Facebook questions. Watch indepth with author Michael Lewis sunday live from noon to 3 pm eastern on book tv on cspan2. Next, social Media Company executives from facebook, twitter and google testified before a Senate Hearing about russianbased accounts that tried to influence the november election and what their companies are doing to protect users from malicious and misleading content. Before a coherent order. Good morning, i like to welcome our witnesses today. Before i introduce them, ill say on behalf of the full committee our hearts and prayers go out to the individuals in new york, the families and the trillions of those affected by this senseless terror. Most on this committee have come to expect this. We spent countless hours working through the threats that exist to this country and around the world and its sad that weve come to the point where really nothing can happen that surprises us, but its the responsibility of this committee to work handinhand with our Intelligence Committee to help keep america safe providing the tools they need. To accomplish their mission, we would continue to do that. This is the case that we are here today and i welcome the witnesses colin stretch, general counsel at facebook, aged, general counsel at twitter and can walker, Vice President and general counsel at google. For several months the media has been fixated on the role that social media platforms play in spreading disinformation and discord during the 2016 elections. This is an opportunity for each of you to tell your respective stories and if necessary, correct the record. My sense is that not all aspects of those stories have been told accurately. I will note for the record this committee is now having its 17th open hearing this year. And the 12th at which we will be discussing russia and russian activities. Today im hopeful we can provide the American People with an informed and incredible assessment of how foreign actors use actors to circulate lies and agitate unrest in last years elections. Im also hopeful you will share with us what your companies are doing to make it more difficult for foreign actors to use your platforms, automate accounts and provide stories to influence resident in the United States. Very clearly, this National Security vulnerability represents an unacceptable risk and your companies have a responsibility to reduce that vulnerability. While we are on the topic of responsibility, i want to use this forum to push back on some narratives that have sprung up around the subject. A lot of folks, including many in the media have tried to reduce this entire conversation to one premise. One actors conducted a surgical, executed covert operation to help elect the United States president. Im here to tell syou this story does not simplify that easy. It is shortsighted and dangerous to selectively focus on one piece of information and think that that somehow tells the whole story. Weve heard from the media out a series of quote, russian Link Facebook ads were specifically aimed at michigan and wisconsin during the lead up to last years president ial election. And that some of those ads targeted specific demographic groups into states. The narrative here is that ads linked to russia were targeted at critical state and directly influenced the elections outcome. What you havent heard is that almost 5 times more ads were targeted at the state of maryland than of wisconsin. Maryland which is targeted by 262 ads in comparison to wisconsins 55 ads. And maryland was not up for grabs. This is a state that Democratic Candidates carried by 26 percent. Of tithe 35 for the 35 of the 55 ads targeted at wisconsin, ran higher to the wisconsin primary before they were identified a republican candidate and moreover, did not one of those 55 ads mention President Donald Trump by name. Or that the key election state of pennsylvania had ad fewer ads targeted at its then at washington dc where 87 percent of the electorate voted for Hillary Clinton or that the three most heavily targeted states in america, maryland, missouri and new york all determined by at least 18 point margins in two of them one by Hillary Clinton. One point the media has gotten correct is that more of these geographically targeted ad ran in 2015 that 2016. Again, before President Trump was identified as a republican candidate for president but some of the context rounding the more than 100,000 worth of devices on hot 00button issues purchased by russian actors is missing. Adds some detail here where the medias failed to do it and put the hundred thousand dollars into a frame of reference, total ad space for the state of wisconsin was 1900 and 79. All that 54 being spent before the primary. Again, for the emergence of a republican candidate. Ads in the state of michigan was 823. Pennsylvania, 300. The belief of the narrative that you have to accept that the sophisticated well resourced russian actors studied our process, assess what states would be critical to the election results, then snuck and invested all of 300 to execute their plan in pennsylvania. 300. Ymore than five times as much money was spent on advertising in california, a state that hasnt voted republican in a president ial election since 1988. Even with the benefit of numbers and what can be calculated andmeasured , this is an incredibly complex story. We can look at the amount of money spent, the number of ads purchase and draw conclusions about priorities. We can look at the divisive content of the ad and the pages that they direct people towards and the number of weeks and retweets and the manipulated search results and drawing inferences about content of the Information Operation. What we cannot do however is calculate theimpact that foreign meddling in social media had on this election , nor can we assume that it must be explanation for an election outcome that many didnt expect. I understand the urge to make this reasonable. Its human nature to make complex manageable explanations and interpret things in ways that inform your conclusions. But that bias. Explain to a statement saying that no ads ran their after the election doesnt prove intent or even motive. Just shows that no ads ran their after the election. This subject is complicated. Theres a whole new vocabulary that comes with this stuff. Impressions are different than views. Viewsare different than clicks. Theres one thing im certain of is this. Given the complexity of what weve seen, if anyone tells you they got this all figured out, theyre getting themselves. We cant afford to kid ourselves about what happened last year and it continues to happen today. That complexity i will note is exactly why we depend on you for expert insight and reliable information. 60 percent of the us populationuses facebook. A foreign power using that platform can influence how americans think and see about one another is as much a Public Policy issue as it is a National Security concern. Crafting an elegant policy solution that is effective but not overly burdensome demands good faith and partnership between companies and this committee. Just recently on the basis of a more complete and sophisticated analysis, the original estimate that 10 million americans were exposed to russian content on facebook was increased to 126 million. That tells me youre companies are just beginning to come to grips with the scale and depth of the problem. That pencouraging but know this, we do better when you do better. I urge you to keep that in mind and to work with us proactively to find the right solution to a very constant and complaining challenge. Ill take a moment here to stress that this hearing, what this hearing is and is not about. This isnt about relitigating the 2016 us president ial election. This isnt about who won or lost. This is about National Security. This is about responsibility. And this is about the deliberative and multifaceted manipulation of the American People by agents of a hostile foreign power. Ill say it again. Agents of a hostile foreign power reached into the United States using our own social l media platforms and conducted an Information Operation intended to divide our society along issues like race, immigration and Second Amendment rights. Its even more galling that the two tear us apart they are using social media platforms americans invented in connection with First Amendment freedoms that define an open and democratic society. While its shocking to think that foreign actors use the social networking and communications mediums that are so essential to our lives today, in an effort to interfere with the core of our democracy, but whats even more troubling is the likelihood that of these platforms are still beingused today to spread lies , provoke conflict and drive americans apart. Your threecompanies , they developed platforms that had tremendous reach and therefore tremendous influence. That reach and influence is enabled by the enormous amount of data you collect on your users and their activities. The American People now need to understand how russia used that information and what youre doing to protect them. Your actions need to catch up to your responsibilities. We have a lot to get you this morning, im going to stop here and i want to thank each of our briefers and witnesses s today and that then turned to the vice chairman for any comments . Let me also express our concerns and thoughts about the tragedy yesterday in new york. Let me get rent i write. In the age of social media, you cant afford to waste too much time or for that matter too many characters in getting to the point. Ill get straight to the bottom line. Russian operatives are attempting to infiltrate and manipulate American Social media, hijacked the National Conversation and to make americans angry. Us against ourselves and at the most basic, to undermine our democracy. They did during the president ial campaign, they are still doing it now. And not one of us is doing enough to stop it. Thats why were here today. In many ways, the threat is not new. Russians have been conducting nfinformation warfare for decades. But what is new is the advent of social media tools with the power to magnify propaganda and fake news on a scale that was unimaginable back in the days of the berlin wall. Today, the tools in many ways seem almost purpose built for russian disinformation techniques russias playbook is simple but formal, it works like this. First, this information agents set up thousands of fake accounts, groups and pages across a wide array of platforms. These fake accounts populate content on facebook, instagram, twitter, youtube, reddit, linkedin and many other platforms. Each of these fake accounts spend literally months developing networks of real people to follow and like their contents. Boosted by tools like paid ads and automated bots. Most of the reallife followers have no idea they are caught up in these webs. These networks are later utilized to push an array of disinformation including stolen emails, statement propaganda like news and sputnik. Fake news and divisive content. The goal is simple. To get this socalled news to the newsfeeds of many potentially receptive americans and to convert covertly and subtly push those americans into directions the kremlin wants to go. Someone deeply respected in the Tech Industry who was involved inthat industry for more than 20 years , has taken me quite a bit of time and im still learning to truly understand the nature of this threat. Even i struggled with the language and the mechanics, the difference between bots, patrols and fake accounts, how they generate tweets and shares and how all of these layers and actions are combined between online ecosystems. What is clear however is that this playback, the slave up offers tremendous bang for the disinformation box. With just a small number of money, adversaries use hackers to steal and westernized data, controls to crack disinformation, fake accounts to build books, bots to drive traffic and adds to target new audiences. They can force propaganda into the mainstream and re on our online discourse. If you look back at the ne , its a pretty good return on investment. So where do we go from here . I believe they will take all of it. Use of the platform companies, the United States government and the American People to deal with this new and involved threat. The social media and innovative tools each of you have developed and changed our world for the better. You transport the way we do everything from shopping for groceries to growing small businesses. But russias ractions are further exposing the dark underbelly of the ecosystem you have created. And there is no doubt that their Successful Campaign will be replicated by other adversaries both nationstates and terrorists that wish to do harm to democracies around the globe. This is not a unique american phenomenon. As such, each of you here today needs to commit more resources to identifying bad actors and when possible, preventing them from abusing our social media ecosystem. Sanction part the pressure of this committee, each company has uncovered only some of the evidence of the ways russians exploited the platforms during the 2016 election. On facebook, much of the attention has been focused on the paid ads onthat russian trolls targeted to americans. However, these ads are just the tip of a very large iceberg. The real story is the amount of misinformation thats been divisive content that was pushed or free on russian back pages which was then read widely on newsfeeds of tens of millions of americans. According to the data, facebook has provided 120 russian back pages, built a network of over 3. 3 Million People. From these now suspended pages, 80,000 organic unpaid posts reached an estimated 126 million real people. More than a third of the population. This is an astonishing reach him just one group in the st. Petersburg. And i doubt the socalled Internet Research agency in st. Petersburg represents the only russian trolls out there. Facebook has more work to do. To see how deep this goes including into the reach that we just found in the last 48 hours of information you provided of that Instagram Post which again, for example, 80,000 post, hundred 80 trolls on facebook, 120,000 pieces of content on instagram and we dont even have the data on how much of that content reached. The anonymity provided by twitter, and the speed by which it shares news makes it an ideal tool to spread disinformation. According toone study during the 2016 campaign , junk news actually outperformed real news in some battleground states leading up to election day. Another study found that generated one out of every five political messages posted on twitter over the entire president ial campaign. Twitter seems to be vastly underestimating the number of fake accounts and plots pushing disinformation. Independent research, the people who testified before this committee is estimated that up to 15 percent of active twitter accounts are potentially 45 million accounts are fake or automated. Despite evidence of significant incursions, outreach and researchers, twitter has only uncovered a small piece of that activity. Although i will acknowledge the last few days that the numbers have gone from 200 accounts to over 2700 accounts and again, i believe theres more to be done. Google search algorithms continue to have problems resurfacing fake news or propaganda. But we cant necessarily attribute the russian efforts , false stories and unsubstantiated rumors we elevated on Google Search the during the recent Mass Shootings in las vegas. Meanwhile, youtube has become our keys go global platform. Google has uncovered 1100 videos associated with this russian campaign. Much more of your content was likely spread through onother platforms. But its not just the platforms that need to do more. The United States government, they have proven incapable of meeting this 21st century challenge. Unfortunately i believe this effort is suffering in part because of lack of leadership. We have a president who acknowledge the threat that russia poses to our democracy. President trump should stop actively delegitimizing american journalism and acknowledge and address this very real threat posed by russian propaganda. I believe this too must do more. We need to recognize the current law was not built to address these threats. I partnered with senators chloe char and mccain on what i believe is the most like touch legislative approach which all my colleagues will review. The act is a National Security bill intended to protect our elections afrom foreign interference we all want to avoid. Finally but perhaps most importantly, the American People also need to be aware of what is happening to our news pages. We all need to take a more discerning approach to what we are reading and sharon, who we are connecting with online. We need to recognize the person at the other end of that facebook or twitter argument may not be a real person at all. The fact is that this russian weapon has already proved its success and costeffectiveness. We can be assured that other adversaries including foreign intelligence operatives and potentially terrorist organizations have read this playbook and are already taking action. Its why we collectively must act. For our witnesses today, i hope you will be healed but we saw in the last election but most importantly tell us what steps you will undertake for us to get ready for the t next one. And we welcome your participation and encourage your commitment to addressing t