening. Mr. Smith, your response to. Randy i think we need to continue we need to support social Media Companies when they take positive action. To randys point, good practices. We need to hold those and encourage them to continue. Time and time again, self regulation has been insufficient. It is not enough for facebook to come time and time again and say we are sorry for the harms brought by our platform to society. We need regulations. We need all governments, all parliaments, congress, Canadian Parliament and beyond to put rules and place, because this is not a problem for the United States or canada. It is a problem for the world. That is so important. It makes it so much more complicated, right . To understand these companies. They are global companies. Orders to not matter. You could be on facebook, wherever, whenever all in realtime. But having a patchwork of regulations, laws accountability measures, is not enough. Doctor stokes, i want to come to for some of the summation all comments here. Your discussion today has been so unbelievable. You are working with patients. You are working with communities at risk. You brought a global perspective to the problems of conspiracy theories and scammers out there. What would you say to these legislators that, as a doctor, looking at the physical health and the Public Health . What do we need the most . As a doctor, i hope that makes it clear, that i do not for one moment say that i am an expert on the solutions. Im just presenting a problem. I want to make it clear that, my testimony is not meant to vilify social Media Companies. We are in the middle of a pandemic and people are scared, people are dying. We are all looking for someone to blame. I think that as much as possible, to have a collaborative effort is always preferable than a confrontational one. One of the things mentioned by senator blumenthal gives me hope. Social Media Standards council. I myself do not know with the details of that would be, but if that would involve somehow bringing everyone to the table to set most of the rules, i think there are people and some of the companies that have mentioned, facebook, there are people with good intentions who want to do good, but those good intentions are not good enough. If we can figure out a way to harness their power and bring people together to come up with solutions, i think it is possible. But we do have that pressure of time and Peoples Health and lives. Senator, you can conclude a comment. I am always in favor of a collaborative effort. My career in Law Enforcement leads me to think that sometimes, although honey can work better than vinegar and some instances, sometimes Law Enforcement is necessary as a deterrent in this conduct. I will say, and you mentioned it earlier, that you have her countless times big tex say, we are going to do it differently. This time will be different. We heard that at the beginning of the covid19 pandemic. The stark, staggering truth, you heard it from frank smith, from doctor stokes, is these kinds of scams and frauds and con artists are appearing regularly. Without any real action on the part of the platforms. That is why we need effective enforcement by the federal trade commission, real action. Congressman. Congress needs to act as well on the immunity Standards Panel or reforms to section 230, or as Speaker Pelosi said before, taking down advertising. If that kind of effort could be organized effectively, maybe it can provide and sentence for these platforms. Why do they not act more responsibly . Again, i do not mean to be overseens overly cynical, but their Business Model is the clicks. Their Business Model is targeted advertisement. That Business Model that is generating billions and billions of dollars for this industry sometimes is better served by their opening the gates without being too discriminating as to who comes to them. Do you feel that something is changing, and maybe driven by covid 19 . The disturbances we are seeing. The broad public is realizing that this disinformation is not just out of control but a fundamental threat to our physical health and to our national health. And maybe it wont happen before the election, but there is a Critical Mass that is shifting around this issue and maybe we will get serious, or am i chirping into the wind . If i could, i think this is a transformational moment. Im very optimistic about change. The reason is that it looks like ordinary people have really found their voice. A kind of insistence that i hear, that they want to be treated fairly. I think that transfers into all different arenas. I actually do feel optimistic at this time, that we can do what we need to do on this disinformation, and also the Racial Justice funds and all of the problems that we are facing right now with the coronavirus. Yes, i do think we can. I think it is a question of whether congress is ahead or behind the American People. If congress yields to the special interests of the immense political and financial power of the platforms, big tech. Congress will be exceedingly difficult on gun violence prevention. The American People overwhelmingly, 95 , favor background check. But the nra and gun manufacturers have managed to influence congress on preventing it from happening. The question is we have a transformational moment on Racial Justice, economic justice, on hopefully the pandemic in terms of health care. But congress has to be at least on a par with the American People, not behind it. Not in the grip of the special interests. I think you are right, that there is a growing consensus. Its not about sensationalism when it comes to taking lives, but let me tell you as a canadian, i have loved ones, family and friends who are americans. But the elephant in the room that has not been discussed on the panel is that the misinformation related to covid has come from north america, if not the world, and that is a challenge that cannot be solved in a discussion today. I want to thank you all very much. Senator blumenthal, schakowsky and mr. Smith. You are also busy in the midst of all of this. Thank you so much for spending some of your valuable time on such an important topic. To doctor stokes, your work with human beings who are sick, or who fear getting sick. You are up against so much. Youve been through so much yourself. A special thank you for everything that you have done. Stay healthy and strong. Continue doing this great work. Your contributions to this conversation has added so much. I hope our members of senate and congress will keep them close to them as they go about their business. Randi smith, the work you do with the at risk youth and the experience that you had, im glad that you were able to expose some of the scandals to a very large audience. I hope it doesnt happen again. Thank you for spending your time with us. You are very articulate and compelling and all of this. Thank you as well. It has been a very full hour. Just a couple of final thoughts. Heres what we know and what weve heard. We are suffering through a global pandemic, experiencing some of the worst economic, not some, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression measured in a number of ways. It is a global thing. We are also witnessing a push for change in our streets, communities driven by years of disparities and injustice with the covid19 pandemic. We are watching trillion Dollar Companies too often put profit on human tolls and turn a blind eye or do too little to confront the disinformation crisis. We have heard so clearly in the words of the doctors who have joined us here, this information can kill. Social media platforms must recognize the responsibilities to citizens, to societies, to their consumers. It must step up and put their wealth and resources and all that brilliance that has made them what they are today, part of the solution to stop the scourge of disinformation. The device and confusions that cost lives along the way. The participation in this form that we have had are demanding accountability from the social media platforms. They are working to force change, regardless of your politics. To protect citizens, consumers and our children. We are very grateful with the speakers times. The admonitions from the European Commission and our earlier panel. The contributions of all of our panelists and witnesses. We are especially grateful for the powerful testimonies from those who are working with this problem and trying to keep their equilibrium. There is a lot to do. We need legislators around the world to cooperate and collaborate and address this international threat. Tackling these issues. We will convene tomorrow. We will be very closely following this process. I just want to tell you again that this is one of a series of panels that we will be closely following. Join us on june 29th on the timely topics of election interference, racialized hate and voters depression. Our mission is to help the public and journalist and policymakers to better understand, better develop sound solutions to disinformation. Thank you very much for joining us. Heres whats ahead on cspan 3 American History tv. Next, more from our first lady series with a look at sara polk, margaret taylor, and abigail fillmore. In roughly an hour in 40 minutes, its first ladies jane pierce and harriet lane. In about three hours ten minutes, its a look at influential women in western history