here on c-span. right now we take you live to capitol hill for a house judiciary committee hearing looking at internal documents from twitter and how the company made decisions to moderate online content. >> incitement to violence or anarchy, overthrow of government. anything other than that is historically covered by the first amendment. >> so when we -- yes. >> so when we look at the state department funding to affect domestic u.s. speech, was that speech outside the legal bounds? did it call for insurrection or other illegal activities that would destroy our government? >> no. we're not saying that didn't happen but we're describing people having political arguments online. mr. issa: ok. let me -- because my time is limited like everyone's -- suffice to say that virtually every bit of the speech, whether foreign or domestic online, fell within the normal protections of the first amendment and the very act of federal dollars being used to stifle that speech is in fact historically what we would consider an indictment against the first amendment protections? >> correct. mr. issa: that is why we have this subcommittee. that is why we are here today. thank you. >> i thank the gentleman. i now recognize the gentlelady from florida for five minutes. ms. wasserman schultz: thank you, mr. chairman. i want to talk about information sources. the code of ethics said journalists should avoid -- being a republican witness today certainly casts a cloud over your objectivity. but a deeper concern i have is how they perceive certain things. they should not accept cherry-picked information if there has an invalid conclusion, would you agree with that? mr. taibbi: i think it depends. ms. wasserman schultz: you wouldn't think they should not have spoon-fed, cherry-picked -- easily disputed or foregone conclusion. >> congresswoman, i have probably done a dozen stories doing whistleblowers. every reported story i have done across three decades involve sources who have motives. every time you do a story, you're making a balancing test. ms. wasserman schultz: ok. reclaiming my time my time. thank you very much. i ask you this because before you became elon musk's hand-picked journalist and part of the objection -- pardon the oxymoron you stated this on joe rogan's podcast being spoon fed information. i think it's true of any kind of journalism. you see that behind me. once you start getting handed things, then you've lost. they have you at that point and you got to get out of that habit. you just can't cross that line. do you still believe what you told mr. rogan, yes or no? yes or no? mr. taibbi: yes. ms. wasserman schultz: good. now, you crossed that line with the twitter files. mr. taibbi: no. ms. wasserman schultz: it's my time. please do not interrupt me. elon musk spoon-fed -- [laughter] ms. wasserman schultz: elon musk spoon-fed you his cherry-picked information which you must have suspected is a skewed viewpoint or another right-wing conspiracy theory. you violated your own standard and you appeared to have benefited from it. before the release of emails -- of the emails in august of last year you had 661,000 twitter followers. after the twitter files, your followers doubled and now it's three times what it was last august. i imagine your substab reedership, which is a subscription, increased significantly because of the work you did for elon musk. now i am not asking to you put a dollar figure on it but it's quite obvious you profited from the twitter files. you hit the jackpot on that vegas slot machine to which you referred. is it true? mr. taibbi: i also reinvested -- ms. wasserman schultz: no. is it true you have profited since you were the recipient of the twitter files, you made money? yes or no? mr. taibbi: probably a wash, honestly. ms. wasserman schultz: you have made money you did not have before, correct? mr. taibbi: but i also spent money that i didn't have before. i just hired a whole group of people. ms. wasserman schultz: reclaiming my time. attention is a powerful drug. eyeballs, money, prominence, attention, all of it appoints to problems with accuracy and credibility and the larger point which is social media companies are not biased against conservatives and if anything, they ignored their own policies by allowing trump and other maga extremists to post incessant lies, endangering public safety and even our democracy. hypocrisy is the hangover of an addiction to attention. now, i want to point out another alleged finding from the twitter files. mr. shellenberger, you referenced several times this $3.4 million that the f.b.i. paid to twitter in 2020 that was referenced in counsel jim baker's email. nowhere in the email does baker said it was paid to censor information, take down posts or do anything related to content moderation, is that correct? mr. shellenberger: it is. ms. wasserman schultz: $3.4 million was paid to release information, not censor it. one told republicans that it was used to, yoet, censor -- quote, censor different stories, that's a flat out lie. when social media companies comply with subpoenas, warrants, or court orders, it costs them money. so they get reimbursed. the f.b.i. makes these requests and ream burnsments to discover evidence relative to a criminal investigation. let me repeat that. the f.b.i. makes these requests to help catch the bad guys. that helps keep child predators off social media sites. it helps keep violent criminals off the streets. i support the f.b.i. and our law enforcement agencies. it would be nice if our republican colleagues did the same and not fabricate those designed for clear purposes in federal law. my time is just about wrapped up. the truth is that social media companies are unregulated monoliths. they pose danger to individuals. they allow posts that bring harm, and that's the bottom line. this -- the other side will not tell you. i yield back the balance of my time. . >> i will let, the gentleman, mr. shellenberger respond. i would also point out i did nod twitter $3.4 billion. mr. wasserman schultz: i didn't ask him a question. chair jordan: they have been attacked by the federal government. i'll let him answer that before recognizing mr. bishop. mr. wasserman schultz: you going to do that as we move down the line of questioners? chair jordan: the gentlelady is not recognized. mr. shellenberger, you can respond. mr. shellenberger: i'll be brief. twitter had decided not to take that money until recently. if you read that email what the person is saying is they started taking money after previously not take t-fplgt i believe the reason they had not taken it earlier is they did not want that financial conflict clouding their relationship. must wasserman schultz: give the money spaeuplt under federal law -- chair jordan: the gentleman from north carolina is recognized. mr. beneficiaryon: mr. taibbi, would you care-tkeurpbl' down on this end -- i am adown here on this end. would you care to respond to your ethics. you weren't given an opportunity to answer. if you would be brief. mr. taibbi: that moment was recounting a section from a book where he described a scene where the c.i.a. gave him a story. he was very uncomfortable. he said that i, who had always gotten the secrets, was being handed the secrets. again, i have done lots of whistleblower stories. there is always a balancing test you make when you are given material. and you are always balancing newsworthiness versus the motives of your sources. in this case the newsworthiness clearly outweighed any other considerations. i think everybody else who worked on the project agreed. mr. bishop: doesn't it seem like any reporter who breaks a blockbuster story is going to get attention and there may be even financial consequences? it seems like as sure as night follows the day that's the case, right? mr. taibbi: i would like to clear up things that have been misrepresented. not one of us has been paid to do this work. we traveled on our own. we hired our personnel on our own. i just hired a pretty large team to investigate this issue. out of my own pocket. mr. bishop: the fact the attempt comes from the dais across the aisle to smear you, frankly, i think liberals, if i understand that, in your background, you are both good liberals and come in and the democrats' hostility to what you have undertaken is astonishing to hold, but it's part of the picture we are seeing. in twitter files number 15, you exposed hamilton 68, a website associated with a german marshal fund that purported on a dashboard to identity russian pwot networks and became cited by media to identify media stories or narratives that supposedly flowed from russia. from russia. you showed that the front man for hamilton 68 was clint watts. a for f.b.i. agent. the twitter executives were ridiculing hamilton 68 for the ludicrous identifications which they were making which they could reverse engineer and figure out whose accounts those you. in twitter file number 17 after disclosing mr. watts' identity you disclosed that j.m. burger is the creator of hamilton 6. guess what? he was a federal contractor, right? mr. taibbi: he was. he denies he worked on it for the global engagement center, he was an employee of theirs until about a month before the dashboard's release. mr. bishop: just a month before. he said publicly that dashboard was the product of three years' work. doesn't it beg the question whether the creation of this fraudulent hamilton 68 dashboard was effectively underwritten by government funding? mr. taibbi: yes, i think that's a good question. certainly the german marshal fund, the n.g.o. that is at the top of the chain of this organization, the german marshal fund and alliance for securing dome dempsey. and hamilton 68. they are a federal contractor. they received over $1 million from the department of defense. they are the board of the alanes leighance for securing democracy has a former acting head of the c.i.a., former deputy head of the n.s.a. mr. bishop: the bigger point is hard because the example sometimes start making it. i want to introduce the country to somebody else i think you mentioned it. richard stingle. you know who that is? mr. taibbi: the first head of the global engagement center. mr. bishop: i want the american people to hear from him for 30 seconds. >> basically every country creates their own narrative story. and my old job at the state department what people used to joke as the chief propaganda job. we haven't talked about that. i'm not against propaganda. every country does t they have to do it to their own population. mr. bishop: every country does t every country does propaganda and they have to do it to their own people. is what he said. he was the head of the global engagement center at its creation, right? mr. taibbi: he was. in his book "information wars" there are a number of passages where he talks about create ago whole of government solution to the information problem. he hastened to say that he didn't want to create a quote, information ministry. what he was describing roughly approximate mates that. mr. bishop: he also was associated with hamilton 68, right? mr. taibbi: the global engagement center certainly had ties to hamilton 68. mr. bishop: closer than that. that will come out. mr. taibbi: i would be anxious to hear that. mr. bishop: i hope i'll get yelled kwrao*elded a minute. this committee has to uncover not that single instance but this system that you have described. this is the hope that americans have to set this right. this committee. and that hostility shows what we are up against. it's not three pillars to the system, it is four. and you are seeing the left move to crush you and anybody else to tries to expose this. i yield. chair jordan: i thank the gentleman for his five minutes. i yield to the gentleman from california , mr. connolly. mr. connolly: thank -- virginia, mr. connolly. mr. connolly: thank you, mr. chairman. i don't know what to say. after that last one. we are elected officials. we are trying to get at the truth. we are trying to participate in the process at getting at the truth. mr. taibbi, you have said that this isn't really a matter of right or left. that there are lots of different ideological colorations involved in the twitter files. is that correct? mr. taibbi: yes. mr. connolly: mr. shellenberger, you would agree? mr. shellenberger: yes. mr. connolly: when you release information, have you released any information, of, for example, right wing elements or the trump white house attempting to moderate content at twitter? mr. taibbi: no. not the trump white house. i did report initially in the first twitter file that the trump white house had made and requested and have been honored. mr. connolly: mr. shellenberger. mr. shellenberger: i did not find that. mr. connell hr*pb-i khro*eupb you haven't found it. we had a hearing the other day on twitter. we had four witnesses, and all four testified under oath they had never received a request for content moderation or take down by the biden white house. but they did from donald trump's white house. specifically the case brought up was an exchange between donald trump, then president of the united states, and kristi where he had called her something, and she called him something back. i won't repeat it. and this was under oath confirmed. yep, that happened. and that the white house shortly thereafter, after teagueian had her email about the president which was pejorative, that the white house called twitter to try to take down the content. you aware of that, mr. taibbi? mr. taibbi: i certainly heard that in the news. yes. mr. connolly: did you see that email exchange? mr. taibbi: no, i have not seen an exchange from the trump white house. i have seen one from congressman schiff and one from senator an gus king. mr. connolly: nice try. we are talking about the trump white house. people under oath confirming it. my question is, in the twitter files, did elon musk or twitter provide you with that exchange with her? mr. taibbi: no, that's probably because the searches -- mr. connolly: probably because it didn't confirm the bias that this is all about as the gentleman from texas would say, the left, attempting to control content when the evidence is the trump white house most certainly attempted to control content and twitter. mr. shellenberger, were you aware of that? or is this news to you? mr. shellenberger: i already answered that question. mr. connolly: i mean specifically the tiegen exchange? mr. shellenberger: it was news to me. mr. connolly: i'm probably mispronouncing her name, sorry. let me ask, have you combed the so-called twitter files to look at other examples that aren't about the biden white house or the f.b.i. that might involve people from the right ideologically or the republican ranks? just to be fair. mr. taibbi: again, mr. congressman, i mentioned before queer focused -- before we are focused not on the biden administration or the trump administration. just this morning we released an exchange where twitter talked about vetting the accounts of both mr. biden and mr. trump. really, we were looking at the intelligence agencies when we were doing this research. as i mentioned before, their conclusions targeted people on both the left and the right, globally. again, including the yellow vest movement in france. the pro-maduro accounts in south america, and leftist news organizations in america like consortium. some of these people are my friends. we found those in intelligence lists that were passed on to twitter just as we found lists that included ordinary trump supporters. mr. connolly: thank you. reclaiming my time my i appreciate that. what you say undermines the premise of this secretary committee. which is the federal government has been organized to weaponize against conservative voices. and of course, what you just indicated in your testimony is, actually, that's not the evidence you found. mr. taibbi: i think this committee, my understanding, they are concerned about the weaponization of the government against free speech, which is certainly -- mr. connolly: my time has expired. i appreciate your understanding of the committee. i have a different understanding. chair jordan: you got the wrong understanding. last week in the full judiciary committee hearing i introduced into the record a story of a left wing journalist who said that the -- talked about the f.b.i. putting a paid informant, a felon, in the black lives matter movement in denver. i want to focus on the first amendment like protecting the first amendment just like these -- >> point of order, mr. chair. are you going to respond after -- chair jordan: i'm taking my five minutes. >> it's your five minutes? chair jordan: i'm taking my five minutes. i ask for an additional two seconds for being interrupted by the ranking member. the truth is we want to focus on protecting the first amendment. mr. shellenberger, are you a republican? mr. shellenberger: no. chair jordan: you got protrump? mr. shellenberger: i voted for biden. chair jordan: no maga hats. you and mr. taibbi said this is the most chilling thing you have ever seen as journalists. mr. taibbi, are you not a republican. mr. taibbi: no. chair jordan: this is protecting the first amendment. mr. tybee -- taibbi, you said after weeks of twitter files the bureau issued a statement wednesday. referring to the anybody tpheufpblt here's what the f.b.i. said. unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the american public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency. you then follow up, they must think we are unambitious if our sole aim is to discredit the f.b.i. a whole range of government agencies discredit themselves in the twitter files. then you go on to, in this twic twitter file i'm talking b. what mr. bishop was talk about, the c.i.a., the d.o.d., f.b.i., the d.h.s., the foreign intelligence task force which a a combination of all these, there was one agency you didn't mention because you didn't know at the time. one agency, you didn't mention one agency. the f.t.c. you know about them now. mr. taibbi: yes. chair jordan: in an up close and personal way. you didn't know then. you do know now. december 2 as i said earlier, the first twitter file comes out, mr. taibbi, i think there are five others. including one from mr. shellenberger. december 13, the first letter that the f.t.c. sends to twitter after the twitter files, 11 days after the first twitter file, five come out, the f.t.c.'s first demand in that first letter after twitter files come out is identify all journalists, quoting, identity all journalists and other members of the media to whom twitter worked with. you find that scary, mr. taibbi, that you got a federal government agency asking a private company who in the press are you talking with? mr. taibbi: i do find it scary. i think it's none of the government's business what journalists private company talks to and why. i think every journalist should be concerned about that. and the absence of interest on that issue by my fellow colleagues in the mainstream media is an indication of how low the business has sunk. there was once a real he predecorps in camaraderie in the media. whenever one of us was gone after we rose to the challenge. chair jordan: used to be. mr. taibbi: that is gone now. we don't protect one another. chair jordan: democrats used to care about protecting first amendment free speech rights. i said this on the house floor. i said don't think they won't come for you. the big tech, cancel culture. they may come for republicans and conservatives now. the mob is never satisfied. they will keep coming. mr. shellenberg, do you know who the chair of the f.t.c. a? mr. shellenberger: not personally. chair jordan: linda kahn. she used to work for these folks. the same ones attacking you today. worked for them. here's what she said in a letter where they ask about who -- they name four personally, four journalists by name. you were two of the four. i think it's frankly courageous and brave of you to show up today when you know the federal government has an eye on you personally. any credentialing or background check twitter has done on journalists. think about that. the federal government is saying we want to you do a background check on members of the press. freedom of the press mentioned in the first amendment. they are doing -- they want tweuttory do a background check on you before they can talk to you in america? the f.t.c. led by lena kahn who used to work for these guys is asking that question? now we know. you said at the outset. this is the most chilling story you are "new york times" bestsellers, award winning journalists. in all your time in the journalism field, this issue most important. and how this -- what did you call it, the complex -- mr. shellenberger: censorship industrial complex. chair jordan: big tech, n.g.o.'s, this censorship mr. bishop was getting to. that's what this committee will get to that's not right or left. this is just right or wrong. this is wrong. we know it's wrong. it's about protecting the first amendment. i yield back. i now recognize the ranking member for her five minutes. >> thank you. thank you very much, mr. chair. mr. taibbi, the emails and documents you have produced all date to around 2020, is that correct? mr. taibbi: no, there is a significant portion of them from 2017 and 2018 as well. ms. plaskett: thank you. mr. shellenberger, what dates do you have? mr. shellenberger: i believe that we had emails including 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019. mr. plaskett: mr. taibbiings you said 2018. do you have that? mr. shellenberger: i can't remember. ms. plaskett: how many employees did twitter employ in the 2019-2020. mr. taibbi: i don't know. ms. plaskett: do you know how many on the legal team? or in its public policy team? mr. taibbi: i don't. ms. plaskett: mr. shellenberger do you know how many were employed in content moderation during that time? mr. shellenberger: i do not know. ms. plaskett: we are looking at thousands of employees overall and hundreds in offices where the focus of emails and documents were released. i will ask you, mr. shellenberg, how many emails did mr. musk give you access to? mr. shellenberger: we went through thousands of emails. ms. plaskett: all of the emails for the time period? mr. shellenberger: i never had a single request denied. not only that, the amount of files we were given were so voluminous there was no way that anybody could have gone through them beforehand. we never found an incidence there was any evidence or anything taken out. ms. plaskett: you would believe you have probably millions of emails and documents, right? that's correct? mr. shellenberger: i don't know -- mr. taibbi: i think the number is too high. ms. plaskett: 100,000? mr. shellenberger: probably, yeah. ms. plaskett: probably close to 100,000 loathe both of you are saying. yet in twitter files you are proud 338 of those emails. is that correct? mr. taibbi. ms. plaskett: who gave you access to these emails? who was the individual that gave you permission to access the seems? mr. taibbi: the story is my sources of twitter. that's what i'm going to refer to ms. plaskett: did mr. musk contact you? mr. taibbi: twitter. mr. shellenberger: no. i was brought in my by friend, barry. this story are -- there's been-- mr. plaskett: wise. mr. taoeub taibbi have you had conversations when mr. elon musk? mr. taibbi: i have. ms. plaskett: would -- chair jordan: would the gentlelady yield? ms. plaskett: i'm not. if you let me finish. you had conversations with him not -- said you weren't going to agree to who your sources were. not asking your source. did you have conversation was the owner of twitter. did mr. musk place any conditions on the use. emails or documents? mr. taibbi: no. i was told explicitly that we were given license to look at present day twitter as well as past twitter. ms. plaskett: you had unfiltered access to twitter's unfiltered communications and systems. would those include h.r. files? mr. taibbi: no. we did not have access to personal information of any kind. we signed a waiver. ms. plaskett: you produce the waiver to anyone on this committee or staff? mr. taibbi: i would be happy -- miss misplaskett: have you? mr. taibbi: i haven't. ms. plaskett: if you given us access what you were given by your source to this committee? mr. taibbi: i would never do that. ms. plaskett: i didn't ask if you didn't give the committee the individuals, all the files, you have not? mr. taibbi: no. ms. plaskett: what we are getting is your dissemination, your decision as to what was important and not. mr. taibbi: which is true in every story. ms. plaskett: but you have files that you say you are sharing, but those files are just a smaller period of the files, is that correct? mr. taibbi: yes. ms. plaskett: thank you. the f.t.c. investigation of twitter, you knew they were investigating twitter before the time period that mr. musk came on? mr. taibbi: i was aware. ms. plaskett: the f.t.c. was concerned with user data being hacked or used? is that correct? they didn't have enough checks and balances on that data? mr. taibbi: i wasn't privy to that part. ms. plaskett: have you seen the consent decree? mr. taibbi: no. ms. plaskett: it's concerned with data which would probably be the reason they were concerned if they are giving files to journalists that potentially data about users as well as data about individuals and employees would be given to them. i didn't ask a question. i didn't ask you a question, sir. ok. so do you know that elon musk paid $44 billion for tpweuter is that correct, mr. shellenberger? mr. shellenberger: i read that. ms. plaskett: did you know he received part of the funding from saudi arabia as well as qatar. mr. shellenberger: i heard that. ms. plaskett: one of those individuals who owns while he has canadian citizenship, he is a chinese national, were you aware that have? mr. shellenberger: tkphoeut know that. ms. plaskett: and that he stated that was for the cause. thank you very much for answering my questions. i yield back. chair jordan: the chair recognizes the gentlelady from wyoming. for five minutes. would the gentlelady yield for 20 phebgdz? i thank you for yielding. i think this is interesting. first the f.t.c. is asking for your background. now the ranking member of the committee on the weaponization of government is asking for your sources. ms. plaskett: i never asked them for their sources. i did not ask for sources. chair jordan: the gentlelady is not recognized. ms. plaskett: you are not going to say -- chair jordan: i yield back to the gentlelady. i thank her for yielding. ms. plaskett: i asked who gave it to you. once you said they were your sources i asked you if you had spoken with elon musk i did not ask you who those sources were. for the record. chair jordan: the gentlelady from wyoming is recognized. she will receive an additional 20 seconds. she's recognized. miss haggaman -- ms. hageman: thank you for your work today. thank you for your willingness to come here and be subjected to the kind of abuse that we have observed when all you are trained to do is talk about the importance of the first amendment and why the federal government should not be doing what they did and what has been evidenced in the twitter files. i say sunshine is the best disinfectant. after listening to you and reading the reports i have, does our federal government need to be fumigated. mr. taibbi, i'd like focus on tpweuter files part 9. twitter and other government agencies as i think a lot of the evidence you present in this section tufpts on the major take awastes so important for americans to understand about the seriousness of what was found in the twitter files. in your testimony describing the cooperation between the federal government and tech companies like twitter, you stated, quote, a focus of this growing network is making lists of people whose opinions believe associations or sympathies are midst information, disinformation, or malinformation, end quote. what's interesting to me is that what is missing from that list is the word unlawful. mr. taibbi: true, yes. ms. hageman: noticeably seems to be missing from the f.b.i.'s lexicon. in part 9 you note that the main conduit sending requests to twitter would routinely label these flags as violations of twitter's terms of service. even jim baker, a twitter employee at the time, and someone who is allegedly a former general counsel of the f.b.i., stated, quote, but also odd they are searching for violations of our policies. mr. taibbi, what was the proximate percentage of the f.b.i. request to twitter being based on the justification that the tweet violated the company's terms of service. mr. taibbi: i would say that that was a standard disclosure or standard disclaimer in almost all of the communications from the f.b.i. to twitter. there would usually be a line in there saying something for your consideration we believe the following 207 accounts may have violated your terms of service. but notably they very rarely focused on words like truth or inaccuracy. they often they used the word malinformation, misinformation, or disinformation. i think they are trying to shift the focus from one idea to the other. ms. hageman: i think that's interesting as well. what do you make of the finding that the f.b.i. founded it's responsibility to policing a private companies as a priority over policing violations of u.s. federal law? mr. taibbi: there were a couple of very telling emails that we published. one was by the lawyer named sasha where the company was being so overwhelmed by requests from the f.b.i. in fact they gave each other a digital high five after one batch saying that was a monumental undertaking to clear these. she noted she believed that the f.b.i. was essentially creating, doing word searches keyed to twitter's terms of service. looking for violations of terms of service. specifically so that they could make recommendations along those lines. which we found interesting. ms. hageman: do you believe it's the f.b.i.'s responsibility to police the terms of service for a private company? mr. taibbi: i do not. i think you cannot have a state sponsored anti-disinformation effort without directly striking at the whole concept of free speech. i think the two ideas are in direct conflict. and this is a fundamental misunderstanding. i think a lot of the people who get into this world, some of them i believe in a well-meaning way. i think they are actually trying to accomplish something positive. but they don't understand what free speech means and what happens when you do this. it undermines the whole concept that truth doesn't come from -- isn't mandated. that we arrive at it through debate and discussion. ms. hageman you agree with me the first amendment is broader than twitter's terms of service? mr. taibbi: absolutely, yes. ms. hageman: wouldn't you also agree that the f.b.i. is responsible for complying with the first amendment not twitter's terms of service? mr. taibbi: i would hope so, yes. ms. hageman: you also highlighted the presence of people like jim baker at twitter. again i have noted he is allegedly a former f.b.i. employee. part nine also speaks of a former other government association employees working at twitter. what was the extent to which you found former f.b.i. or other intelligence community employees working at twitter? did you find it odd? mr. taibbi: there was a significant quantity of people who had come from the intelligence world or who had worked at state agencies. that was a very common method by which members -- people who are currently working in government would reach out to twitter. for instance we found an email by a current state department official who reached out to a former state department official asking that 14 ordinary americans have their accounts deleted. that was in a recent twitter file release. there is an extraordinary number of these people. a lot come from the intelligence world, which we did find unusual. ms. hageman: thank you very much. chair jordan: the gentleman from california is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i still try to figure out where all of this is going to go. we have heard a lot from our republican colleagues claiming that somehow all of this ininteraction has led to twitter censoring conservative voices. mr. garamendi: i want to look what the evidence is that that has or has not haepd. in 2020 twitter commissioned a study to example whether its algorithms kwr*eupls promotes conservative or liberal voices. this was a massive study by researchers at the university of cambridge and berkeley. they examined millions of twitter accounts. and 6.2 million news articles that were shared within the united states. the study results were clear. twitter's at-gore rhythms amplifies conservative voices. far more than liberal voices. whatever comes to this question about pressure from the federal government at least up until 2020 it didn't have an effect. a separate study, this one from the indiana university found that partisan accounts, especially conservative accounts, tend to receive more, more followers and followed more automated accounts. so mr. taibbi and mr. shellenberger, are you familiar with these studies? mr. shellenberger: i am. mr. taibbi: i am. mr. garamendi: you know that whatever you may be trying to tell us, the effect on twitter didn't happen. excuse me, it's my time, thank you. i can also give you many real an why littical studies -- analytical studies based on actual evidence. mr. chairman, if i might enter into the record these studies of what actually is going on at twitter with regard to censorship or not censorship. mr. chairman, may i enter those into the file? thank you, mr. chairman. i take that silence as a yes. chair jordan: did you identify the document? mr. garamendi: these documents stuies done by universities and -- chair jordan: it takes more than unanimous consent for these documents. without objection we'll accept them into the record. mr. garamendi: thank you, mr. chair. these studies found that to the extent that far right accounts are being suspended it's not because of their ideology, but because they are spreading conspiracy theories like qanon. you can see those on the board. talk about nonsense. are you ready for these dots? where the country has gone. the rest of the world will go. q is real. on and on. they are up there. and now part of the file also. this type of speech that perhaps our republican colleagues believe social media platforms all of whom, by the way, are private companies, not government, are somehow obligated to post. no matter how crazy, how offensive a post might be. these private companies presumably must advance the lies, conspiracy theory, personal attacks promoted by radicals. i'm pretty sure if the democrats held a hearing today to force fox news to post certain content, my republican colleagues would be up in arms. this is particularly ironic because we know for a fact that fox news does spread dis information and does so while knowing the material is false. we learned from the dominion lawsuit that fox hosts lied about the 2020 election. its executives knew they were lying. and yet they were allowed to continue peddling their lies. here's a reporter speaking to this issue, fox news reporter, he said, dangerously insane. there are two fox executives describing fox decision to push forward election lies as, chasing the nuts off the cliff. there are two other quotes, other tweets, i think we ought to be aware of. and fox news was promoting it. they were promoting trump's lies. quote up there, big protest in d.c. on january 6. be there. will be wild. a call to arms and all of us in this building know the result of that call. second one, mike pence didn't have the courage to do what needed to be done. to protect our country. this is the speech that my republican colleagues would have us to believe is being wrongly, quote, unquote, censored by social media companies. it's offensive, it's absurd. no private company has an obligation to amplify anything. especially not messages that strike at the heart of our democracy. i yield back. chair jordan: the gentleman yields back. the afterutah is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, chairman. thank you witnesses for being here. i suppose this is maybe a little outside your comfort zone. you didn't find yourself this kind of attention when you began this endeavor, i appreciate your courage and commitment you made do-to-doing that. we may not agree on a lot of things when it comes to policy and politics, but we agree on our concern regarding the topic today. and i'll actually follow on from my democratic friend and colleague and the things that he has said. i agree with him. private companies, twitter, facebook they can ban whoever they want. they can mute. they can deplatform. they can set up whatever policy they want and they have the ability to do that. i don't care about that. mr. stewart: i agree with that. they should have that authority. the thing that we are concerned about is would the federal government by proxy essentially contracts this out. since the federal government can't ban speech, they can define time and place, but they cannot ban content. anyone would be foolish to think that when the f.b.i. comes to a private company and highlights speech and then would expect them to do nothing, of course they would respond to that. the f.b.i. knew they would respond to that. the f.b.i. expected them to respond to that. i could use a couple analogies if i could, they sound dramatic, but they are exactly right, it's illegal for the united states to assassinate a foreign leader. it would be illegal for the united states to pay $3.2 million to someone to go assassinate a foreign leader. it's illegal in some cases for the united states -- not illegal, we would have to have a policy debate whether we would invade another country. it would be illegal for the united states to pay a private company like the group in russia to go and fight their battles for them. and that's exactly what the f.b.i. did here. they said, we can't do this ourselves. we'll contract it out. we'll launder this effort through another company. and i would just ask you respond to that. do you think i'm overly dramatic or wrong in my characterization what we see here? mr. shellenberger: i don't. i think it's absolutely correct. freedom of speech is the foundation for our democracy. and what we see here is federal government putting an extraordinary amounts of pressure both on twitter and facebook. we haven't talked about facebook, we now know we have the white house demanding that facebook take down factual information. and facebook doing that. with this morning, we saw the government contractors demanding the same thing of twitter. accurate information that needed to be taken down in order to advance a narrative. mr. stewart: i have to interrupt to agree. we have heard over here, fox news lies. there is a reason that 20% of the people trust media. oh, my gosh, if you want to have a conversation about lies and edee exception in the media, i would love to engage in that. we have seen plenty of it over the last six years. it's not coming from just fox news. "new york times," cbs, nbc, every single one of them were saying things they knew was not true. they didn't say it once. they said it for years. and the white house again trying to stifle things that they know is true. but it doesn't fit their narrative. i have to give one illustration in a minute i have left. when you have an agent, mr. khepb, who goes through twitter and says please see the long list of twitter accounts which we believe violate your terms of service. how do you respond to that and defend that? f.b.i. should be looking at other private companies' policies and then highlighting, hey, these people might be violating your policies. either one of you. mr. taibbi. mr. taibbi: i think there is -- thank you, congressman. there is an important point. in conjunction with our own research there is a foundation for freedom online which -- there is a very telling video that they uncovered where the director of stanford's election integrity partnership talks about how cisa, the d.h.s. agency, didn't have the capability to do election monitoring. so they stepped in to -- quote fill the gaps legally. before that capability could be amped up. when we see in the twitter files is that twitter executives did not distinguish between d.h.s. or cisa and this group e.i.p. we would see a communication that said, from cisa escalated by e.i.p. so they were essentially identical in the eyes of the company. e.i.p. by its own data, this is in reference to what you brought up, mr. congressman, according to their own data they significantly targeted more -- what they call disinformation on the right and left. by a tpobgtor i think of -- by a factor i think of about 10 to 1. i say that as not a republican at all. it's just a fact of what we are looking at. yes, we have come to the realization that this bright line that we imagine exists between say the f.b.i. or the d.h.s. or the g.e.c. and these private companies is illusory and what's more important is this constellation of quasi-private organizations that do this work. mr. stewart: we are overtime. by a factor of 10 to 1 they tried to mute conservative thought. and the federal government cannot contract out suppression of free expression. thank you. chair jordan: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentlelady from texas is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i didn't get that last time, i apologize, mr. chairman. mr. taibbi, i want to follow up a little bit on the ranking member's questions. ms. garcia: what was the first time that mr. musk approach you about writing the twitter files? mr. taibbi: again, congresswoman, that would -- ms. garcia: i can't give it to you, unfortunately. this is a question of sourcing. ms. garcia: it's a question of chronology. you earlier said someone sent you to the internet some message about whether or not you would be interested in some information. mr. taibbi: i refer to that person as a source. ms. garcia: you are not going to tell us when musk first approached you? mr. taibbi: again, congresswomag a journalist -- mr. garcia: do you consider mr. musk to be the direct source of all this? mr. taibbi: now you're trying to get me to say he is the source. ms. garcia: if you are telling me you can't answer it's your source, the only logical conclusion is he is your source. mr. taibbi: you are free to conclude that. ms. garcia: i tkopbd under-the-stand. you can't have it both ways. let's move on. chair jordan: he can't. miss phraes ket: either musk is the force and he can't talk about t if musk is not the source he can discuss it -- >> the gentlelady is out of order. chair jordan: the gentlelady is not recognized. he has not said that. he said he's not going to reveal his source. the fact that democrats are pressuring him to do so is -- [all talking at once] ms. garcia: i have not yielded time to anybody. i would ask mr. chairman to give me back sew some of the time because of the interrupgs. mr. chairman, i am asking you if you will give me the seconds i lost. chair jordan: we will give you that 10 seconds. ms. garcia: thank you. talk about another item you responded to the ranking member. you said that you had free license to look at everything. but yet you yourself posted on your i guess like a webpage, i don't understand what that is, what can i say is that -- what i can say is that in exchange for the opportunity to cover unique and explosive story i had to agree to certain conditions. what were those conditions? she asked you that question. and you said you had none. you yourself posted that you had conditions. mr. taibbi: the conditions i have explained multiple times. ms. garcia: you have not explained. you told her in response to her question you had no conditions. in fact, you used the word license, you were free to look at all of them. all 100,000 emails. mr. taibbi: the question was posed was i free to write about -- ms. garcia: did you have any conditions? mr. taibbi: the conditions was -- ms. garcia: did you have conditions, yes or no? mr. taibbi: yes. ms. garcia: could you tell us what those were? mr. taibbi: attribution, sources at twitter, we break any news on twitter. ms. garcia: you didn't break it on tweuter did you sends the file you released today to twitter first? mr. taibbi: did i send -- ms. garcia: did you send it to twitter first? mr. taibbi: the twitter files? ms. garcia: yes or no. mr. taibbi: the twitter file thread did come out first. ms. garcia: you said earlier you had to put it to twitter first. what you released today did you send that to twitter first? mr. taibbi: i posted it on twitter. ms. garcia: first? first, sir. or did you give it to the chairman of the committee or the staff of the committee first? mr. taibbi: that's not breaking the story. that's giving -- i did give -- ms. garcia: you gave all the information you did not give to the democrats, you gave it to the republicans first. then you put it on twitter? mr. taibbi: actually, no. the chronology is confusing. ms. garcia: tell us what the chronology was. mr. taibbi: i believe the thread came out first. ms. garcia: where? mr. taibbi: on twitter. so then you afterwards gave it to the republicans and not the democrats? mr. taibbi: i'm submitting it for the record as my statement. miss door see ya: did you -- ms. garcia: did you give it to them in advance? mr. taibbi: today. ms. garcia: you still have not given anything to the democrats. i'll move on. i wanted to ask mr. shellenberger the same question, sir. when did you first visit with or get contacted by mr. musk? mr. shellenberger: i'm not going to reveal my sources. i was invited by barry weiss. ms. garcia: asking for chronology. when did you first make contact with mr. musk? mr. shellenberger: i don't know the exact date. it was december. ms. garcia: december. there are a lot of december. mr. shellenberger: last year. ms. garcia: 22? mr. shellenberger: yes. ms. garcia: in your discussion, in your answer, you also said that you were invited by a friend, barry weiss? mr. shellenberger: barry weiss. ms. garcia: this friend works for twitter? mr. shellenberger: she's a journalist. ms. garcia: i'm asking mr. shellenberger a question. mr. shellenberger: barry weiss is a journalist. she's a journalist. ms. garcia: you work in concert with her? mr. shellenberger: yeah. ms. garcia: do you know when she first was contacted by mr. musk? mr. shellenberger: i don't know. ms. garcia: you are in this as a threesome? mr. shellenberger: there were many more people involved. are you being paid to be here today either through consulting fees, campaign contributions? mr. shellenberger: absolutely not. chair jordan: the gentlelady's time has expired. mr. shellenberger: absolutely not. ms. garcia: thank you. chair jordan: i don't know what to say. i'll recognize the gentleman from north dakota for five minutes. mr. arm stropb: i yield. chair jordan: some of my colleagues have co-sponsored the shield act in previously congresses with democrats to protect what we see them trying to do today. protect journalists from having to reveal their sources to government. that used to be a shared position in the congress. unfortunately as we are seeing now, multiple occasions it's not the position anymore. mr. shellenberger, i want to go to twitter files part 7. relate a lot to what you put in there in my opening statement. give you as much time as you want. i'm going to read the first sentence. something jumped out at me when i read the first sentence. twitter files number 7. the f.b.i. and biden laptop. you say this. how the f.b.i. and intelligence community discredited factual information about the biden foreign business dealings both after and before the "new york post" revealed the contefrpbts of his laptop on october 14, 2020. what jumped out at me was, the way you framed it. you did it back kwra*rdz from what -- backwards from what is normally said. normally foreign business dealings both before and after. but i assume you did that for a reason because in fact i think the next sentence you say social media companies discredit legislatived information about hunter biden before and after. you used the normal customary way in the second sentence. the first sentence strikes me you were trying to emphasize the before component of that statement. i want you to just walk us through why you said that. when i read it it certainly was an operation both before and after. as you said after and before. mr. taibbi: thank you, mr. chairman. reading through the events i do not know the extent to which the influence operation aimed at prebunking the hunter biden laptop was coordinated. i don't know who was involved. mr. shellenberger: what we saw was you saw aspen and stanford, many months before then, saying don't cover the material in the hack leak without emphasizing the fact it could be disinformation. so they are priming journalists to not cover a future hack and leak in a way that journalists have long been trained to in the tradition of the pentagon papers made famous by the steven spielberg movie. they were saying cover the fact that it probably came from the russians. then you have the former general counsel to the f.b.i., jim baker, former deputy chief of staff to the f.b.i., both arriving at twitter in the summer of 2020. which i find an interesting coincidence. then the "new york post" publishes its first article on october 14, it's jim baker who makes the most strenuous argument within twitter, multiple emails, multiple messages saying this doesn't look real. there's people, intelligence experts saying that this could be russian disinformation. he is the most strenuous person inside twitter arguing that it's probably russian disinformation. the internal evaluation was it was what it looked to be. it was not a result of a hack and leak operation. why did he think that? the "new york post" published the f.b.i. siena taking the laptop in december of 2019. they published the agreement that the laptop computer store owner, computer store owner had with hunter biden that gave him permission after he abandoned the laptop to use it however he wanted. there wasn't much doubt about the provenance of that laptop. you had jim baker making a strenuous argument. then you get to a few days after of october 14 release, you have the president of the united states echoing what these former intelligence community officials were saying. it looked like a russian influence operation. they were claiming that the laptop was made public by a conspiracy theory. and the conspheurcy theory somehow the russians got it and basically they convinced roth that it was -- this wild hack and leak story. somehow the russians stole it. got the information. gave it to the computer store. it was bizarre. you read that chain of events it appears as though there is an organize the influence operation to prebunk -- chair jordan: why? why do you think they could predict the time, method, and person, why could the f.b.i. predict it? not only did they predict it, they predicted it, so did the aspen institute. seemed like everyone was in the know. here's what's going to happen. we can read the future. how do you think they were able to do that? mr. shellenberger: i think the most important fact to know is the f.b.i. had that laptop in december of 2019. they were also spying on rudy giuliani when he got the laptop and gave it to the "new york post." maybe the f.b.i. agents were going to mark stkubgerberg and facebook and twitter executives and warn the hack and leak involving hunter biden. maybe they didn't have anything to do with the guys with the laptop. as a newcomer to this, somebody who thought it was russian disinformation, i was shocked to see that period, series of events going on. it looked to me like a deliberate influence operation. i don't have the proof of it. the circumstance evidence is disturbing. chair jordan: thank you. now recognize the gentleman from new york, for five minutes. >> i think it's mr. all red -- allred first. chair jordan: i recognize the gentleman from texas. mr. allread: i ask unanimous consent to enter tweets into the record. chair jordan: identify the tweets. mr. all read: can we put the tweets up on the screen? take a look at a couple of tweets from can jay west now goes by ye, at the time these tweets had 32 million followers. mr. taibbi, can you read the tweet, the text there? mr. taibbi: i can't. my eyes are not so great. mr. allred: i'm bit sleepy tonight when i wake up i'm going deaf conthree on jewish people. in all caps. the funny thing is i can't be anti-semitic because black people are jew. also you guys tried to blackball anyone who ever opposes your agenda. can you see the tweet next to it? mr. taibbi: yes. mr. allred: would you describe it star of dave, swastika in the middle of it? mr. taibbi: yes. mr. a.o.l. red: should those tweets be taken down by twitter? mr. taibbi: it's a difficult question. hate speech is protected in the united states. one of my heroes growing up was the ukraine author isaac babble. he gave the speech at the first soviet writers congress. he was asked if any important rights had been taken away. he sarcastically answered, no. the only rights that have been taken away are the right to be wrong. the crowd laughed. he was making an important point n a free country you can't have freedom without the freedom to be wrong. mr. allred: move on to a couple other tweets not from somebody with 32 million followers. this one says, elon now controls twitter. unleash the racial slurs. k word. and n word. the other one says, i can freely express how much i hate inwards now, thank you, elon. these tweets were taken down. even by elon musk twitter. they should have been. because they are hate speech. they lead to real word reactions. in the 12 hours after elon musk acquisition of twitter, hate speech of all kinds spiked on twitter, including a 500% increase in the use of the n word. it's not just online. from 2020 to 021 hate crimes rose almost 40% in major cities. it has real impacts in life. so does election misinformation. and propaganda online. mr. taibbi, i have read a lot of your work. respect some of t you cast a lot of doubt on russian interference in our elections. today you have virtually allege add vast government conspiracy to censor speech. i can tell you that -- i'm not asking you a question. i'll let you know when i do. the threat to our democracy is very real. and it's not just the elections that get all the headlines. in 2018 in a congressional race, two kremlin aligned foreign nationals succeeded in funneling illegal russian money to a trump alliance superpact, spent $1.3 million for the republican candidate. that was my election. my neighbors in east dallas saw advertisements online, in their mailbox, and on their tv paid with russian money. that's not my opinion. that's a fact. proven in the southern district of new york. both of them were contkeubgted. 21 months and one year respectively for con-- >> we are going to leave the hearing. can you continue watching using the c-span now video app or online at c-span.org. we leave this to take you live to the house honoring c-span's more than 40-year commit many to live coverage of congress. members working on a bill to protect free speech on social media. also consideration a resolution -- considering a resolution on blocking the biden administration's rule on clean water regulations.