Hours. This hearing of the judiciary subcommittee on technology, privacy in law who will come to order. Thank you everyone for attending. My thanks to Ranking Member hawley and particularly to the chairman of the Judiciary Committee dick durbin for giving us this opportunity. He is interested in this topic im going to call on him after senator hawley for his remarks. We are gathered today to hear testimony from a whistleblower, an engineer widely respected and admired in the industry. And not just any expert at an engineer hired specifically by facebook to help protect against harms to children. And make recommendation for making facebook safer we have known for more than a decade that suffering from suicide, hospitalizations or selfharm and depression have skyrocketed as he knows these numbers are more than statistics they are real people and his daughter is one of them. Arturo behar is the former director of engineering for protect and care at facebook. And he will tell us about the evidence he brought directly to the attention of the top management of facebook and meta. Mark zuckerberg, sandberg, and others in meetings and memos he resoundingly raised an alarm about statistics showing facebook prevalent and arms to teens. Telling mark sucker for example and a memo that more than half of facebook users had bad or harmful experience trust in the last week. Instead of real reform he will testify that facebook engaged in a purposeful public strategy of distraction, denial and deception. They hid from this committee and all of Congress Evidence of the harms that they knew was credible. And they ignored and disregarded for making the site safer and they even rolled back some of the existing protection. Is not the first and only whistleblower to come forward. We heard from francis who showed facebooks own researchers describe instagram itself as a quote perfect storm. On that it exacerbates downward spirals of addiction, eating disorders and depression. As the first to show in documents and documents were going to show this for the record they will show for example a quarter of young teens 1314 years old report receiving sexual advances on instagram. Nearly a third of young teens have seen discrimination based on race and Sexual Orientation a quarter of young teens report have been bullied or threatened nearly a quarter of young teens report exploring worse about themselves, about their bodies and their social relationships. The type of experience to lead to depression and eating disorders. Only 2 of the time. Remedies only 2 there is a history here in august of 2021 senator blackburn and i wrote to fit wrote to facebook about the impact of their products on kids we asked quote has Facebook Research ever found its platforms and products can have a negative effect on childrens and teens in Mental Health or wellbeing . Facebook refused to answer in october of 2021 center blackburn and i held a hearing. We heard from Frances Haugen about instagram and on that same day mr. Behar sent an email to Mark Zuckerberg sandberg and other executives validating the testimony that email demonstrated even greater harms then were then a public a showing and searing indictment of instagram and facebook im going to ask to be made part of the record without objection. December 2021 then testified to the committee to our subcommittee after he met discussing these numbers and statistics relating to suicide and during that hearing a number of us asked him about facebook promoting suicide he knew but he did not disclose that on a weekly basis around 7 of facebook users overall encounter content promoting suicide and selfharm 13 15 yearolds seeing it more often than others. There is a pattern here with facebook at hydes risk by saying things like bullying and harassment is only. 08 of content when in reality meta executives know 11 of the 13 15 yearolds face of bullying every single week. Every single week on instagram. And just to be absolutely clear that is in millions of children and teenagers its not just a number. Behind every one of those numbers is a real person, a teenager. A child whose life is changed may be forever by that searing experience of a bullying comic eating disorder contents, suicide promotion, we can no longer rely on social media mantra trust us. We can no longer on parents what is needed now legislative reform the kids Online Safety act. Senator blackburn and i have enlisted more than 45 of our colleagues almost half the United States senate in favor of the kids Online Safety act. And the final point i would make is still failed to take the start seriously. This june the wall street journal found instagram even recommending pedophiles to each other it was complicit. With specific recommendations to prevent teens to expenses unwanted they were never adopted your career the line to come forward experience and trusted Industry Experts whose job was to make facebook a safer. Your recommendations were purposefully ignored or disregarded or rejected. I am just going to remind my colleagues we heard from young people as well as parents about these harms. One of them told me, how many more children have to die before congress will do something . That is why we are here today. I want to thank all of my colleagues who are present, truly a Bipartisan Group on behalf of this cause and turn to the Ranking Member, et cetera holly perfect thank you very much mr. Chairman print thank you for convening this hearing. This is such a vital hearing on a vital topic and to be honest with you this hearing concerns every parent nightmare you are nodding your father, that subject composes that really composes some your testimony i am also a father of three and what you have brought to this committee today something every parent in America Needs to hear. The numbers are stunning one in four teenagers, minor children will experience sexual solicitation on medicine platform at some. 1 and eight so theyve experience unwanted sexual advances we are talking children now have experience unwanted sexual advances just in the last week we know first datas own internal research that they knew the extent of this problem even if they were ignoring you and i want to turn to some of that research that are blumenthal just reference. These are met his own words particular young women quote make body image issues worse for what and three teen girls. Teens and blame instagram for increases in anxiety and depression for this reaction was unprompted and consistent across all groups. He is like the likely meta time they spent on the app but they feel they have to be present for the often feel its bad for their Mental Health but feel unable to stop themselves they knew these things were happening there years old i just read you pointed this out you brought these concerns to them would you expose this rather than respond they cooked the books if i understand your testimony correctly. We need o unwanted sexual material child abuse material, pornography, terrorism threats we take it down our ai systems find it and take it down. What you expose is in fact the ai systems are catching only a small small percentage of that kind of abusive material online. When facebook is out there promoting to the world we are taking on the vast majority it simply is not true. In fact they know its not true statistic is designed to mislead they are deliberately misleading parents about what is on their platform they are deliberately misleading parents about the safety of their children online. I want to echo something center blumenthal said its time for congress to take action. It was time years ago for congress to take action. It is an indictment of the body to be honest with you we have not acted and we all know the reason why if i could just start with a little plain talk here this morning. Big attack is the biggest most powerful lobby in the nine states congress. They spend millions upon millions upon millions of dollars every year to lobby this body. And the truth is, as ever reported in this room knows i hope you will report it after this hearing, they do it successfully. They successfully shut down every meaningful piece of legislation every year. I believe in you for four years and ive seen it repeatedly in the short time i have been here. We will get all kinds of speeches in committee. Bullet speeches on the floor about how we have to act and this body will do nothing, why . Money that is why gobs of it, gobs of it. Influencing votes eight hammer hold on this process it is time for it to be broken the only way i know to break it is to bring the truth forward and that is why i am so glad youre here today to do it. Thank you, mr. Chairman projects and consider hollys only footnote i would add is this time must be different. They have armies of lawyers and lobbyists they spend tons of money but this time must be different. Senator durbin perfect thank you chairman blumenthal and senator hawley and let me follow up with senator hawleys comments, i could not agree more i could not agree more and the senate Judiciary Committee after graphic hearings were parents and victims came forward and told us what had happened to them online we decided to take action. We passed six bills related to this issue. Child sexual abuse similar issue. Six bills and something happening is miraculous. All six passed unanimously. Every democrat every republican take a look at the folks up at this end of the tables across the political spectrum we all agreed on this. What is happened since . Nothing six bills waiting for a day on the calendar but six bills waiting for national debates. Six bills passed unanimously on a bipartisan basis they put real teeth in enforcement too and i think that is why theyve gone nowhere. Big attack is the big kid on the block when it comes to this issue and many other issues before us. That is the reality of the thank you chairman blumenthal and senator hawley for bringing together so many members of this hearing our philosophy in putting together the subcommittees was to say to each of the senators in charge of them, do your best take your issue that mean something to you and do your best to bring it to the American People and legislation to the floor the night state senate. This committee is when im counting on to be successful in this regard. Thank you for the courage of stepping up and speaking up the only amendment i would make to the chairmans remarks and senator hawleys is not only a parents issue its a grandparents issue two. Wheat scares this in its scares us. Thank you for what you brought us and i am particularly intrigued by your idea of a survey so we find out from the source what is really happening. My experience on Capitol Hills goes back several years. Took on a tobacco issue. We were hitting our head against the wall trying to penetrate this vast lobby at the time the one way we managed to penetrate it was to make it a childrens issue protecting kids from an addiction to tobacco and then a lot of good things start happening. Why is that this issue which relates to our kids so much more and is so much more dangerous than even tobacco in my estimation why is it so difficult . Senator hawley is correct we are fighting the biggest kid on the block when it comes to this issue. Thank you, mr. Chairman projects and government senator durbin and thank you for your leadership on this issue. Im going to turn to senator graham if he is opening remarks. May be number seven is the magic number of bills. The next bill i hope and i want to thank you center blumenthal and holly for doing this is section 2 30. The other bills are going nowhere until they believe they can be sued in court the day they know the court room is open to the Business Practices they will flood us with all kinds of good ideas. Until that day comes nothing is going to happen. And i said as we passed mccord to go to the floor to die in veto senator schumer, senator mcconnell, its the house doing . Not that much. A society that cannot takes care of our their children or refuses to has a bleak future so thank you for doing this. Thank you, senator graham. Center blackburn . Whats thank you, mr. Chairman thank you so much thank you for the time you have given. Center blumenthal staff, my staff, for being so open when you met with center blumenthal and i last week. I really appreciate this. As a center blumenthal said and we have worked on this for years. He built the time line outgoing to 2021. But the work we were doing looking at big tech and looking at some of the problems, the lack of privacy. The frustration of people not being able to control who had access to their virtual you is what led us to this point to begin to look at whats happened to our children. And as i told you in our meeting, the day we had that first hearing looking at what was happening online with children it was like the floodgates opened we started hearing from moms and dads not only in tennessee and not only in connecticut but across the country who were saying can i please tell you my story . The reason they did this because their hearts were breaking. Their children were committing suicide theyd met a drug dealer their children had met a pedophile. Their child had met a trafficker theyd been exposed to Cyber Bullying and had committed suicide. They were looking up ways to commit suicide. There are laws in the physical world that protect children from all of this. But online it has been the wild west and as my colleagues have said we have fought this army of lobbyists for years. Big tech has proven they are completely incapable of governing themselves of setting up rules of having guidelines of designing for safety and it is so important that we move forward with this. One think i will add and it is so important for your being here and her colleagues who were not a part of what we were doing. In 2021 when he came before us as the ceo of instagram indicated they were taking steps. But we find out they were not. We find out from the advice and awareness that you provided Mark Zuckerberg what did they do with that . They made a conscious decision to ignore your advice and guidance and use our kids as the product. The longer they are online the richer that data is. The richer the data is the more money they make. So they have monetized on whats comes from our children being addicted to social media. Thank you so much for being here today. Thanks senator blackburn. We formally introduce the former security engineer with very significant experience work on user safety a specific team is outside until 2015 he reported to the cto he then came back as a consultant to help instagrams wellbeing from 2019 to 2021. Is also compared to a courageous young girl, young woman who spoke up about her experiences online. As is our custom going to administer the oath if you would please stand. Do you swear the testimony you will give to this committee is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god . Thank you. Please go ahead. German durbin, Ranking Member graham, chairman blumenthal, Ranking Member. And members of the subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. And for your interest in addressing one of the most urgent threats for our children today. The American Children and the children everywhere. I appear before you today as a dad with firsthand experience of a child who received unwanted sexual advances on instagram. As an expert with over 20 years of experience working as a Senior Leader including leading Online Security for safety and protection at facebook. It is unacceptable a 13yearold girl gets her propositions on social media. Unfortunately it happens all too frequently today. And a careful survey by instagram in 2021 we found one and eight kids age 13 15 years old experience unwanted sexual advances in the last seven days. This is unacceptable my work has shown that does not need to be this way. Starting in 2009 is the product leader for facebooks efforts to reduce online threats including Mark Zuckerberg and they were supportive of this work as a parent i took the work personally i worked hard to help create a safer environment. By the time i left in 2013 i thought the work was going in the right direction. My 14 year old out of joint instagram they began having awful experiences. Including repeated unwanted sexual advances, harassment, she reported this incident to the company and it did nothing in large part because of what i learned as a father in october 2019 i returned to facebook this time as i consulted with instagrams team we tried to set goals based on the experiences of teens themselves instead they want to focus its nearly defied policies regardless of whether the approach reduce the harm teens were experiencing i discovered most of the kids most had been put in place will remove. I had new features being developed in response to public outcry which were in reality kind of a placebo, a safety feature in name only two placates the regulators, i say this rather than being based on experience data they were dazed on deliberately now definitions of harm the company was creating its own homework. For example instagram knows when a kid it spends a significant bout of time looking at harmful content, content they are recommending met it must be held accountable and for the unwanted sexual advances that instagram enables. As soon as they understood this gap i did what i had always done i researched the problem, vetted the numbers and informed Mark Zuckerberg, sandberg and other executives. I did this because for six years that was my job, to let them know of Critical Issues that affect the company. It has been two years since i left. And these are the conclusions i have come too. One, mehta knows the harm kids experience other platform. From the executives know their measures fail to address it. And two, there are actionable steps mehta could take to address the problem and a three, they are deciding time and time again to not tackle these issues. Instagram is the largest public directory of teenagers with pictures in the history of the world. Mehta, which owns instagram as a company were all work is driven by data. They have been unwilling to be transparent about data regarding the harm kids experience. And unwilling to reduce them. Social Media Companies must be required to become more transparent so that parents and public can hold them accountable. Many have come to accept the false proposition unwanted advances, bullying, misogyny and other harms are unavoidable evil. This is just not true. We do not tolerate unwanted sexual advances against children and any other public context and they can similarly be prevented on facebook, instagram and other social media products. What is the acceptable frequency for kids to receive unwanted sexual advances . This is an urgent crisis when asked has anyone threatened you, and damaged her reputation, insulted you, just respected you, excludes you are left to out, 11 of kids said yes and the last week. One in four witnessed it happening in the company does nothing about that. When asked if i saw a post that made them feel bad about themselves one in five kids said yes. In the last week. Mehta executives know this the public now knows this. When i left facebook in 2021 i thought the company of take my concerns and accommodation seriously. To heart and act. Yet years have gone by and millions of teens are having their Mental Health compromise and are still being traumatized by unwanted sexual advances, harmful content on instagram and other social media platforms. There was a time when at home on the weekend at least the kids could escape these things, these harms but today just about every parent and grandparent has seen their kids faces change from happiness, to grief, to distress the moment they check social media. Where can a child seek refuge . It is time the public and parents understand the true level of harm enabled by these products and is time for congress to act, thank you for your time. Thank you. We are going to begin with the questions in each of us will ask five minutes of questions will have a second round of folks want to do that. We put in the record Mark Zuckerberg of october 5, where you recommend that there be in effect not only a change in the Business Practices of the company but a culture shift. Then you wrote separately on september 14 im going to ask that documents be made part of the record as well were you presented more of these statistics and very powerful evidence of harm. And it seems to me the reaction was to pat you on the head and in effect tell you to go away, be a good boy, and pull the curtain. Senator hawley referred to cooking the books i think what they did was bury this evidence, conceal it, hide it, and deny it and effect to congress and to the public. And then in the past year they have cut around 21000 jobs or a quarter of the Global Workforce and what Mark Zuckerberg has called the year of efficiency, hundreds of jobs involving content moderators and safety jobs including from instagrams wellbeing team. What is the impact of cutting those resources devoted to Online Safety . Thank you for the question. If you start from the point that work was already heavily under resourced when i was there, we were dealing 20 , 10 of people experiencing this and there were a small fraction of people dedicated to address that harm. And then they take up more resources away from that including the people who are doing the work to understand the harm kids are experiencing it seems to me the Company Culture is one of see no evil, hear no evil we do not want to understand what people are experiencing we are not willing to invest in that. Thank you. We spoke in advance of the hearing he told me a story about meeting with another senior executive, Chris Cox Facebook chief product officer. It was so striking to me that he already knew a lot of the numbers and statistics and evidence of harm that you were bringing to market zuckerbergs attention. Why was this meeting so memorable to you . When i return in 2019 i thought they didnt know. I began seeing a culture that was consistently ignoring what teens were experiencing i thought executives did not know and i did spend a year researching, vetting, validating with people across the organization and i would ask do you know what percentage of people are experiencing this and no one was able to answer of the top of their head the first person to do that was chris and i found it heartbreaking because it meant they knew and that they were not acting on it. In effect there expressed caring about teens and safety and protecting children was all a charade, a mockery. They already had the evidence but you were bringing to their attention for they knew about it and they disregarded it, correct . Yes, that is correct to records and they rejected your recommendations for making facebook an instagram safer, correct . That is correct. Let me ask you before we go to our next witness, do you think that we, the congress of the United States should now act, dont you think action is long overdue in this area . Given the total lack of credibility of the social media . My experience after sending that email and seeing what happened after words is they knew. There were things they could do about it, they chose not to do them and we cannot trust them with our children its time for congress to act. Evidence i believe is overwhelming for. Im very hopeful your testimony added to the lawsuit that is been brought by state attorneys general across the country im a former state attorney general i believe strongly in enforcement by them. Added to the interest i think is evidenced by the turn out of our subcommittee today will enable us to get the kids Online Safety act across the finish line along with measures like senator durbins proposal and others that can finally break the straight jacket that big tech has imposed on us. Big tech is the next big tobacco i thought big tobacco in the 19 90s i sued big tobacco i urge congress to act. The same kind of addictive product that big tobacco peddled to kids now is advanced to them and promoted and pitched by big tech and we need to break the straitjacket they have imposed their armies of lobbies. Thank you. Think it mr. Chairman, thank you again for being here. I want to first establish a fact or two just to make sure everybody understands on october the fifth, 2021 you compose an email which is now i think in the record to Mark Zuckerberg, sandberg and a group of other executives at the medic, and my right so far . That is correct. In that memo you disclosed to them that according to your own research one in eight children, children had experienced unwanted sexual advances within the last seven days, is that correct . It is correctly. What in three is 27 have expense unwanted sexual advances outside of the seven day window so its more than seven days comes that correct question. That is correct for. s numbers are standing that one and it within seven days a third of children outside of that window. Market zuckerberg did he reply to you . Whats he did not reply. What did he meet with you . Was he did not meet with me. Sheryl sandberg did she meet with you . She did not meet with me. In other words the people who had recorded you to come back to facebook, meta, whatever its hard to keep up. They ignored your findings when you presented debts than they did not to see they turned a blind eye. Let me ask you about Something Else this is from the wall street journals report earlier this year this is june of this year they found the following and im going to quote. Instagram helps connect and promote a vast network of accounts openly devoted to the commission and purchase of under age sex content pedophiles of long use the internet but unlike the forms and File Transfer Services that cater to people of interest in illicit content instagram does not really host these activities, instagrams algorithms promote them. Instagram connected pedophiles and guides into content sows by recommendation systems that excel at linking this to shirleys interest, the journal and academic researchers found. This is a stunning stunning report that more than buttresses bears out what you were telling, trying to tell the executives that ignored you give us a sense in your own view why do you think this is happening . Why is instagram become is the words of the wall street journal it a pedophile pro why are people like your daughter every time there on instagram being bombarded with unwanted sexual advances, sexual content why is this happening . My experience of that is the most of the resources come close to all that they invest in this go towards a very narrow definition of harm. And so i would encourage anybody here when you are looking at this issue if you find an account a pedophile account selling things try and act on it. See what the company does with that. But see what happens if you like it or follow what you start getting recommended and of all the things that surfaced by the system how many of them are they acting on . It is a fraction of a percent. One of the things you said change from when you left facebook in 2015 in 2019 is facebook it shifted to an automated driven process of safety standards, Safety Inspection monitoring for things like that they boast about this of the ai is great, it is doing great work that does not appear however to be the actual fact it appears the harms are proliferated. Tell us toward the shift toward automated safety monitoring and what that has meant in your experience . Is not there for the shift. But what i can say is algorithms are as good as their inputs. If you do not allow thats gross that makes me uncomfortable which is something you can do for an ad today you can take an ad in say that is sexually inappropriate but there is no way for a child to do that when they get a message or other areas. How do these systems have a hope of addressing these issues . How can they as a company have a hope of addressing these issues if they are not willing to listen when a teen is trying to tell them they are experiencing gross contents unwanted sexual advances . Thatspredators thoughtsthe bad things. What your Research Found and what you elevated to leadership was at least in part these Automated Systems were not catching the vast majority of this unwanted content out there in the sexual advances of this pedophile material it simply does not begin to capture yet facebook did not shift more resources, did not change their process and heres the thing that gets mail and with this mrt a question ive been reading over and over and over again this case filed by my home state missouri versus biden. Landmark First Amendment case. Two federal courts Federal District court and federal court of appeals have found facebook among others actively coordinate the present administration to censor First Amendment protected speech knots of this garbage is not protected by anything in our constitution but First Amendment protected speech heres what gets me but the courts found this is in the records as is factual finding is facebook devoted all kinds of resources and people actual human people doing things like a monitoring post on covid19 vaccine efficacy there is one example of a parent in my home state of missouri who went too post something about a School Board Meeting facebook used human a moderator to take down that post that was important, that has to come down but can have them posting about School Board Meetings for heaven sakes. But the things your daughter experienced this ring of pedophile rings the plural that facebook cannot take the fine for they dont have the resources for that we have to leave to let the market have its effect let ai do its job we dont have the resources for it. They had plenty of resources and sent censor First Amendment speech note resources to protect her children absolutely unconscionable. Thank you, senator holly. Senator durbin . Thanks for being here. You said earlier in your Opening Statement when you work for these companies they were data driven. What you mean by that . Everything at meta there were goals based on numbers. There is understanding of whats happening people said their jobs on that the next six months im going to make this number go from this to that. The ultimate answer is they were dollar driven to, correct . What i can speak to very directly and my question was what percentage of teens should be expensing unwanted sexual advances . There is not 18 thats their goal about how many teams are impacted by this they cannot give you detailed data as to who is initialing those contacts is just not a priority. The bottom line is this they have made a decision that it is not a priority to them because of a profit motive have they not in terms of what its going to cost them in their Business Model if they have to interrupt it and monitor the content . Appeal wonderful question to ask mark and cheryl who is no longer there and adam they can speak to why these made these choices like always speak to effect the keep making the choices over and over again. I went back up et cetera graham said if this becomes expensive to them to continue this outrageous conduct they may pay closer attention that is for sure. But you have suggested here as well we need a survey of young people out of their experience, join to explain that . The weight harm should be tracked on this part should go to teens and asked them did you receive an unwanted sexual advances the last seven days . They are going to know it does not matter what the messages. What you can do to help that team is give them a chance to tell you and make sure they talk about its not expensive to implement. Are also briefed by the dea in terms of narcotics transactions and the use of platforms for that purpose due to overt look into that issue . What site did not directly but what you can do is if you look at the numbers i provided there is a category four the class of issues you should ask the company how much of that content which teens experience as that, they take down . Whats its interesting to me that if one of my kids, when they were kids or our grandkids now came home and said there was someone lurking outside the playground at school that made the kids feel uncomfortable we would know what to do and move on it quickly and find it unacceptable and yet we know from reality there is danger lurking in the iphones there opening up every single day and yet we seem to feel we are unable to respond to this. I hope we can change that senator grahams suggestion of 2 30 g of any thoughts on that section 2 30 . No im not qualified to talk about 2 30. I can say these companies should be held accountable for the content they recommend. I certainly agree with that. I think that is the bottom line. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you, senator durbin, senator graham. Thank you, you are doing the country Great Service here. Did they contest your memo . Did anyone call you up and say you dont know what youre talking about . Quick snow ice mustve spoke of 20 or 30 people including adam asking for any feed back and nobody did. To sum up your testimony is it fair to say in its current form what you are describing is a dangerous product . Correct. Millions of families are affected by this dangerous product,. Correct. As a father who had a 13yearold affected by this product did you feel helpless . I did. And if anyone could help it wouldve been deeper. Could you have sued them would you . I apologize could you repeat . If you could sue on behalf of your daughter would you . Id believe they have to be held to account for. One way of doing that is to sue them you know you cant sue them under the current law . Lexa did not know that. Okay your daughter felt harmed, your testimony is a millions of people are in the same situation as your daughter. They know it they are doing and they keep doing it anyways at all correct course reports it is correctly correct i cannot think of a company in the world they can do the scrap docket suit except these people. Now if unity of sovereign immunity which is what we have done here this about the bottom of my list of the top of my list. I asked my office to find out how much money i have received from facebook, instagram and other companies i am going to give it back. I think we ought to all boycott the giving because senator hawley is right and i think you are their leverage is power of the political system. Im calling that every member of Congress Today do not take their money until they change. Dont accept what they are offering you until they change. Because the money you are receiving is coming people created dangerous product for children and they seem not to be willing to change. That would be on the bottom of my list now than i know what you have told me of people i want to associate myself with. Have you ever heard them talk about being afraid of anything or anybody . I have not. It is amazing, isnt it . Companies this a big he is telling them what youre doing is hurting people they are indifferent to its i feel like they are immune from action because they pretty much are. Bottom line, if we did create a system where parents like you could sue and hold them liable in court you think that may change their behavior . That is not for me too say i just want my daughter, our kids have the tools they need when they are experience in these things. What i will tell you is i believe it would we will never know until we try. I think we should dedicate ourselves on this committee which has been a pleasure to serve unfettered durbin all of you been great on this issue not to just pass bills but insist on change the ultimate change comes is when they can be held liable in a court of law. Until you open up the courthouse nothing is going to change for the day you do you will be amazed how many good ideas they knew about but did not tell us. Im going to dedicate what time i have left in this business opening up the courtroom i dont think nothing else will do and it till that day comes im not going to take any money of their money every member of congress should say we were your buddies not welcome until you change might be the first step to change. Thank you for your bravery, im sorry for what happened to your daughter well everyone in your situation better, thank you for. And Cassandra Graham that is white many of you have joined you including the Ranking Member and myself. Consider klobuchar . What thank you very much senator blumenthal. Thank you for this word senator graham. Im a strong believer in it we can talk about this and have hearings and keep reminding people that we need to get things done. But until we change the law these are no longer companies itstarted with guys in a garager in their college storm room, okay . These reallife getting lost i really appreciate that you are willing to come forward and testify. Im going to focus on one area that i dont think we talked about enough that is the platform and the ability and refusal to take down sites that are selling dangerous drugs. Recently dea found one third of drug cases had direct ties to social media. I was just in minnesota with a mom, bridget. Who lost her kid and the kid literally ordered a one pill as we say one pill kills, on the internet thinking of Something Else it was laced with fentanyl. As a mom said, as bridget said all of the hopes and dreams we as parents had were erased in a blink of an eye and no mom should have to bury their kid. That is why senator durbin and i and others on this committee have been worked with senator shaheen and marshall as well as senator grassley on the spill that has come to this committee already. I need to go to the floor along with a number of other bills we have talked about the required social Media Companies to report fentanyl and other dangerous drug sales on their platforms and the words of our dea administrator they basically the cartels dont care people dire not because no one knows it. In a mexico and china have basically harness these platforms to social Media Companies have the correct incentives to identify and eliminate drug sales to kids . Thank you for the question and the concern on all his important things. Until there is disclosure of what kids experience as a drug content, sexual content, until there is transparency about these things i dont know what the incentive is which is why transparency is so essential. As parents and grandparents we see it, we understand it. We know how frequent it is. Thats what the numbers share and theres one thing for everyone to know is that when we talk about the categories you care about for example drugs and the company talks about that category they are likely talking but a fraction of the percent as we as a society. Exactly we all know theres a lot of other things to do with fentanyl including at the border but this will be a major game changer for the ability to take these cases on. Prosecutors have also reported an emerging trend they have photos of children that may fold to shy of the definition of child pornography industry with them on website with the intent to harass or abuse the child victims there is a major story on this in the washington post. Senator cornyn and i have a bill the shield act to fill in gaps in federal also prosecutors can hold those who abuse kids in this way accountable. In your role as a person at facebook who was responsible for efforts to keep users safe can you talk about the deficiencies in current policies . Thank you for the question. If you look at content of minors again the question is, is that something that violates Company Policy and would be removed is that with the companys acting on . Or does it end up being something that because the content of the companies that act on it ends up recommending and distributing . And as a parent we see this. If you were to open the app and look at it you can find it. If youd like it you get recommended it. These are all things the company is aware of in terms of reach and can do things about that but have chosen to do so. Very good i think i was listening senator graham and he is right theres one big thing we can do is to allow these cases are afforded in court i think some of these things im discussing makes it easier for people to proceed with these cases and create incentives. One thing i will add and ask on the record senator kuhn, senator cassidy i think senator blumenthal have a bill to allow independent researchers to look at the algorithms you know are designed in a way that manipulates these kids and can lead to their deaths, to require the digital platforms to give independent researchers access to data yes or no i figured you think this would be helpful, yes . Very good. Just again thank you and we can again talk about this all he wants we will remember you and your story. But until we get these things by both sides and can maybe put them together into one package we are not going to get the solutions we need because just getting mad at these platforms have not changed their conduct. Thank you center klobuchar. Senator kennedy . Social media can make people less lonely, can it not . It can do that. Social media can deliver insights, can it not . It can. Social media, when used properly it can give voice to the timid can it not . It can. Social media can also spread hate, cant it . It can. And isnt it a fact that much of social media not all that much of social media has become a cesspool of snark . What i can speak to senators it happens also often and it does not need to be that way. But isnt that way for much not all but much of social media . One of the numbers i talk about is the 20 of kids who witnessed bullying in the last seven days and this is content that does not get taken down people comment on it gets promoted to quickly put it another way. Im trying to sum this up for us. Isnt it a fact that social media has lowered the cost of being in a whole . [laughter] yes. Isnt it true that social media it removes any geographical border to the harassment of others . Yes. And isnt it true forms of social media optimize for engagement . Yes eight reward of being and a whole using your term. And isnt it true some social media use surveillance to identify our and our kids hot buttons . I cannot speak to that. Isnt it true some forms of social media use algorithms to show us and our kids stuff that pushes us hot buttons . I will say this, recently my daughter had somebody going to one of her post about cars and said you know, you like to drive during cars and she said he saw a man jewish that ive been studying automotive restoration of doing this for years i more than qualified. The person shot back no, women just belong to the passenger seats. To every point you just made i will say when i asked her about that post if she would delete it because she knows reporting it would do nothing she said i will not delete it because i am worried that will mean less people will see my post. Ask them not going to ask you this question im going to make a statement you are probably not familiar with louisiana. On my state social media has impacted the news media. Critically print media. Thank god for our tv news in a radio news. But when it comes to our print media, we in louisiana and that is a print media in paper paper and print media which is on the internet. When it comes to print media in louisiana we have only got about two real non news print Media Journalists left who are fair and our opinion. Most of our print media members are now sports a shirt which iss fine i love sports but theres a lot else going on in the world. You have the right to bring that bill to the floor of the United States senate. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator. I was curious about the fact that so many of the people are exposed to Cyber Bullying and your daughter experienced some of those because of some of the things that she posted online but theres also an addictive quality to keeping these kids online. Keeping these kids online means money for them. Is there anything we can do to address the addictive aspect of what is happening to our young people where they continue to go on to these platforms and expose them to these harmful content . Thank you for the question. I think that its essential to have good data about the impact this product has and its not that difficult. You could take a teenager for halfanhour and go how are you doing are you feeling better or worse and then use that information. Lets say we have this kind of data to the harmful impact what do you think we should do . I think the measures were appropriately compelled to figure out a good way to help teens have use of the product that serves them. Right now it distresses them and every parent here has experienced needing to be under and their emotions. Do people understand the harmful impact and part of your testimony is about how we should understand what is happening but would it help if the kids themselves also understand that impact . This is also an aspect of education for example of young people. Would that help . I think it helps educate young people and what helps in my experience the most is changes to the product so that its less harmful and its those changes into the refusal right now theres not much incentive because they face no consequences for the content so meanwhile dozens of states including the state of hawaii have sued the Companies Including the products to harm users and i think most of these cases have been consolidated in california and at the defendants are saying that they are limited and take culture because of 230. You are not a lawyer but if they are in the legal liability they are still pending by the way as a result of these lawsuits do you think that would change the behavior as far as paying attention to the harmful content on their platforms . I am not a lawyer or qualified to weigh in on that. But it is all about money for these companies, thats why they keep doing what they are doing and if they are exposed as a result of their content, do you think that would change their behavior . My hope is the moment last quarter we made a 30 billion and the next this is a percentage that experience. The number would go down very quickly. How would it go down . It would be incentivized to work because there are no goals as far as i am aware. Except if there is no the wall that prevents them from having these kind of content theres no court cases they are not held responsible for the content and the fact that people know they have exposed these kids. And this is why theres so much attention being paid to section 230 into the limited liability. They are protected from content. They do try. Theres a limited definition of the harmful content but on the other hand, im all for doing more than we are currently doing but one of the things that can also happen i wrote a letter to investigate matters of practice of censoring advertisements for Health Products related to the administration and they decided that this kind of advertisement was harmful. I hardly call that a narrow definition of harm so all the Companies Left their own devices get to choose what they deem to be harmful and in the examples that you cite its limited but they decided its harmful and to censor those kind of products. So it is more complicated than but i know we are going to try to do something so thank you mr. Senator blackburn. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And thank you for your testimony and your frankness. I know that we appreciate it, and my state of tennessee we have attorneys hear from our Attorney Generals Office today. They are pushing to also get something done about the overreach of facebook and we are grateful that so many states have stepped up to hold facebook and meta to task so we appreciate this. I want to return this to december 21 and chairman blumenthal mentioned this. He and i asked the Senate CommerceConsumer Protection subcommittee that we lead and you were consulting for instagram at that time correct . December 21. I had left at that point. And a few months earlier you sent two emails that talked about the harm on the platform, correct . Correct. Im going to quote some things from his testimony. He said and i quote we care deeply about the teams on instagram which is in part why we Research Complex issues like bullying and a social comparison and make changes. Do you agree with that characterization . I agree that they make research. I dont agree that they make changes. So they have the info but they take no action. He also said we dont allow people to bully or harass other people on instagram and have rules in place that prohibit this kind of conduct and we also built tools that prevent bullying from happening in the first place and empower people to manage their accounts so they never have to see it. Do you agree with that . I think that its profoundly misleading because at the time in which the public statistic was a fraction of a percent, one in five watched it happening like 10 experienced it and you have to bear in mind it would be completely unacceptable. Let me give you one more. Talking about the executives, and im interested in seeing how they reacted to the information that came out in 21 about the disregard for harms to minors. Do you think that meta executives were motivated to do more work to address the problem or were they interested in covering up what was going on at the time . I think that you will need to ask about their intentions but i also deeply believe that actions speak louder than words. Did any of the members of the team, whether it was zuckerberg, sandberg, did any of them respond to your email in a way that suggested that they were going to take an action to correct . No. For six years when i sent that message i would get a meeting within 24 hours to spend a meaningful amount of time talking with them and what needed to be dealt with and in this case the lack of response, the meeting sometime later and then the lack of action against. I think you should ask them that question. Okay. I would be interested to know who took responsibility for making policy determinations about youth safety. You suggested Mark Zuckerberg had a hand in such but that when you returned, he would tell employees not to raise youth safety issues to him, is that accurate . In my first sense, it would raise the issues and engage proactively. Having done that for six years, thats why it was one of the most qualified people in the world to bring it to their attention. I was not aware when i brought by email that it was hard to talk to mark about this but my experience of how the entire company was behaving when it came to the harm teens were experiencing is a cultural issue on that a decision that in my dy experience prioritizing prevalence over harm is something that sets the direction for the whole executive team and thats why we realized it was necessary to appeal directly to them. So they were aware. Correct. They knew that harm was taking place. They had of the research that pointed this out. Their own research. Correct and they made a conscious decision to do nothing about it. Correct. Did they ever talk about profits as opposed to enacting these productions . Not in my presence. Okay. So, other than Mark Zuckerberg, who would have claimed responsibility for dealing with youth safety and harm . Thank you. My time is expired. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thanks, senator blackburn. Thank you very much. I just want to start by acknowledging my gratitude to my colleagues on the committee for the work that you have been doing on a bipartisan basis. Senator blackburn and i began working together when we were both in the house together and the first privacy bill. I havent been with you in this effort but was with senator blackburn and i cant elaborate on the excellent Opening Statements senator blumenthal and senator holly that you made and i guess in the phrase i would like to associate myself with your remarks. But i do want to on my own behalf express my shock at whats happening to our kids and how its all because theres a lot of money to be made. Your questions, senator blackburn, revealing just of the disregard for the Mental Health of our kids is truly shocking. If so, im all in with you and your efforts here. Im also delighted that in vermont our attorney general joined the lawsuit and i also want to thank you for stepping forward and providing such clarity embedded in the concerns that you have not just for your daughter but all of our kids. A couple of issues that have come up from letters that ive received and comments, and i know youre getting the same questions as well, and i want to make sure we can do this legislation that doesnt do any harm and have been receiving a number of letters from folks in the Lgbt Community who are concerned some of the legislation including the act would compromise their ability to get together online and be mutually supportive. And i support that, so i just want you to talk a little bit about how if we proceed with the legislation that i hope we do, we are not in any way going to interfere with the capacity of kids who legitimately are getting together mutually supporting one of the exploitive stuff. Can we accomplish that . Thank you for the question. I cannot speak to the legislation. I think i trust that you are extraordinarily qualified for that part. I think my job here is to help bring light to the harm that of these kids are experiencing and the fact the way the company talks about them in my experience is misleading. And thats based on all of your years at the forefront of facebook . Correct. The other thing i want you to know, or any kid that again in these experiences it does not need to be this way. As these things are happening they should be able, and i know because i built these kind of things for six years. They should be able to turn an essay can you please help me with of this and then get help with whatever is happening and today that is not the case. So its the exploitive content in the algorithms that youre focusing on and i think all of us are. Its actually when somebody says in front of you are taken to school and in the hallway somebody comes to you and us as im going to make sure you dont get invited to any party ever again. People around to hear that. If that happens online, that is a poster that implies a person, doesnt name them, never removed, its incredibly distressing to the team and the kind of stuff i am talking about because i deeply care about every child that we talk about in every context is that a child gets left out, insulted because of the reasons senator blumenthal outlined. That child should get help dependent with the content is and its important for all children no matter what their gender or right. I hear that. Another question that has come up is about encryption and others privacy benefits to maintaining encryption so i would hope any legislation that we have wouldnt compromise the privacy rights of the individuals who are on the internet. I deeply believe in privacy and in everything that im talking about. If a child gets a direct message that makes them uncomfortable, hurts them, and it doesnt matter what the content is. My house, my rules. It only matters that the child feels uncomfortable and is able to say can we please add a button when a child says please help me. Whats going on . Somebodys being mean to me and it doesnt matter what the content is. That child deserves help and if somebodys initiating those messages and telling them these things, then step number one, as you know thats not appropriate and if they keep doing it then other things can be brought to bear. So kids first. Absolutely. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you for being here and your courage and testimony. I think weve met the enemy endd of the enemy is us. We have six bills with us senator durbin reverted to that were voted out of the Judiciary Committee but in the senate the only person who can actually schedule those bills for vote is the majority leader, senator schumer. And so i would suggest that we focus our attention on trying to get senator schumer to schedule a vote on those six pieces of legislation. That would be a good start. But we can talk about it but without that happening, nothing else is going to happen in the senate. So, one wise person said one time when trying to figure out some complex topic like this, follow the money. You mentioned a number of times the data. The social media applications like instagram and facebook collect huge volumes of data about the users. They do. And that data is then used mainly for advertising products, for example its amazing to me when i go to a website and i look at something, lets say a piece of hunting gear the next thing i know on my instagram, an advertisement from that same Company Shows up. The way that happens is that instagram, facebook, former twitter cells that data to companies who then use that information to promote their products, is that correct . I am not an expert. Thats how they make money, right . They make money through advertising. Well, i was shocked to read an article here in the Mit Technology review which talks about its shockingly easy to buy Sensitive Data about u. S. Military personnel. The Duke University did a study at the request of west point and others and determined for as little as 12 cents per record that data brokers would sell Sensitive Information on u. S. Military members and veterans. Would that surprise you . Again this isnt my expertise. I have expertise on the security personnel and ensuring that the systems do what they are said to do, but i dont have expertise on how it is brokered. I think it is pretty much Common Knowledge that thats the case that the data accumulated by social Media Companies is then sold and thats the reason why when you go on to instagram or facebook you dont have to pay a subscription or fee, and they talked about if they couldnt recover that revenue from selling the data about me, chairman blumenthal, the Ranking Member and others or your daughter, then they would have to charge a fee in order to make us economical but they dont do that because they can sell your data. And whats shocking is as you have discovered and you shared with us today about this one social Media Company, the truth is this is not unique to instagram or facebook; correct . Correct. Its the entire social media. Here in the congress we talked a lot about our concern about chinas increasing belligerency and militancy and to build up of its not only its economy, but its military and threatening peace in asia and elsewhere. But we are also talking a lot about apps like ticktock for example that are chinese applications that then do much as instagram does and backing up all this data addicting our children to use the algorithms or codes to figure out what to recommend to them, and again this is all about the data and all about the money. And of course, senator durbin mentioned the use of social media applications when it comes to selling drugs. Fentanyl synthetic opioids is the single leading cause of death for 1845yearolds in america today. And much of it is transacted at the sales and promotions through the use of social media. And then theres other scary things like deep fakes. Do you know what a deep fake is . I do. Its when you use technology to create an image that appears to be a person but its not an actual video or photo of that person. And ive read the last couple of days that deep fakes are now being used to basically portray young girls for sexual gratification using these deep fakes falls images due to this incredible technology, which as senator kennedy pointed out could be used for erotic good and also for ill as well. I know our time is short here today. I want to thank you for answering some of these questions. We have a lot of work to do here in the senate and in the congress. As parents and grandparents to try to protect our children. Im just thank goodness my daughters are adults now and they dont live in the age of the senators kids or others but the first thing we need to do is ask the one person who can actually schedule a floor vote on some of the bills that passed unanimously out of the senate Judiciary Committee to schedule a vote. We can do that next week. But hes got to make it happen. Thank you, senator cornyn. I cant speak for senator schumer but i know that he is vitally interested in reform in this area and im sure that he will make that interest on the floor of the senate at the right time. Senator butler. Thank you chair blumenthal and Ranking Member. As a mom, this is a topic that i could not not show up to engage in. I want to appreciate your leadership for fighting for and leading on behalf of not just my daughter that americas children. And i know not just your own. I appreciate it very much also your comments to my colleague here specifically when youre talking about taking anna all children approach. I want to direct my comments to engage in a space that may be all children, the all children approach hasnt necessarily been taken. Id love to get your thoughts on some gaps that we could try to feel. Now, you know, and we know the internet can be a hateful place. We talked about that today. I understand that among your research in the user experience, you looked into instances of identity based hostilities on the platform and found that over a quarter of users under the age of 16 said they witnessed hostility against someone based on their race, religion or identity within the last week. One study published in the journal of American Academy of children and adolescent psychiatry looked at the issue of online Racial Discrimination between march and november of 2020. It found that black youth experienced increases on online Racial Discrimination of their white counterparts did not. And of those instances of discrimination predicted worse and sameday and nextday Mental Health among black youth. Can you talk with us a little bit about what more you think the company should be doing to protect against these kinds of racial and ethnic harassments and hostilities online . The fact that a child today, any identity gets called out in front of entire audiences. Again the difference between when this happens in the school and when it happens online, go home and ask your child what would you do, what can you do, and theres no way for that child to say this is whats happening to me. Somebodys being really mean to me. And i use that language because ten years ago, facebook knew this. We knew that in order to help a child dealing with an issue you have to hear the words they use. A 13yearold doesnt like to report things because they are worried they are going to get in trouble and get other people in trouble. If you tell them what you like some help. If you look at the words submitted from ten years ago, you should be able to say this is like awful for me because of my identity and any form of that and the company should be able to take that into account and help that child be protected and get them resources and also make sure that is not acceptable behavior in the community because the most tragic thing about that 20 of member member witnessingthese kind of e lack of action on the part of the company and the definition of the content that they would take down means that they are normalizing the behavior children watch and children learn from the way children are behaving. To follow up a little bit, what would it look like to create a good experience . Is it the ability to exercise some sort of agency and the button that you are making reference to . If its indirect messages, you have a button and someone initiated the message and one of the questions for the platforms is you know, how many messages should somebody be able to send before you tap them on the shoulder and tell them this is not appropriate behavior so it creates information you then can act on. If somebody keeps doing it then you know that they are up to no good and you can take further measures. Without this data, any systems do not have the hope of making a safer environment or. What do you think has been the barrier for companies talking about the companies that you have the most experience with. What would help overcome that barrier . I think they are just not incentivized to make the change. Thats why nothing has changed. Its been two years and our kids do not have that button and in r direct messaging where the content doesnt matter to say this makes me uncomfortable. But for an ad for example that is inappropriate or its not for me. If the thing about this is until the information is transparent and we would strongly encourage that includes identity based because if it turns out the overall number is 10 , but that 90 , 80 of youth that experience these things is because of an identity issue, the data is there to be had if a Company Makes it a priority and collect set and that is at the heart of why i am here today. Thank you again for your leadership and advocacy on behalf of americas children. Thank you senator butler. A number of colleagues may be joining us returning in the next few minutes. But why dont we begin the second round of questions now. Senator kunz is arriving and i can give you a couple of minutes to get comfortable or you can begin right now. Thank you mr. Chairman and Ranking Member for convening this important and timely hearing. And thank you so much for taking your own personal experience as the Senior Engineer responsible for the wellbeing section within this unbelievable platform. A quick survey suggests Something Like two thirds of all American Teens are on the platform in particular instagram. I am very concerned about the likely impacts on our children and our future and i wanted to make sure that i had a chance to question you for just a few moments about a possible path forward. As you testified to the committee today, your own research was hidden, was ignored, was marginalized by the very team that have recruited you to return to a leadership role at meta. Your testimony highlights the danger is lack of transparency and social Media Companies the dangerous consequences of this ongoing global experiment with our children and documents ways in which they are on the receiving end of both images that make them feel worse about themselves and unwanted sexual advances. Our own u. S. Surgeon general issued a clarion call for congress to act to recognize we are experiencing a crisis in Mental Health in particular and to find ways to restrain the platforms and their impact. A bipartisan bill i suspect senator klobuchar senator blumenthal may refer to before called the platform accountability and Transparency Act thats cosponsored by senator cornyn and senator cassidy and senator graham would make critical advances in transparency and require platforms to disclose some of the Public Safety information that they currently hide. Can you give two or three examples of the kind of data and the kind of insight into algorithms and how they work that would be critical for the public to know and that companies refuse to report . And do you expect that companies will ever voluntarily fully disclose what it is about their anotheralgorithms that make thee platforms addictive or even dangerous for children . Thank you for the question. I think that for as long as these Companies Get to make up their own definitions of what is harmful and for example what is addiction i looked into that issue when i was in the company asking around about the understanding of it, and what they found is it was an internal term called problematic usage. The definition was so narrow it doesnt capture what we as parents. So without the transparency of the harms teens are experiencing by their own without instruments to help understand the role social media plays in their lives and ensuring that for example that when they need help it actually helps them this is something that we propose to saying lets measure whether it helps. I think without these things i dont think anything is going to change and thats why im here today. Can you explain how empowering independent researchers would provide a much more balanced understanding of how safe or dangerous social media platforms really are and Say Something about what kind of Safety Research could be done in order to facilitate a better Mental Health and safety outcome for our teenagers . I can speak to that because thats what i did and my team did for six years, ten years ago. We brought in experts from the universities in the United States including yale who understood for example a 13yearold is more liable to take risks because of where they are developmentally, and they knew that it was important that the most important thing you can do for the child in this experience is to make sure they feel supported at that moment. As product engineers are not qualified to give them tools and thats why independent research and of the data that enables that is absolutely necessary to help our understanding of what people are experiencing. Thank you. My colleague said earlier the algorithm doesnt just promote but accelerates the connections between pedophiles and our kids. For anyone who is a caring and concerned parent, for anyone who cares about the community, that should be a chilling sentence. And the fact that you dedicated years to conducting research on safety and everything you could for the leadership of the company and only here before us as a last attempt should motivate all of us to advance legislation that will unlink what i think is a corrosive, harmful, maligned connection between algorithms and self harm and assaults on our children. Thank you for your testimony today. Thanks, senator kunz. We are going to have a second round of questions, limited in length i want to assure you but thank you for your patience and perseverance here today. Let me just begin by saying that the lawsuit filed by the commonwealth of massachusetts yesterday, which is one of nine individual lawsuits filed around the country by state, and it is complementary to the federal lawsuit filed by 33 states in District Court connecticut joined that lawsuit. Im going to ask that the complaint be made a part of the record without objection. As it is 90 of young people in the United States, 90 of young people use instagram so we are talking about millions of young people, are we not . Yes, we are. And it cites Mark Zuckerberg saying october 2021 in response to francis whistleblower testimony before our committee, quote at the heart of these accusations is this idea that we prioritize profit over safety and wellbeing. Thats just not true. He said further its important to me that everything we build is safe and good for kids, taking your admonition that actions speak louder than words. His actions certainly demonstrate the falsehood of the claims, do they not . They do. And something from that same note that i would like to bring to the committees attention. Sure. On that same note, Mark Zuckerberg wrote when it comes to Young Peoples Health or wellbeing, every negative experience matters. Its incredibly sad to think of a young person in a moment of distress who instead of being comforted has their experience made worse. And i believe that is what instagram does today. The reference was made earlier to the policies of facebook and social media in general being datadriven. In fact, they are dollar driven correct . My experience is of extensive datadriven. Or in this case, facebook and meta doctored the data to drive the dollars. In my experience would have been does the data should be public [inaudible] should be public. I was struck in a memo that you wrote to adam dated october 14th is now part of the record. You made to the first of all, and im quoting, everyone in the end of the same problems right now. Correct. You made that point and in effect, urged meta to be a leader, instagram and facebook could be a leader and you said, quote theres a great product opportunity in figuring out the features that make a community feel safe and supported, and of quote. A great product opportunity. In fact, you were inviting them to design a better product that consumers would prefer because it was safer, correct . Correct. And the history of capitalism i dont want to be too philosophical here, is that consumers go to products that are more efficient and effective but also safer, as in safer cars, safer ovens, safer washing machines, safer everything and you were appealing to the better instincts of zuckerberg into the whole team, correct . That is correct. Instagram is a product. So like ice cream or a toy or a car. How many kids need to get sick from a batch of ice cream or a carver theres an investigation. Theres an opportunity because it was standing right next to the team. They are the Company Delivering. They are the Company Delivering the content that is upsetting to them and they should be able, its an opportunity for them to be told theres something happening here. Will you help me and be like, yes, i can. And then to make the committee safer. The kids Online Safety act is also about the product. Its about product design. If you have consumers youve done some choices about what they want to see and hear so they can disconnect the algorithm. It drives something people dont want to see. Its not censorship. Its not content blocking. Do you favor that approach to protecting young people and others on the internet . Completely. In a world where as in the third paragraph in my email and in my experience from ten years earlier than five years of looking at this, 90 of the content teens experience as harassment might not be discernible for policies. The only way to address it is through the kind of measures that youre describing. Its a product it needs to be different. It has to change. The kids Online Safety act is also about Holding Social Media and big tech accountable when they harm people. Right now as youve heard they feel no sense of accountability in terms that really affect their bottom line when Mark Zuckerberg gives his Quarterly Report for his discussion to analysts. Would you favor that kind of accountability so that they are held responsible . Absolutely. I want to take a moment to say that in my experience the integrity and wellbeing professionals that are working on these issues firsthand are incredibly good people with wonderful ideas and management couldnt be letting them down more. And go ahead, sorry. During that time, one of the materials we talk about a product we know is bad for body images. Its being recommended they know it is being recommended. They know teens are spending time looking at it and they are unwilling to address that so to account for what they are recommending i cant imagine that everchanging. Another part of our kids Online Safety act provides for more transparency about the algorithm so that there can be more Public Knowledge and also expert knowledge. Would you favor that approach . It is essential and i will say that algorithms are as good as their input and can be measured by their output. So you can take an algorithm and if the algorithm doesnt know that a kid has experienced something of seen why wont it recommended and they look at what its recommending. If its recommending obscene things, the only way that there is transparency about these aspects. Before i go to senator hawley for his second round of questions, you know you mentioned that there are people who worked on your team and people that worked in these companies to quote you are generally good people who want to do the right thing. And i noticed in your memo you said, and im quoting the point that might be good for you to know which i didnt put in the document is many employees ive spoken to who are doing this work and are of Different Levels are distraught about how the last few weeks have unfolded. These people who love facebook, instagram i assume and are Mission Driven to the work. They were distraught by the public exhibition of facebook knowing that it was profiting by toxic contentand the company int concealing and hiding the truth, rejecting recommendations for improvement and rolling back safety measures, correct . Correct. They were distraught, they were afraid that because the company was externally disavowing the body image issues while at the same time there were studies and data that were saying otherwise, that were afraid the work would be stopped, that they wouldnt get the support they need it or they wouldnt be able to build what they needed to build and the amount of investment that this company ought to do for those people. Thank you. Senator hawley. Thank you for being here. You have done extraordinarily patient but also incredibly forthcoming in your responses and its been tremendously helpful so thank you so much. I want to come back to something you said over and over because youve been asked about it over and over to quote you in response to an earlier question you said changes to the product. You explained instagram is a product like ice cream or opioids may be. Changes to the product would be most helpful, but there is no incentive. And by no incentive, that means theres no money in it for the company. Isnt that what it gets down to . If they could make money on it, would they do it . You have to ask them. I am very excited for the day that mark or adam are sitting here and then you can ask them why did you not invest, because one of the things in each recommendations you see there and you understand what the data is causing these things, but its about what you can build in the systems. Those are not a matter of significant investment. It wouldnt cause them as much. Its a matter of how much they prioritize the work and whether they are willing to set their goals based on what the teens are experiencing. I think that is very well said. I would add to this. You commented it would be great to hear Mark Zuckerberg say we made 34 billion this quarter, hypothetical that you throughout, and also to report heres the amount of harm teenagers suffered. We made 34 billion this quarter and have 34 billion injury judgments pending against us. That would get their attention. And i just have to say that the end of the day if you want to incentivize changes to these companies, youve got to allow people to open up the court room doors. They find facebook a billion dollars or something a couple of years ago. It made no discernible Business Practices. They changed nothing. They dont care. But i tell you what they fear. They fear parents going into court and holding them accountable. Thats the hammer. Thats what happened with big tobacco and opioids. Thats the hammer and thats what we have got to do. So i will say this. We talked about the bill that passed of this committee. One was senator durbins bill along with me and orville and Child Exploitation and abuse materials. For my money the best part about that bill is it contained a private right of action. So i will say this, i will make you a pledge. We are going to vote before the end of the year. Before the end of this calendar year i will go to the floor of the United States senate and i will demand a vote on the bills that we have passed in this committee and we will find out. We are going to put people on the record because im tired of bleeding. Ive waited for years. Many people waited far longer. We are going to vote. Anyone can go to the floor and ask for a vote on it and im going to do it. Before the end of this year im going to do it so we are going to find out. We have all this talk about we need to do stuff. Lets do something. The other thing i would say is on the money the money that is flowing into this capital from big tech is obscene, totally obscene. And if we really want to change something we get the corporate out of politics and we would stop these megacorporations from making political contributions. That would change things. But either way, we are going to vote before the end of 2023. And we will just put people on record and see where we go from there. I hope your testimony will really motivate people. I know it will motivate parents. Every. Listening will say thats been my experience. And i think they have someone that is an engineer and has your level looks the expertise and feel like maybe i dont understand the technology. Maybe im the only one and i say listening to you today parents are going to say im not the only one. My kid is not the only one. If i may Say Something about that, parents see this every day. The other thing thats been my experience in all my years doing this is parents know how to parent. Sometimes when ive had a parent of a child thats been groomed, they talked about their experience. They are like i dont understand this technology. The best way ive experienced of people to think about these things is take social media out of the conversation. As the parent of a young kid, you know who your kids are spending time with, you keep an eye on that. You want to make it very safe for your kid to come up to you and say this thing is happening, thats what happened with me at home. You want to make it safer to bring up an issue to you. When you see that these things are happening on the devices if these things were happening at a school and you knew that one in five kids were witnessing or one in ten were experiencing the unwanted sexual advances and the kids turned to somebody in the school for help and they are like im sorry i cannot help you with that, as a parent what would you do . You would call the School Administration to account, and thats one of the reasons i am here today. Thanks, senator. I would just again, make the point that the kids Online Safety bill imposes accountability. And i want to join the pledge to seek a vote before the end of the year. Im very hopeful we will have not only a vote, but an overwhelmingly positive bipartisan vote in favor of the kids Online Safety bill. And i challenge social media and big tech to come forward and put your money where your mouth is, but your actions where your rhetoric is. Support this bill for years in fact before our committee. They have said we want regulation. But just not that regulation. That has been their mantra, trust us. No longer will kids or Parents Trust social media to impose the right safeguards and we want to give them the tools their product needs so the kids can take back the lives online. Senator blackburn. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And thank you again for your patience today. I wish my colleague from vermont were still here. It was 2012 when he and i started on privacy and found the first privacy bill in the house. As senator welch said weve been at this for a long time and followed by big tech every single step of the way. Its been quite amazing to see because they are, and sometimes people will say how did the Tech Companies grow this big this past. They didnt have the guidelines were the rules and restraint that the physical world has and its kind of been the wild west. We have seen that in how they choose to gather the data and data mining and use that to make the dollar. Theyve got to keep these labels on the page. The longer they keep them, the more money they make. Now, i want to go back to the hearing we had in december 21. For the record, i want us to build out a little bit more of this framework because i think its important to the states that have joined the lawsuit. I think its important to us as we work to get the kids Online Safety act passed. Now when you were with facebook, you built a structure that would allow for some online governance and you put in place what you thought was a pretty good process for keeping people safe online, correct . Thats correct. And basically, you had and barked on safety by design, is that correct . That is correct. Andy you were putting in place a duty of care for the social Media Company to be responsive to the users that were on those platforms. That is correct. I was going through one of these materials. I remember talking about teenagers and as it is a company we had the responsibility not only to the teens within the product but also improve the standing on the issue so that the field could be moved forward and that is the spirit with which we engaged the work. And then in 2013, facebook decided they were going to change the rules and allow kids ages 13 to 17 to post content on instagram, correct . I dont know the exact age that change happened. I think that is accurate. And allowing them what do you think changed . What motivated them to drop the age and allow 13yearolds . I cannot speak to their motivation, but i can say is that if you look at those 2013 presentations gamma 2012, one of the things that is written about there is the fact that a 13yearold with riskier behavior feels things more intensely because thats where they are developmentally, and so making a change that potentially increases the audience i think would be inconsistent with that understanding. I find it so interesting that whether it was zuckerberg or sandberg when you highlighted with them how readers were responding to the survey, users were responding and you kept trying to direct this to work the experience, not the perception, but the experience and that is noted several times in your emails to them. Even though 51 of the users may say theyve had a negative experience, they chose not to address that issue. Motivation to protect in thevir. I do want to ask you, just a couple of things to go back on your a memo to adam the october 14 email. And you laid out an agenda. And then opportunity for items for discussion so that you would make good use of your time. And you explicitly and specifically went through the numbers on kids that had received different negative interactions. And then you broke out the data by age. And youve created a chart so that he could look at it in a google doc. Correct to pro. How did he respond when you broke it out by age or did he take the time to look at it . Was my experience of all the years and met up in executive gets an email, it reads it thoroughly, looks at all the attachments. It would be my expectation he read it. My conversation he demonstrated understanding of everything i spoke about we specifically talked about a teen girl who had received unwanted advances. Thank you for that. It troubles me is knowing that harm was being done to kids until s on a quoted back to you some of his comments from his testimony he gave to us. And for him to allude to the fact, to give the impression they have built tools that prevent these adverse activities. But at that thing of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It was true they built tools. You built them. That was true. Thoughts they chose to remove that. And in doing that there are hundreds of children that we have met with their parents and we have heard about the suicide, the attempted suicide and the adverse impact on these children. Thank you. Thanks senator blackburn. Thank you so much for being here today. As you can tell from the turnout there is a very strong bipartisan support for reform. Because actions do speak louder than words we hope colleagues will join senator hawley and me and senator blackburn and senator durbin and others in seeking action on a very doable practical politically achievable bill that targets the design of this product as much as we would a safer car. Or stopping addiction to cigarettes and tobacco and nicotine. Big check is very much in danger. I would say it is the next big tobacco. I am hoping it will join thats ever to make products safer and in some ways we face is the gardenvariety challenge to improve the reliability and safety of a product that uses a black box that very few people understand which makes it more complex and mysterious but no less urgent. And ultimately understandable by everyday americans. Everyday americans understand the harm that is being done. We have seen and heard it from moms and dads. They come to us and pleaded absolutely implored us to act that at some distant point in the future at the end of the are very hopeful we will have a vote. I will be an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote in part thanks to the testimony you have offered today. Its been tremendously impactful and moving and very powerful and its science based persuasion. You stated you are not a lawyer but ultimately engineering is what makes save facebook from the perils and dangers created along with other social media. It is not alone and my hope is we will move forward let it affect to make a big in a concerted effort to reduce its harm and inform the public about how they can do it as well. So thank you for your testimony today. And this hearing will be adjourned now but the record will remain open for a week his colleagues have any questions or want to submit in writing. And in the meantime again my thanks to you for your very impactful and important testimony today. The meeting is adjourned. [background noises] [inaudible conversations] [background noises] [background noises] [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]