[inaudible conversations] this hearing will come to order. Ms. Cantwell will join us remotely at the beginning of the hearing. We convene to continue work to make sure the laws that govern it are sufficiently uptodate the internet is a Great Success story thanks in large part to the regulatory and legal structure that we cannot take that for granted and with those prominent internet platforms the witnesses include mr. Jack dorsey. And Mark Zuckerberg of facebook. On october 1st the committee voted on bipartisan and unanimous basis to approve the issuance of subpoenas after discussions among representatives and the Committee Witnesses have agreed to voluntarily and remotely appear there is a strong agreement on both sides of these aisled that hearing frm these witnesses with those deliberations before this committee with legislative reformss with a free and open internet i was 25 years it has been the hallmark of a driving Digital Economy in the United States this has been attributed b to a Regulatory Framework and section 230 of the Communications Decency act and there is little dispute they play a Critical Role in the development andt growth of Online Platform section 230 content providers protection from liability to remove content that they consider to be obscene or lascivious, filthy, excessively violent harassing or objectionable. So to protect the Online Platform some endless and potentially ruinous lawsuits but also has given the platforms the ability to control and stifle even censor content in whatever manner for the standards after 24 years being the law of the land much as changed the internet is no longer and emerging Technology Companies before us today o are no longer scrappy startups now among the largest corporations in the economy and culture in public discourse. The applications they have created its not what they couldve imagined three decades ago they control the overwhelming t flow of information and the public can share. Want to know where the example occurred just two weeks ago after our subpoenas were unanimously approved the New York Post, the fourth largest newspaper ran a story running communications between hunter biden and a ukraine official the report alleged hunter biden facilitated a meeting with his father joe biden who is an Vice President of theen United States almost immediately twitter and facebook took steps to block the story. Facebook according to policy Communications Manager began reducing the distribution on the platform. Pending a thirdparty check and twitter went beyond that blocking all users including the House Judiciary Committee from sharing the article from direct messages even twitter walked the us on the post account entirely say they were potentially harmful its worth noting twitter and facebooks aversion to hacked materials has not always been so stringent when the tax returns were illegally leaked they went to restrict access to that information. Similarly to now discredit the steell dossier was shared without Fact Checking or disclaimers the double standard with a problem under circumstances but the fact that censorship is occurring in the midst of the 2020 election cycle dramatically amplifies the power wielded by facebook andok twitter google recently generated his own controversy when it was revealed to cut off several conservative websites including the federalist make no mistake for those that rely heavily on advertising revenue for their bottom line to be blocked from Google Services or to be demonetized that could be a death sentence. The defense of thesese websites was posting user submitted comment sections that included objectionable content. But googles own platform, youtube house user submitted comment sections for every video uploaded. Seems that google is far more zealous in policing conservativeng sites than its own youtube platform. And with the subject of Net NeutralityTechnology Companies have warned about the grave t threat of battling the flow of information on the internet. And that distribution of content on their own platforms using protection under section 30. And with hypocrisy or that interference so thes are the latest of censorship and suppression of conservative voices of big tech firms are struck with the flow of information without political ideology or agenda. My concern is these platforms are powerfule arbiters of what is true and what content users can access. The American Public gets little insight into the decisionmaking process when it is moderated with little recourse when sensors are restricted those issues are ripe for thoroughth examination and introduce legislation to clarify of those who engage in content moderation it would make changes to the liability shield and what type of content moderation is protected with the challenges thatth we discuss leaving those fundamentals in place. Father some of my colleagues on the other side of thehe aisle see this is a truly partisan exercise their strong bipartisan support and president ial candidates trump and biden have posed repeatedly section 230 in its entirety. And have not yet embraced. That they can focus on the issues that affect all americans with a true diversity. And three discourse is central to our way of life record of todays witnesses for transparency and accountability and fairness in the content moderation process and i think each of them for cooperating with us. Now Ranking Member senator cantwell for her opening remarks. So in the state of washington in washington dc the ecosystem which we very much appreciate just the number one stem economy in the United States and the United States of america so these issues how we harness the Information Age is something that we deal with every day of the week and to have the discussion and discourse i believe that should be broader than just 230. And then how there is a free andd competitive market and with the Publishers Association asking them why they have repented information you alluded to in your testimony that you wish was more broadly distributede. To have the competition in the news market is to have a diversity of voicesit and opinion in my report just recently released true competition and does affect information for our economy and the help of ourf democracy. Look forward to discussing these issues today i dont want this to be a Chilling Effect on a very important aspect to make sure that hate speech or misinformation related to health and public safetyty are allowed to remain on the internet. We all know what happened in 2016 with the Intelligence Agency andnd a Bipartisan Committee the russian operatives did masquerading as americans using targeted advertisement intentionally falsified newsfa articles, self generated content, social media platform tools to interact and defeat tens of millions of social media users in the United States. Deli director of National Intelligence to say in july 2018 the warning lights will be read but the Digital Infrastructure is literally under attack. I take this issue very seriously and i have for many years to make sure as mueller indicated those russian intelligenceca to detail phishing attacks into the state election board so when we had aen subCommittee Hearing former bush Security Director testified iic asked point blank everybody does election interference. Interferences something that we did what we should be encouraging and he responded interfering with infrastructure or election is completely offlimits and unacceptable and then to work aggressively internationally distinction and anybody so i hope today we get a report from the witnesses on exactly what they have been doing to clamp down on election interferencenc and they will tell us what kind of hate speech and misinformation they have taken off the books. It is no secret there are various state actors to take a whack at democracy to sell way of government or our way of life, freedom of speec speech, information and somehow is not as good as we have made it being the beacon of democracy around the globe. Will not tolerate people with our election process or the ability Security Companies in the collective community to speak with misinformation and hate speech but we have to show the United States of america stands behind of principles and they do also transfer to the responsibility of communication online. As my colleagues will know weve been through this in the past that is why we sponsor the hack act to help increase the security and cybersecurity of our nation to include a workforce that is why i join to establish sanctions against russia election interference to make sure we build the infrastructure off tomorrow. So i know some people think issues are out of sight and out of mind. I guarantee they are not many have been actors for a long time they want to destabilize Eastern Europe and we became the second act when they tried to destabilize our democracy e here. I want to show them that we in the United States to have a Fair Election and a fair process we would be that beacon of democracy. So i hope as we talk about 230 and the progress they have made the this information is not allowed online we will consider ways to build and strengthenre that to say as those were testifying today , what can we do on transparency, reporting, analyss , and you will hear a lot about algorithms and the kinds of oversight we all want to make sure we can continue to have a diversity of voices in the United States i do want to say mr. Chairman i am concerned the vertical nature of news and information today i expect to ask the witnesses there is the chokepointe the trn to the digital age. Somehow we have to come together to show that the diversity of voices at local news represents need to be dealt with fairly when it comes to the Advertising Market and too much control on the Advertising Market put the foot on their ability to continue to move forward and grow in the digital age, just as other forms of media have made the transition and still making the transition, we want to have a very healthy and dynamic news media across the United States of america, i plan to ask the Witnesses Today about that, i wish we had time to go into depth on privacy and privacy issues but mr. Chairman, you know and so does senator and other colleagues of the committee on my side, how important it is that we protect American Consumers on privacy issues, we are not done with this work, there is much to do to bring consensus in the United States on this important issue and i hope as we do have time or in the followup to these questions that we can also witnesses about that today, make no mistake gentlemen, thank you for joining us, this is probably one of many, many conversations that we will have about all of these issues but again lets harness the information as you are doing but lets also make sure that consumers are fairly treated and that we are making it work for all of us to guarantee our privacy, our diversity of voices and upholding our democratic principles and the fact that we the United States of america stand for freedom of informati information. Thank you, senator cantwell, you are correct that this will not be the last hearing with regard to the subject matter, i also appreciate you mentioning your concern which i share about local journalism at this point were about to receive testimony from her witnesses, before you begin that let me remind members that todays hearing will provide senators with seven minutes with a round of seven minute questioning rather than the usual five minutes that we have done in the past, at seven minutes the gavel, lets say a few seconds after seven minutes the gavel will go down, even so this hearing could last some three hours and 42 minutes at that rate, this will be an extensive and lengthy hearing, members revise that we will hear closely to the seven minute limit and also shortly before noon as the request of one of our witnesses we will take a short ten minute break. With that we welcome our panel of witnesses, thank you for the testimony and ask them to give their Opening Statements, summarizing them in a fiveminute and the entire statement will be added at this point in the record and we will begin with mr. Jack dorsey of twitter, sir do you hear us and we have contact with you . Yes can hear me. Yes. Thank you for being with us in your now recognized for five minutes. Thank you members of the Congress Committee for the opportunity to speak with the American People about twitter and section 230, ramie rocks will be brief so we can get to the questions, section 230 is the most important law protecting internet speech and removing section 230 will remove speech from the internet. Section 230 gave Internet Services to important tools the first provides immunity from liability from users content the second provides Good Samaritan protection for content moderation and removal even of constitutionally protected speech as long as its done in good faith. The concept of good faith is whats being challenged by many of you today. Some of you do not trust were acting in good faith, that is a problem i want to focus on solving. Other Services Like twitter earn your trust. We ensure more choice in the market if we dont. There are three solutions we would like to propose to address the concerns raised. All focused on services that decide to moderate content. It can be expansion to section 230, legislative framework or commitment to industrywide selfregulation best practices. The first is requiring a services moderation process to be published, how are cases reported and reviewed how are decisions made, what tools are used to enforce, publishing answers to questions like these will make our process more rebuffs and accountable to the people that we serve. The second is requiring a straight forth process to appeal decisions made by humans or by algorithms. This ensures people can let us know when we dont get it right so we can fix any mistakes and make your processes better in the future. Finally much of the content people see today is by algorithms, its very little disability into how they choose what they show. We took the first step in making this more transparent by building a button to turn off the timeline algorithm and its a good start but were inspired by the market approach suggested by doctor before this committee in june 2019. Enabling people to choose algorithms created by third parties to rank and filter the content is an incredibly energizing idea that is in reach. Requiring one moderation process and practice to be published, to a straightforward process to appeal decisions and three best efforts around algorithmic choice, or suggestions to address the concerns we all have going forward. And theyre all achievable in short order. It is critical as we consider these decisions we authorize from new startup and independent developers. Doing so ensures a level Playing Field that increases the probability of competing ideas to help solve problems, we must not entrench the Largest Companies any further, thank you for the time and i look forward to a productive discussion to begin to these and other ideas. Thank you very much mr. Dorsey, we now call, youre recognized for five minutes. Ranking number cantwell and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today, the internet has been a powerful force of good for the past three decades, its improved information whether its connecting americans to jobs, getting critical updates to people in times of crisis or helping a parent finances answers like how can i get my baby to sleep for the night, at the same time people everywhere can use their voices to share new perspectives, express themselves and reach broader audiences than ever before, whether youre a barber in mississippi or home renovator in indiana you can share a video and build a successful business right from the internet. In the space it is been one of the most important equalizers it can be shared and knowledge can flow from anyone to anywhere. The same low value also make it possible for bad actors to cause harm, as a Company Whose mission is to organize the world information and make it universally accessible its accomplished for the opportunities. I am proud that the information Services Like gmail, maps and photos with thousands of dollars of year for free. You feel a deep responsibility to keep the people who use a product safe and secure and long listed innovative tools we are committed to keeping th