[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FACEBOOK, GOOGLE AND TWITTER: EXAMINING THE CONTENT FILTERING PRACTICES
OF
SOCIAL MEDIA GIANTS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JULY 17, 2018
__________
Serial No. 115-64
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
_________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
33-418 WASHINGTON : 2018
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., JERROLD NADLER, New York
Wisconsin ZOE LOFGREN, California
LAMAR SMITH, Texas SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
DARRELL E. ISSA, California HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
STEVE KING, Iowa Georgia
LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
JIM JORDAN, Ohio LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois
TED POE, Texas KAREN BASS, California
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania CEDRIC L. RICHMOND, Louisiana
TREY GOWDY, South Carolina HAKEEM S. JEFFRIES, New York
RAUL LABRADOR, Idaho DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
DOUG COLLINS, Georgia TED LIEU, California
KEN BUCK, Colorado JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland
JOHN RATCLIFFE, Texas PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
MARTHA ROBY, Alabama BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois
MATT GAETZ, Florida VALDEZ VENITA ``VAL'' DEMINGS,
MIKE JOHNSON, Louisiana Florida
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
JOHN RUTHERFORD, Florida
KAREN HANDEL, Georgia
KEITH ROTHFUS, Pennsylvania
Shelley Husband, Chief of Staff and General Counsel
Perry Apelbaum, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
JULY 17, 2018
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
The Honorable Bob Goodlatte, Virginia, Chairman, Committee on the
Judiciary...................................................... 1
The Honorable Jerrold Nadler, New York, Ranking Member, Committee
on the Judiciary............................................... 12
WITNESSES
Ms. Monika Bickert, Head of Global Policy Management, Facebook
Oral Statement............................................... 5
Ms. Juniper Downs, Global Head of Public Policy and Government
Relations, YouTube
Oral Statement............................................... 6
Mr. Nick Pickles, Senior Strategist, Public Policy, Twitter
Oral Statement............................................... 8
FACEBOOK, GOOGLE AND TWITTER: EXAMINING THE CONTENT FILTERING PRACTICES
OF SOCIAL MEDIA GIANTS
----------
TUESDAY, JULY 17, 2018
House of Representatives
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:09 a.m., in Room
2141, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bob Goodlatte
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Goodlatte, Smith, Chabot, Issa,
King, Gohmert, Jordan, Poe, Marino, Labrador, Collins,
DeSantis, Buck, Ratcliffe, Gaetz, Johnson of Louisiana,
Rutherford, Handel, Rothfus, Nadler, Lofgren, Jackson Lee,
Johnson of Georgia, Deutch, Bass, Jeffries, Cicilline, Lieu,
Raskin, Jayapal, Schneider, and Demings.
Staff Present: Shelley Husband, Staff Director; Branden
Ritchie, Deputy Staff Director; Zach Somers, Parliamentarian
and General Counsel; John Coleman, Counsel, Subcommittee on the
Constitution and Civil Justice; Dan Huff, Counsel, Subcommittee
on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law; Amy Rutkin,
Minority Chief of Staff; John Doty, Minority Senior Advisor;
Perry Apelbaum, Minority Staff Counsel; Danielle Brown,
Minority Deputy Chief Counsel and Parliamentarian; Aaron
Hiller, Minority Deputy Chief Counsel, Oversight Counsel and
the Subcommittee on the Constitution; James Park, Minority
Chief Counsel, Subcommittee on the Constitution; Slade Bond,
Minority Chief Counsel, Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform,
Commercial and Antitrust Law; David Greengrass, Minority Senior
Counsel; Arya Hariharan, Minority Counsel; Matthew Morgan,
Minority Professional Staff Member; and Veronica Eligan,
Minority Professional Staff Member.
Chairman Goodlatte. Good morning. The Judiciary Committee
will come to order. And without objection, the chair is
authorized to declare a recess of the committee at any time.
We welcome everyone to this morning's hearing on Facebook,
Google, and Twitter: Examining the Content Filtering Practices
of Social Media Giants. And I'll begin by recognizing myself
for an opening statement.
Today we continue to examine how social media companies
filter content on their platforms. At our last hearing which we
held in April, this committee heard from Members of Congress,
social media personalities, legal experts, and a representative
of the news media industry to better understand the concerns
surrounding content filtering. Despite our invitations,
Facebook, Google, and Twitter declined to send witnesses.
Today, we finally have them here.
Since our last hearing, we've seen numerous efforts by
these companies to improve transparency. Conversely, we've also
seen numerous stories in the news of content that's still being
unfairly restricted. Just before July 4, for example, Facebook
automatically blocked a post from a Texas newspaper that it
claimed contained hate speech. Facebook then asked the paper to
review the contents of its page and remove anything that does
not comply with Facebook's policy.
The text at issue was the Declaration of Independence.
Think about that for a moment. If Thomas Jefferson had written
the Declaration of Independence on Facebook, that document
would have never seen the light of day. No one would be able to
see his words because an algorithm automatically flagged it, or
at least some portion of it, as hate speech. It was only after
public outcry that Facebook noticed this issue and unblocked
the post.
Facebook may be embarrassed about this example. This
committee has the opportunity today to ask, but Facebook also
may be inclined to mitigate its responsibility, in part,
because it was likely software, not a human being, that raised
an objection to our founding document.
Indeed, given the scale of Facebook and other social media
platforms, a large portion of their content filtering is
performed by algorithms without the need of human assistance.
And Facebook is largely free to moderate content on its
platform as it sees fit. This is in part because, over 20 years
ago, Congress exempted online platforms from liability for
harms occurring over their services.
In 1996, the internet was just taking shape. Congress
intended to protect it to spur its growth. It worked because
the vibrant internet of today is no doubt a result of Congress'
foresight in part.
But the internet of today is almost nothing like the
internet of 1996. Today we see that the most successful ideas
have blossomed into some of the largest companies on Earth.
These companies dominate their markets, and perhaps rightfully
so, given the quality of their products.
However, this begs another question. Are these companies
using their market power to push the envelope on filtering
decisions to favor the content the companies prefer. Congress
must evaluate our laws to ensure that they are achieving their
intended purpose. The online environment is becoming more
polarized, not less. And there are concerns that discourse is
being squelched, not facilitated.
Moreover, society as a whole is finding it difficult to
define what these social media platforms are and what they do.
For example, some would like to think of them as government
actors, as public utilities, as advertising agencies, or as
media publishers, each with its own set of legal implications
and potential shortfalls. It's clear, however, that these
platforms need to do a better job explaining how they make
decisions to filter content and the rationale for why they do
so.
I look forward to the witnesses' testimony.
It is now my pleasure to recognize the vice ranking member
of the Judiciary Committee, the gentleman from Maryland, Mr.
Raskin, for his opening statement.
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.
In terms of today's hearing, clearly the majority would
prefer to focus on made-up threats, fabricated, phony, and
inflated threats instead of the real threats that are facing
the United States of America. So today, we resume consideration
of the entirely imaginary narrative that social media companies
are biased against conservatives, companies, I should add,
whose platforms were used to spread vicious Russian propaganda
that helped to elect Donald Trump President.
It is ironic but entirely predictable that today's hearing,
which is ostensibly about the silencing of minority voices,
begins by silencing the minority on this committee, by denying
us a witness of our own choosing, as is our committee custom
and is our right. This decision to exclude a minority witness
continues the majority's recent outrageous assault on the
committee's standard rules, conventions, and practices.
Yesterday, the ranking member sent a letter to the chairman
to protest this decision, and I now ask unanimous consent that
it be entered into the record.
Mr. Issa. I object.
Mr. Raskin. On what grounds?
Mr. Issa. Every bit of the discussion you're having is
outside the fair decorum of this body.
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, who controls the time right now?
Chairman Goodlatte. The gentleman will suspend. And the
gentleman from California has made his objection. However, I
would urge the gentleman to reconsider. It is the custom of
this committee that we make documents in order, and I don't see
any reason why we should stop doing that now. So----
Mr. Issa. Mr. Chairman, I do not object to the letter. I do
object to the gentleman's depiction of so much, so
inappropriate to the decorum of the body, but I withdraw my
objection.
Chairman Goodlatte. I thank the gentleman and dually note
his--without objection, the document will be made a part of the
record.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you for
withdrawing that objection.
This hearing was called as a followup to the one that we
conducted in April on the content filtering practices of social
media platforms. So to be clear, the majority intends to pick
up where it left off with Diamond and Silk when we last met,
and to dedicate one of the last working days before the 5-week
August recess to this conservative fantasy, instead of
examining a long list of real and pressing issues facing
America, beginning with the crisis caused yesterday by
President Trump's abject humiliation before the eyes of the
world in his cooperation with Vladimir Putin and his choosing
Putin's narrative over that of the U.S. Intelligence Community
and the U.S. law enforcement community.
The majority would have us believe this conspiracy theory
about anti-conservative bias despite the fact that the
Republican Party controls every elected component of our
Federal Government: the House, the Senate, the White House, the
Supreme Court. And they're working, of course, to try to
control the workings of the FBI and the Department of Justice,
as well as the majority of State legislators and governorships,
which, in turn, have allowed them to gerrymander congressional
and State legislative seats to cement their political control
over our country.
While there are legitimate questions to be raised about
social media companies' practices in general, alleged anti-
conservative bias is simply not one of them. We continue to go
down a road of pure fantasy.
It might instead be helpful to know what these companies
are doing to weed out the prevalence of false information, fake
news spread by hostile foreign powers and by others in order to
poison our political discourse and divide our people. It might
also be useful to know how social media companies enforce
community standards that target racist, bigoted, or other
inappropriate content and whether their enforcement practices
need more refinement and focus.
Finally, we might take advantage of the fact that we have
representatives from three of the major social media companies
here to ask them what they are doing to protect their users'
data privacy and whether we ought to consider establishing a
single governing framework to protect user data as the European
Union has done. And, in fact, the State of California has moved
dramatically in that direction recently as well.
One need only point to the revelation surrounding the
unauthorized use of Facebook user data by the political
research firm Cambridge Analytica to see the true dangers posed
by a lack of such protection for user data privacy and the
people who use social media every day.
Mr. Chairman, there is no evidence to back the specious
claim that social media companies intentionally target
conservative content for disfavored treatment because of their
political ideology. Moreover, even if they were, it would be
their right as private companies to do so, just like Sinclair
and FOX News have a clear ideological bent and clearly promote
their own form of censorship on their own media platforms.
Rather than wasting our time pursuing fairy tales, I hope
the majority will find some time to examine the pressing
substantive issues that now should be the focus of our hearing
and our committee instead.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Goodlatte. We welcome our distinguished witnesses.
And if you'd all please rise, we'll begin by swearing you in.
Please raise your right hand.
Do you and each of you solemnly swear that the testimony
that you are about to give shall be the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth, so help you God?
Thank you very much.
Let the record show that all the witnesses answered in the
affirmative.
Our first witness is Monika Bickert, the head of Global
Policy Management at Facebook. Our second witness is Juniper
Downs, the global head of Public Policy and Government
Relations at YouTube. And our third and final witness is Nick
Pickles, a senior strategist of public policy at Twitter.
I look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses today.
Your written statements will be entered into the record in
their entirety, and we ask that you summarize your testimony in
5 minutes. And to help you stay within that time, there's a
timing light on the table in front of you. When the light
switches from green to yellow, you have 1 minute to conclude
your testimony.
Welcome to all of you.
And Ms. Bickert, you may begin.
TESTIMONY OF MONIKA BICKERT, HEAD OF GLOBAL POLICY MANAGEMENT,
FACEBOOK; JUNIPER DOWNS, GLOBAL HEAD OF PUBLIC POLICY AND
GOVERNMENT RELATIONS, YOUTUBE; AND NICK PICKLES, SENIOR
STRATEGIST, PUBLIC POLICY, TWITTER
STATEMENT OF MONIKA BICKERT
Ms. Bickert. Thank you.
Chairman Goodlatte, Ranking Member Nadler, and members of
the committee, thank you for the opportunity to be here today.
My name is Monika Bickert, and I am the vice president of
Global Policy Management at Facebook. We appreciate this
committee's hard work as it examines content filtering policies
on social media platforms.
At Facebook, our mission is to give people the power to
build community and bring the world closer together. More than
2 billion people come to our platform each month to stay
connected with friends and family, to discover what's going on
in the world, to build their businesses, and to share what
matters most to them. Freedom of expression is one of our core
values, and we believe that the Facebook community is richer
and stronger when a broad range of viewpoints are represented
on our platform.
Chairman Goodlatte. Let me ask the witness to suspend for a
moment, and let me ask those members of the audience who are
displaying things in violation of the decorum of the committee
to take them down.
Thank you very much. You may proceed.
Ms. Bickert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
People share billions of pictures, stories, and videos on
Facebook every day. Being at the forefront of such a high
volume of sharing means that we are also at the forefront of
new questions about how to engage in automated and manual
content filtering to keep our communities safe and vibrant. We
know that there have been a number of recent high-profile
content removal incidents across the political spectrum, and we
are working to respond to the concerns raised by the Facebook
community, this committee, and others. Let me highlight a few
of the things that we are doing.
First, we recently published a new version of our community
standards, which includes the details of how our reviewers, our
content reviewers, apply our policies governing what is and
what is not allowed on Facebook. We've also launched an appeals
process to enable people to contest our content decisions. We
believe this will also enhance the quality of our automated
filtering.
We have engaged former Senator Jon Kyl to look at the issue
of potential bias against conservative voices. Laura Murphy, a
national civil liberties and civil rights leader, is also
getting feedback directly from civil rights groups about bias
and related topics.
As part of Facebook's broader efforts to ensure that time
on our platform is well spent, we're also taking steps to
reduce the spread of false news. False news is an issue that
negatively impacts the quality of discourse on both right and
left, and we are committed to reducing it. We are working to
prioritize news that is trustworthy, informative, and locally
relevant. We are partnering with third-party fact-checking
organizations to limit the distribution of stories that have
been flagged as misleading, sensational, or spammy. We
recognize that some people may ask whether in today's world it
is possible to have a set of fact checkers that are widely
recognized as objective.
While we work with the nonpartisan International Fact-
Checking Network to make sure all our partners have high
standards of accuracy, fairness, and transparency, we know this
is still not a perfect process. As a result, our process
provides for appeals. And if any one of our fact checkers rates
a story as true, we do not down rank that content.
Similar to our community standards, we have also published
advertising policies that outline which ads are and are not
allowed on Facebook. We recently announced changes designed to
prevent future abuse in elections and to help ensure that
people on Facebook have the information they need to assess
political and issue ads. This is significant and challenging
engineering work.
Our goal is transparency, and we will continue to strive to
find a right balance that is not overinclusive or
underinclusive. We hope that these improvements will ensure
that Facebook remains a platform for a wide range of ideas.
Before I close, I do want to acknowledge the video bloggers
known as Diamond and Silk. We badly mishandled our
communications with them. And since then, we've worked hard to
improve our relationship. We appreciate the perspective that
they add to our platform.
And, finally, I want to reiterate our commitment to
building a community that encourages free expression. We
recognize that people have questions about our efforts, and we
are committed to working with members of this committee, our
users, and others to continue this dialogue.
I appreciate the opportunity to be here today, and I look
forward to your questions. Thank you.
Chairman Goodlatte. Thank you, Ms. Bickert.
Ms. Downs, welcome.
TESTIMONY OF JUNIPER DOWNS
Ms. Downs. Thank you.
Chairman Goodlatte, Vice Ranking Member Raskin, and members
of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear
before you today. My name is Juniper Downs, and I serve as the
global policy lead for YouTube.
The internet has been a force for creativity, learning, and
access to information. Products like Google Search and YouTube
have expanded economic opportunity for small businesses; given
artists, creators, and journalists a platform to share their
work; and enabled billions to benefit from a broader
understanding of the world.
Supporting the free flow of ideas is core to our mission to
organize the world's information and make it universally
accessible and useful. We build tools that empower users to
access, create, and share information like never before. We
build those products for everyone in the U.S. and around the
world. People will value these services only so long as they
continue to trust them to work well and provide them with the
most relevant and useful information. We have a natural and
long-term incentive to make sure that our products work for
users of all viewpoints.
We strive to make information from the web available to all
of our users, but not all speech is protected. Once we are in
notice of content that may violate local law, we evaluate it
and block it for the relevant jurisdictions. For many issues,
such as defamation or hate speech, our legal obligations may
vary as different jurisdictions deal with these complex issues
differently. In the case of all legal removals, we share
information about government requests for removal in our
transparency report.
Where we've developed our own content policies, we enforce
them in a politically neutral way. Giving preference to content
of one political ideology over another would fundamentally
conflict with our goal of providing services that work for
everyone.
Search aims to provide all users with useful and relevant
results based on the text of their query. Search handles
trillions of queries each year, and 15 percent of the queries
we see each day we've never seen before. For a typical search
on Google, there are thousands, even millions, of web pages
with potentially relevant information. Building a search engine
that can serve the most useful and relevant results for all of
these queries is a complex challenge that requires ongoing
research, quality testing, and investment.
Every year, we make thousands of changes to Search to
improve the quality of our results. In 2017, we ran over
270,000 experiments with trained external evaluators and live
user tests, resulting in more than 2,400 improvements to
Search.
We put all possible changes through rigorous user testing
and evaluation. We work with external search quality evaluators
from a range of backgrounds and geographies to measure the
quality of search results on an ongoing basis. These evaluators
assess how well a website gives searchers what they're looking
for and rate the quality of the results. These ratings help us
benchmark so we can meet a high bar for users of Google Search
all around the world. We publish our search quality evaluator
guidelines and make them publicly available through our how
search works website. Our ranking algorithms have one purpose
only: delivering the best possible search results for our
users.
YouTube's mission is to give everyone a voice and show them
the world. It has democratized how stories and whose stories
get told. We work to provide a place where people can listen,
share, build community, and be successful.
To put our work in context, it's important to recognize the
scale of our services. More than 1\1/2\ billion people come to
YouTube every month. We see well over 450 hours of video
uploaded every minute. Most of this content is positive. In
fact, learning and educational content drives over a billion
views on YouTube every single day.
Many creators are able to make a living using the platform.
YouTube channels making over six figures in revenue are up 40
percent over the last year. And digital platforms like YouTube
have long been a place for breaking news, exposing injustices,
and sharing content from previously inaccessible places.
We are dedicated to access to information and freedom of
expression, but it's not anything goes on YouTube. We've
developed robust community guidelines which we publish to
provide clear guidance on the rules of the road. For example,
we do not allow pornography, incitement to violence, or
harassment. Keeping YouTube free from dangerous, illegal, or
illicit content not only protects our users, it's a business
imperative.
Our policies are crafted to support an environment where
creators, advertisers, and viewers alike can thrive. That
includes certain restrictions we may apply to content,
including disabling advertising on videos that don't comply
with our advertiser-friendly guidelines and age restricting
content that may not be appropriate for all audiences.
We also provide user controls like restricted mode, an
optional setting for users who want to filter out more mature
content. Of course, videos that are unavailable in restricted
mode or are not monetized through advertising remain available
on the site.
We don't always get it right, and sometimes our system
makes mistakes. We hear these concerns from creators of all
stripes. Accordingly, we have a robust process for appeal of
both the monetization and removal decisions. We encourage our
users to take advantage of this process if they feel we've
acted in a way that's inconsistent with our policies.
As I mentioned from the start, we build our products for
all of our users from all political stripes around the globe.
The long-term success of our business is directly related to
our ability to earn and maintain the trust of our users. We
will continue to pursue that trust by encouraging and acting on
feedback on ways we can improve.
Thank you for the opportunity to outline our efforts in
this space. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.
Chairman Goodlatte. Thank you, Ms. Downs.
Mr. Pickles, welcome.
TESTIMONY OF NICK PICKLES
Mr. Pickles. Chairman Goodlatte, Vice Ranking Member
Raskin, and distinguished members of the committee, thank you
for the opportunity to be here today. My name is Nick Pickles.
I'm the senior strategist on Twitter's public policy team.
Twitter's purpose is to serve the public conversation. We
have committed Twitter to help increase the collective health,
openness, and civility of public conversation, and to hold
ourselves publicly accountable towards progress. Twitter's
health will be built and measured by how we help encourage more
healthy debate, conversations, and critical thinking.
Conversely, abuse, spam, and manipulation detract from it.
We are looking to partner with outside experts to help us
identify how we measure the health of Twitter, keep us
accountable, to share our progress with the world, and to
establish a way forward for the long term.
We strive to protect expression, including views that some
of our users may find objectionable or with which they
vehemently disagree. We do not believe that censorship will
solve societal challenges, nor that removing content will
resolve disagreements. Threats of violence, abuse of conduct,
and harassment are an attack on free expression intended to
silence the voice of others, thereby robbing Twitter of
valuable perspectives and threaten the free expression that we
seek to foster.
Accordingly, the Twitter rules prohibit this and other
types of behavior on our platform. Our rules are not based on
ideology or particular sets of beliefs. Instead, the Twitter
rules are based on behavior. Accounts that violate our rules
can be subject to a range of enforcement actions, including
temporary and, in some cases, permanent suspension. We are
increasing the transparency of these decisions so that users
better understand our rules and why we are taking action.
Because promoted tweets, our ads, are presented to users
from accounts they have not chosen to follow, Twitter applies a
more robust set of policies that prohibit advertising on, among
other things, adult content, potentially unsafe products, and
offensive content.
We see a range of groups across the political spectrum
regularly use our advertising to promote a variety of issues
and causes. Our enforcement processes rely both on technology
and manual human review. Every day, we have to make tough
calls, and we do not always get them right.
When we make a mistake, we acknowledge them, and we strive
to learn from them. For example, our decision to hold
Congressman Blackburn's campaign launch advertisement was a
mistake. And when it was brought to our attention, we rectified
it the same day. We apologized to her campaign at the time, and
I'd like to apologize to her again today. Importantly, the
tweet itself was never removed from Twitter.
We've made significant progress combating abuse and
manipulation. But our work will never be complete. We have made
more than 30 policy and product changes since the beginning of
last year. Additionally, we recently took steps to remove
locked accounts from follower counts globally. This step will
ensure that indicators that users rely on to make judgements
about an account are as accurate as possible. This change
applies to all accounts active on the platform regardless of
the content they post.
We also recently have integrated new behavioral signals
into how tweets are presented and search results in
conversations targeting behavior that may not violate our rules
but is disruptive. Significantly, this approach enables us to
improve the overall health of the platform without always
needing to remove content.
Some critics have described these efforts as a banning of
conservative voices. Let me make clear to the committee today
that these claims are unfounded and false. In fact, we have
deliberately taken this behavior-led approach as a robust
defense against bias as it requires us to define and act upon
bad conduct, not a specific type of speech.
Our success as a company depends on making Twitter a safe
place for free expression. We are proud of the work we do in
the world. However, we will never rest on our laurels.
As senior strategist, my role is at the intersection of
public policy, product, and trust and safety work. This
juncture is unique in allowing an insight into how our company
defends free expression. And I hope to provide both insight and
reassurance to the committee today.
Thank you again, and I look forward to your questions.
Chairman Goodlatte. Thank you, Mr. Pickles.
We'll now proceed under the 5-minute rule with questions,
and I'll begin by recognizing myself.
All three of you represent companies that have very strong,
in many instances, dominant market shares in the sectors that
you provide services. So I'll ask this to each of you, and
we'll start with you, Ms. Bickert.
All other things being equal, which company is likelier to
be concerned about consumers leaving in response to
discriminatory filtering practices, one with a 75 percent
market share or one with 10 percent?
Ms. Bickert. I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman. I want to make sure
that I understand your question. Would you mind repeating it?
Chairman Goodlatte. Sure. All other things being equal,
which company is likelier to be concerned about consumers
leaving in response to discriminatory filtering practices, one
with a 75 percent market share or one with 10 percent?
Ms. Bickert. Well, I know that at Facebook we want to make
sure that everybody feels welcome. We are a platform for broad
ideas across the political spectrum, and we don't want anybody
on our platform to feel discriminated against. We want to make
sure that our policies are applied neutrally and fairly.
Chairman Goodlatte. And you think that the lack of
competition in your space does not in any way affect that
position?
Ms. Bickert. Mr. Chairman, I know that right now, the
average user of social media in the United States uses eight--
approximately eight internet communication services. So,
clearly, people have a choice in the United States when they go
online. And Facebook is one service they can use, but they can
also use many others.
Chairman Goodlatte. But Facebook owns more than one of
those, right?
Ms. Bickert. We do. We have Facebook, we have Instagram,
and we have WhatsApp. But, again, users have a lot of choice
here, as do advertisers.
Chairman Goodlatte. Ms. Downs.
Ms. Downs. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We operate in an
incredibly competitive environment. The tech industry is very
dynamic. There are new players and entrants to the market all
of the time. And so we have a natural incentive to continue
delivering the most trustworthy, high-quality product to our
users because we know competition is always one click away.
Chairman Goodlatte. Mr. Pickles.
Mr. Pickles. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And it's always
grateful to remind sometimes that our companies themselves are
quite different. YouTube is arguably smaller than our peers
here today.
But from our perspective, the primary focus is that every
user has paramount rights to free expression. And providing the
apps within our rules, we're going to defend that right for
them. I think the question mark of why we make those decisions
is focused solely on the behavior of the user and whether they
violated our rules.
Chairman Goodlatte. Thank you.
Ms. Bickert, do you think that the host of content
producers whose speech has been filtered by Facebook would
complain as loudly if they could simply switch to a competitor?
Ms. Bickert. Mr. Chairman, I think that people do have a
choice to use other services. We are keenly aware that users
have choice, that advertisers have choice. And that's why we
work hard to make sure that Facebook is a place where both
users and advertisers want to be.
Chairman Goodlatte. Thank you.
Ordinarily, the sort of liability exemptions the social
media platforms enjoy are only granted to regulated utilities,
like phone companies. The rationale is that since phone
companies do not have full discretion to determine who to serve
to set the terms and conditions of their services or to
interfere with the content they must carry, they should not be
held culpable for harms caused by use of their services.
Nonutilities, by contrast, are typically subject to judicial
liability if they have not done enough to mitigate harms from
use of their services.
At some point, for example, hotels have a legal obligation
to curb sex trafficking in their rooms, or clubs have a legal
obligation to curb sale or use of illegal drugs on their dance
floors, and pawnshops have a legal obligation to curb fencing
of stolen goods in their stores. Property owners have a legal
obligation to curb hazards on their grounds, and traditional
newspapers and programming networks have a legal obligation to
curb defamation over their outlets.
Therefore, I'd like to ask, I'll start with you, Ms. Downs,
why should your company be treated differently than these other
nonutilities that I've just described?
Ms. Downs. YouTube is a service provider that hosts user-
generated content at an unprecedented scale. And section 230
was crafted to allow service providers like us to remove user-
uploaded content that violates content policies without
assuming publisher liability for all the user-generated content
on our site. Without section 230, we wouldn't be able to remove
harmful content like child pornography without fear of
liability.
Chairman Goodlatte. Mr. Pickles.
Mr. Pickles. I think it's fundamental to competition, is
how do we ensure that new entrants can come into the market and
compete with our businesses. And 230 is an essential part of
that.
And just to build on that point, in our case, for example,
we're able to now detect 95 percent of terrorist accounts on
Twitter ourselves using our own technology and remove them
quickly in 75 percent of cases before they have even tweeted.
So we're able to take those strong steps because of the legal
framework that's in place but that also protects people
competing with us.
Chairman Goodlatte. My time's expired.
The chair recognizes the ranking member, the gentleman from
New York, Mr. Nadler, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Before I begin my questions, I have a motion at the desk.
Mr. Chairman, on July 10, 2001, the Phoenix field office of
the FBI forwarded a memorandum to headquarters to advise the
Bureau of an effort by Osama bin Laden to send associates to
the United States to enroll in civil aviation courses. In the
words of former CIA director George Tenet, the system was
blinking red.
For a host of complicated reasons, the Bush administration
did not follow up adequately. And 2 months later, on September
11, in my district, the World Trade Towers fell.
Mr. Chairman, last Friday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller
indicted 12 Russian nationals for hacking into the Democratic
National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign
Committee, and several State election systems. This indictment
is a remarkable piece of forensic work. With the aid of the
intelligence community, the special counsel can name the
specific Russian military intelligence officers at the keyboard
on a given day. And in the words of Director Coats, a
distinguished former Republican Senator and President Trump's
hand-picked Director of National Intelligence, our digital
infrastructure is literally under attack, unquote, by the
Russian Government as we speak.
Mr. Chairman, this latest indictment can surely be seen as
the equivalent of the Phoenix memo about 9/11. It is a warning.
We must heed it.
Yesterday in Helsinki, President Trump said he does not
believe it. He sided with Vladimir Putin over his own
intelligence community. And he continues to undermine American
law enforcement proclaiming on the world stage that our laws
are meaningless, that the work of investigators has been
worthless, and that no one should take the special counsel
seriously.
This is a catastrophe in the making. If we do not take any
action, the American people may not trust the outcome of the
next election. And instead of taking action in this committee,
instead of refuting the President with information you and I
have both read, Mr. Chairman, we spent 6 more hours questioning
Lisa Page about Cheryl Mill's laptop and Hillary Clinton's
email.
This is a national emergency, and our silence is
unacceptable. Our Nation is under attack. Accordingly, under
committee rule 3(b) and House rule XI (g)(2)(A), I move that
the committee go into-- do now go into executive session for
the purposes of discussing the evidence in our possession that
speaks directly to the special counsel's indictment and to the
President's apparent submission to the Russian Government.
Mr. Cicilline. Second.
Chairman Goodlatte. The motion is not debatable, and the
clerk will call the role.
Mr. Issa. Mr. Chairman, a point of order.
Did you recognize him for a motion or recognize him for an
opening statement?
Chairman Goodlatte. I recognized him for an--for--to
question witnesses. He's offered this motion. It's not
debatable. We're going to vote on it immediately.
And the clerk will call the role.
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Goodlatte?
Chairman Goodlatte. No.
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Goodlatte votes no.
Mr. Sensenbrenner?
[No response.]
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Smith?
[No response.]
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Chabot?
[No response.]
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Issa?
Mr. Issa. No.
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Issa votes no.
Mr. King?
Mr. King. No.
Ms. Adcock. Mr. King votes no.
Mr. Gohmert?
Mr. Gohmert. No.
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Gohmert votes no.
Mr. Jordan?
Mr. Jordan. No.
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Jordan votes no.
Mr. Poe?
[No response.]
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Marino?
Mr. Marino. No.
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Marino votes no.
Mr. Gowdy?
[No response.]
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Labrador?
Mr. Labrador. No.
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Labrador votes no.
Mr. Collins?
[No response.]
Ms. Adcock. Mr. DeSantis?
[No response.]
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Buck?
[No response.]
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Ratcliffe.
[No response.]
Ms. Adcock. Mrs. Roby?
[No response.]
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Gaetz?
Mr. Gaetz. No.
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Gaetz votes no.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana?
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. No.
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Johnson votes no.
Mr. Biggs?
[No response.]
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Rutherford?
Mr. Rutherford. No.
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Rutherford votes no.
Mrs. Handel?
Mrs. Handel. No.
Ms. Adcock. Mrs. Handel votes no.
Mr. Rothfus?
Mr. Rothfus. No.
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Rothfus votes no.
Mr. Nadler?
Mr. Nadler. Aye.
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Nadler votes aye.
Ms. Lofgren?
Ms. Lofgren. Aye.
Ms. Adcock. Ms. Lofgren votes aye.
Ms. Jackson Lee?
[No response.]
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Cohen?
[No response.]
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Johnson of Georgia?
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Aye.
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Johnson votes aye.
Mr. Deutch?
Mr. Deutch. Aye.
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Deutch votes aye.
Mr. Gutierrez?
[No response.]
Ms. Adcock. Ms. Bass?
Ms. Bass. Aye.
Ms. Adcock. Ms. Bass votes aye.
Mr. Richmond?
[No response.]
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Jeffries?
[No response.]
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Cicilline?
Mr. Cicilline. I vote for America. Aye.
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Cicilline votes aye.
Mr. Swalwell?
[No response.]
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Lieu?
[No response.]
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Raskin?
Mr. Raskin. Aye.
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Raskin votes aye.
Ms. Jayapal?
Ms. Jayapal. Aye.
Ms. Adcock. Ms. Jayapal votes aye.
Mr. Schneider?
Mr. Schneider. Aye.
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Schneider votes aye.
Mrs. Demings?
Mrs. Demings. Aye.
Ms. Adcock. Mrs. Demings votes aye.
Chairman Goodlatte. Has every member voted who wishes to
vote?
The clerk will report.
Mr. Issa. Mr. Chairman, while they're counting that, I have
a question for you. Isn't--don't the rules require that each
member receive a copy of the motion?
I've just received it. And since it wasn't spoken about,
I'm surprised at what it says.
Can we see that every member has a copy of the motion
before we close the vote?
Chairman Goodlatte. The clerk will report.
Ms. Adcock. Mr. Chairman, 10 members voted aye, 12 members
vote no.
Chairman Goodlatte. And the motion is not agreed to. But
the gentleman's point is well taken, and the motion will be
distributed to all the members.
How much time is left on the gentleman from New York?
Okay. The gentleman is recognized.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you.
I'll begin my questioning by saying that to the shock of
the Nation yesterday, President Trump stood next to Vladimir
Putin and accepted the Russian President's word over America's
own intelligence community's assessment that the Russian
Government attacked our democracy during the 2016 Presidential
election.
He said, quote, I have great confidence in my intelligence
people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely
strong and powerful in his denial today, close quote.
He went on to call the special counsel probing into that
attack a disaster for our country and a total witch hunt.
I trust the assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community,
not that of Vladimir Putin. And the facts are clearly laid out
in the grand jury indictment obtained by the special counsel.
Thirteen Russian nationals associated with several Russian-
based organizations, quote, posing as U.S. persons and creating
false U.S. personas operated social media pages in groups
designed to attract U.S. audiences. These groups and pages
which addressed divisive U.S. political and social issues
falsely claimed to be controlled by U.S. activists when, in
fact, they were controlled by defendants. The defendants also
used the stolen identities of real U.S. persons to post on
defendants' organization controlled social media accounts. Over
time, these social media accounts became defendants' means to
reach significant members--significant numbers of Americans for
purposes of interfering with the U.S. political system,
including the Presidential election of 2016, close quote.
That's obviously from the indictment issued a few months
ago.
Now, do each of you agree that Russian Government exploited
the social media platforms your company provide--your companies
provide to attack our democracy?
Why don't we go left to right. Ms. Bickert first.
Ms. Bickert. Ranking Member Nadler, as we have stated
publicly, we did find accounts run by the Russian internet
research agency both before they posted content on Facebook
both before and after the 2016 election, and we did remove
those accounts and report on them.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you.
Ms. Downs.
Ms. Downs. Thank you, Ranking Member Nadler. We take
election interference very seriously. And as we described last
year, we did find limited activity on our services; limited
because of the strong security controls we had in place leading
up to the election. But we found two accounts linked to the
internet research agency that had a total spend of less than
$5,000 on our advertising products, and 18 YouTube channels
containing a thousand videos. We terminated all of those
accounts pursuant to our investigation.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you.
Mr. Pickles.
Mr. Pickles. Thank you, sir. Yes, we removed accounts we
believe were linked to the internet research agency. And also,
based on the findings of the U.S. Intelligence Community, took
the decision to off-board Russia Today and all its associated
entities from our advertising products worldwide.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you.
To the extent you haven't answered this question just now,
what steps have your companies taken to prevent further attacks
on our democracy?
If you've already answered it, you just say that.
Ms. Bickert. Thank you, Congressman. We are working
actively with academics, with others in industry, with
government officials to make sure we're doing all we can to
protect the elections coming up here and around the world.
We're also improving our technology to help us find bad actors
earlier.
Ms. Downs. We're committed to working with Congress to
ensure the integrity of our elections. We've undertaken a wide
range of approaches, including a suite of tools called Protect
Your Election that we've been using in our outreach to
campaigns. We've worked with both the RNC and the DNC to
educate them about these tools to protect election websites
from hacking and interference. We also have adopted new
transparency measures around election advertising requiring
verification of those purchasing ads and ad labeling, and we
will publish election ads publicly.
Mr. Pickles. Thank you. So we have also improved
advertising transparency, ads.twitter.com, for such
transparency. One point I would like to flag is the improvement
in technology that we have made in a year on year from this
time last year, we now challenge 9.9 million accounts every
week for suspicious activity, and that's a 299 percent increase
on this time last year.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you.
Ms. Bickert, according to Cambridge Analytica whistleblower
Christopher Wylie, Facebook data from 87 million Facebook
profiles was used to develop psychographic profiles abuses
which were then used by the Trump campaign to target users with
online pro-Trump advertisements.
Cambridge Analytica reportedly acquired this data from
researcher Aleksandr Kogan who collected the data through a
person--personality quiz app he created for Facebook's
platform. According to news accounts, Facebook learned that Mr.
Kogan had passed this data to Cambridge Analytica in 2015,
demanded that this data be deleted, and asked the parties to
certify that it was deleted.
At that time, did Facebook take any additional steps,
beyond the self-certification, to confirm this data has been
deleted? And currently, when Facebook determines that data has
been acquired to use by a third-party app in violation of
company policies, does your company take active steps to
confirm that any improperly acquired user data is secured or
destroyed?
Chairman Goodlatte. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The witness may answer the question.
Ms. Bickert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Congressman, after we were notified of the potential breach
in December of 2015, we did take steps to obtain a
certification from Cambridge Analytica. And this is--I'll echo
the comments of our CEO when he testified before Congress on
this. But we are taking many steps now to make sure that we
understand the extent of any data that may have been passed to
Cambridge Analytica and that we are also taking steps to make
sure that this has not happened with other apps, or that if we
do uncover any abuse, that we disclose it to anybody who may
have been affected.
Mr. Nadler. Thank you very much.
Chairman Goodlatte. The chair recognizes the gentleman from
California, Mr. Issa, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Issa. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Downs, I'm sorry you're from YouTube. I understand the
request was for Google, and you're a subsidiary. And you may
find this not as on point to YouTube, but there are similar
examples at YouTube, so--but I'm going to phrase this in a
Google corporate fashion, if you don't mind.
Last month, Google provided a link for the California GOP,
the official website of the Republican Party in California,
that, unfortunately, because of a decision made by Wikipedia
not to discipline and control their own content, had a
reference to Nazism for the California Republican Party.
Now, I'm a big supporter of emerging technologies, and I
will always defend that things can happen in emerging
technology that are unintended and, over time, they get
corrected, and each of your three companies and the many
companies that your companies have acquired deal with that
every day. But when Google was a younger company, it was a blue
box reference company, meaning that, by definition, what you
did was, if I clicked on--if I Google searched something, what
I would end up with is I'd end up with a list of places that I
could then click on and go to.
In the case of Wikipedia, currently, Google is using
Wikipedia, scraping the information, and essentially using it
almost as though its own content, meaning you're providing not
a link to this site but you're, in fact, putting their
information out as your information.
Since Wikipedia is an external, fairly broad, in many
cases, list of people, sometimes with political biases that
will deliberately distort or do bad things to a site, and
YouTube faces the same situation, how are we to hold you
accountable when, in fact, instead of simply being a search
source, you, in fact, are scraping the information? And this
could be--obviously, we could look at how you treat restaurants
in some cases making them your own, and so on. But
specifically, when you absorb the content, aren't you absorbing
the responsibility? And since, in the case of Wikipedia,
clearly you were not scrubbing the content.
Ms. Downs. Thank you. So knowledge panels are derived from
a variety of sources across the web, including Wikipedia and
other sources like the CIA----
Mr. Issa. That's not the question, ma'am. The question is,
aren't you absorbing the responsibility, and can't--and
shouldn't we hold you responsible at least to the level of care
that newspapers, ever so poorly, are held to?
Ms. Downs. So we have robust protections in place to
protect from this type of vandalism. And when we include
information from other sites, like Wikipedia or any other site,
we also include a link to their site so that users can click
through to the original website and read the information there.
So we still are following the traditional model of search to
link to information across the web. It's just an opportunity
for users to get information at a glance alongside organic
search results.
In the case of the California Republican Party, you're
correct that Wikipedia was vandalized. We have protections in
place to protect our services from showing information that's
shared across the web pursuant to that kind of vandalism.
Unfortunately, our systems didn't catch it in time in this
instance, but we did fix it as soon as we were on notice and
apologized to the California Republican Party for the----
Mr. Issa. So now for each of you, a question that
piggybacks the chairman's question. As your technologies now
across the board are, by definition, mature, not just because
they're more than a decade old in most cases, but because in
the, if you will, the quarterly speed that goes on in San Jose
and in other emerging technology areas, if we don't hold you
accountable after a decade, then the reality is we never get
past a decade. New technologies typically come in.
So each of your technologies, why is it today that this
side of the dais shouldn't begin looking at holding you
accountable for what you publish that you--no matter where you
scrape it from, if you make it your own, if you adopt it, why
shouldn't we hold you at least to the level of care that we
hold public newspapers and other media to?
And I'll go right down the aisle.
Ms. Bickert. Thank you, Congressman. We feel a tremendous
sense of accountability for how we operate our service, and it
is in our business interest to make sure that our service is a
safe place.
Mr. Issa. Mine is a strict liability question. Should we
open you up to litigation under the standards of care that the,
if you will, other media are held to?
And if you could answer briefly, because my time is
expired, each of you.
Ms. Bickert. Congressman, we believe that section 230 of
the Communications Decency Act is essential for online
companies like those represented here today. And we also
believe it's consistent with operating safe products that give
consumers choice.
Mr. Issa. Anyone else, please?
Ms. Downs. We believe that the openness that's enabled by
230 has brought tremendous benefits to the world. And for most
of our products and services, we don't do the things many
traditional publishing operations do, like author or copy edit
content.
Mr. Pickles. I think such an approach risks putting speech
at risk and it risks competition. Our role is to have clear
rules, to enforce those rules well, and to be more transparent
in how we're doing that to build trust and confidence.
Mr. Issa. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate all their comments,
but I would note that free speech was created and supported by
a newspaper system from our founding that lived by different
rules. And I yield back.
Chairman Goodlatte. I thank the gentleman.
The chair recognizes the gentlewoman from California, Ms.
Lofgren, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Lofgren. Well, I think this is such an interesting
hearing, I think, motivated by a sense of persecution on the
part of Republicans and conservatives that somehow they're
being unfairly treated when they have a majority in the House,
the Senate, the White House. And when the analysis shows by
NewsWhip that conservative news sites have three times more
user engagement than liberals do, there's been no evidence
whatsoever that I have seen and that the majority has been able
to provide that there's any bias whatsoever.
I--you know, the idea that we would adopt SOPA somehow in
response to this feeling of persecution is astonishing to me.
But I'd like to get into another issue, which is really the
business model that is used in the digital environment that I
think has an unintended consequence.
Whether it's content discovery or user engagement or
targeted advertising, your algorithms target what a user wants
to see. And so, in other words, what I see is really tailored
to my interests. And that's really for an advertising purpose.
But the net result is that Americans have been isolated into
bubbles. Now, where the purpose was really to sell ads, the net
effect is that all of us have sort of ended up in echo chambers
with confirmation bias that has allowed the American public to
be exploited by our enemies.
And, you know, the Russians tried to attack our
infrastructure. We know that now, from the indictments, the
Russian military was involved. This isn't meddling. This is an
attack on the United States. And our people have been made more
vulnerable because of the isolation that is the side product of
your advertising model.
So I'm wondering if you have, each of you, given some
thought on how the model might be adjusted so that individuals
who end up in these bubbled echo chambers can be freed from
those echo chambers and have a more generic experience so that
Americans can begin talking to each other again instead of just
being led down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories related
to one political theory or another.
If each of you could share your thoughts on that.
Ms. Downs. Thank you, Congresswoman. We let users know when
information that we're providing to them has been personalized.
We believe transparency there is very important. So, for
example, on YouTube, with watch next with the recommended
videos, we label recommended for you if something is based on
things that the user has watched before, and it's a
personalized recommendation. And our search----
Ms. Lofgren. But most people don't look at that. They're
just getting the next--and it's--they're getting the next view
because it's something that--it's a preference, and so you can
sell ads. But it isolates further and further down that rabbit
hole.
What else are you doing?
Ms. Downs. So in our research and recommendations
generally, we aim to show users information from a variety of
sources. In fact, we have research that shows that users do
like to engage with content from a variety of sources. So we
are very conscious of not wanting to isolate people. And
because we have such a breadth and depth of content on our
services, we aim to design products in a way that shows content
from diverse sources.
Ms. Lofgren. What about Facebook?
Ms. Bickert. Thank you, Congressman. We've got a number of
initiatives that are designed to increase the breadth of
information that people come across if they're interacting with
news on Facebook. First, we announced back in, I believe it was
December, that we were working with third-party fact checkers.
If we have indications that something on Facebook, a news story
may be false, then we are sharing beneath the news article
related articles from around the----
Ms. Lofgren. Let me ask a follow-up question, because
millions of Americans were sent material by the Russian
military. Would Facebook contact each Facebook user and say,
you were sent this by the Russian military in an effort to
influence you?
Ms. Bickert. Anybody who saw content that was put on
Facebook by Russia's IRA, we did proactively send notice to and
let them know. And all of those accounts violated our policies.
The mistake we made was we didn't catch them fast enough, and
we've improved our systems to make sure that we do.
What we're doing going forward to combat the issue that you
mentioned of people getting into bubbles, first, I would note
that our research does suggest actually--and we're looking at
studies from other places as well--that suggest that people
actually come into a broader range of views when they are
online versus when they are offline.
On Facebook, there are--people, in general, have about 23
percent of friends come from different political ideologies
than themselves. So we know that diversity is already out
there. What we're trying to make sure we're doing is giving
people the information to make educated choices about the news
they want to interact with. And we're doing that through this
related articles and other programs that we put out since
December and January.
Ms. Lofgren. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Goodlatte. The time of the gentlewoman has
expired.
The chair recognizes the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. King, for
5 minutes.
Mr. King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I thank all the
witnesses.
I know that you can't necessarily see the entire gallery
behind you. But I would point out that there's not one gray
head in the entire packed gallery today. There must be a
message in that for all of us sitting on this panel and in this
room and for America. A lot of youth has stepped up and are
paying attention to where this goes. And I would say remember
these days and look back about 20 years ago when section 230
was passed with an anticipation of what the internet would grow
into and what great care to making sure it had the kind of
flexibility to grow into the companies we have before us today.
We shouldn't be surprised if we have a few problems and maybe
some serious ones that have emerged. But on the other hand, we
do have a lot of freedom.
And so I'd turn first to Ms. Bickert, and I'd point out
that it's a matter of congressional record that Gateway Pundit
Mr. Jim Hoft has introduced information into the record that,
in the span of time between 2016 and 2018, he saw his Facebook
traffic cut by 54 percent. And could you render an explanation
to that for him and for me, Ms. Bickert?
Ms. Bickert. Thank you, Congressman. I can't speak to any
one individual's decline in reach or popularity on Facebook. I
can say that we do change the way that our news feed algorithm
works. The algorithm basically--it's individualized, and it
gives people--it sorts or ranks content for each individual
user based on people that they follow, pages that they follow,
groups that they belong to. So it's an inventory of content
that they have chosen.
And we do make changes to that over time, and we have made
some this year that might affect whether or not people have--it
might affect their reach in some way. But there are also other
factors such as how appealing their content is or what sorts of
content they're producing and who they're trying to reach that
would also affect it.
Mr. King. But we actually did speak to Diamond and Silk.
But their issue--and they watched their traffic drop too. And I
saw them repeat a tweet after you lifted the--apparently the
algorithm that had cut down on their distribution or their
content.
But what you've described to me, I think, are a series of
judgment calls that are being made. Can you be more precise on
how an algorithm actually works?
Let me just try this definition. A series of if then
formulas that are written so that--let's just say if a certain
word shows up, then that sets up a software alarm bell that,
perhaps, connected with another word or two or a phrase would
cause it automatically to be kicked out. Is that a fair
explanation of what goes on?
Ms. Bickert. It works a little differently than that,
Congressman. What the algorithm looks to is what is the type of
content--it looks at things like what is the type of content
that an individual user tends to interact with, what's the
recency of a certain piece of content, what type of engagement
is that content generating.
There is no--there is no point at which an individual
Facebook employee decides where an individual piece of content
will go in somebody's news feed. This is based on giving users
the content that is the most relevant to them based on their
interactions with the----
Mr. King. Okay. And but there's still judgment calls
involved, and you have people that are ethics experts that are
applying a certain strategy to the algorithms. Is that a fair
assessment?
Ms. Bickert. We definitely do have--the algorithms are
written by people, and we do definitely look at the----
Mr. King. With the counsel of your ethicists----
Ms. Bickert. We definitely make sure we are taking into
account ethics and fairness as we work on our algorithms----
Mr. King Have you used the Southern Poverty Law Center as
one of those advisory groups?
Ms. Bickert. No, Congressman, we do talk to more than a
hundred organizations in the course of setting our content
policies, and that includes organizations from around the
world. They do not have any--no organization has decisionmaking
over our content policies----
Mr. King. But not SPLC, has not been under contract or been
a formal advisor to Facebook in any way?
Ms. Bickert. No, Congressman, not that I'm not aware. We
have talked to SPLC along with more than a hundred other
organizations in the course of getting input from our community
about what we can do better.
Mr. King. Okay. I could go further with that. But, instead,
I think I'll just in the seconds I have left, I would ask you
to contemplate an alternative, Ms. Downs, now--and by the way,
I tweeted out the picture of the gallery, so you know that, Mr.
Pickles.
But, Ms. Downs, I think you have a sense and a concern
about where this is going, and I'm all for freedom of speech
and free enterprise and for competition and finding a way that
we can have competition itself that does its own regulation so
government doesn't have to. But if this gets further out of
hand, it appears to me that section 230 needs to be reviewed.
And one of the discussions that I'm hearing is, what about
converting the large behemoth organizations that we're talking
about here into public utilities? How do you respond to that
particular query, Ms. Downs?
Chairman Goodlatte. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The witness may answer the question.
Ms. Downs. Thank you, Chairman. As I said previously, we
operate in a highly competitive environment. There are--the
tech industry is incredibly dynamic. We see new entrants all
the time. We see competitors across all of our products at
Google, and we believe that the framework that governs our
services is an appropriate way to continue to support
innovation.
Mr. King. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Goodlatte. The chair recognizes the gentleman from
Georgia, Mr. Johnson, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yesterday,
the President of the United States humiliated America on the
world stage. He lavished praise upon a dictator known to have
interfered with our election in an effort to destabilize our
democracy and then proceeded to criticize American law
enforcement's investigation into the Russian misconduct.
When asked that the now infamous press conference with
President Putin whether or not he, quote, held Russia at all
accountable for anything in particular, end quote, Trump said
that he, quote, holds both countries responsible, end quote.
President Trump has gone from acting like a dictator to
prostrating himself before a foreign dictator on the world
stage. This is a moment of great national peril where Americans
must be alarmed at the danger that lies ahead for our country
under current leadership.
No longer can we pretend that what President Trump is doing
is normal. Rather than hearing this bullying Facebook about how
it treated Diamond and Silk or bullying Twitter about how it
treated Marsha Blackburn, the powerful House Judiciary
Committee should be holding hearings on what the Russians are
doing now to disrupt the upcoming November elections. Instead
of holding a salacious 11-hour marathon hearing last week about
Peter Strzok's emails to Lisa Page, this committee should be
holding hearings on how to protect rather than undercut the
Mueller investigation.
Now, moving to my questions, I want to thank you all for
being here today. In 2016, both the Russian Government and
independent foreign actors took advantage of advertising rules,
account rules, and posting rules, to help sway the Presidential
election in favor of Donald Trump. And for the past year and 9
months. We have been paying the price. From Russian bots to
fake news, Americans heading to the polls have had to grapple
with the question of what is real and what is fake? I care
about the security and sanctity of our elections, and I believe
that we all share a responsibility in keeping misinformation
out of our elections and minimizing foreign influence.
Mr. Pickles, in January of 2018, Twitter disclosed that it
had removed more than 50,000 Russia-linked accounts. Isn't that
true?
Mr. Pickles. Yes, sir.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. How many Russian-linked accounts
have you suspended since that time?
Mr. Pickles. I don't have that figure at hand. I'm happy to
follow up. However, I would say our systems our catching
behavior from accounts across the spectrum. Our systems are
designed to defend Twitter from manipulation by any actor. And
we see different actors attempting to use our platform. That's
why we now catch 9.9 million accounts every week and challenge
them because of suspicious behavior. That is up 299 percent in
1 year.
So I think we're doing much more to learn from 2016 and to
put robust protections in place to the forthcoming elections.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you. How do you differentiate
these fake accounts from real people? Are you using software,
or are these human vetting decisions?
Mr. Pickles. Thank you for that question. It's a good
opportunity to explain our work. So, firstly, we have a lot of
technology----
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Quickly.
Mr. Pickles [continuing]. That is working across this. And,
secondly, we do have teams of people. So we have a dedicated
information quality team at the company, which was established
after 2016, to focus on these issues, to understand behavior
about actors, and then reinforce our technology. So it's a
combination of the two.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you.
Ms. Bickert, Facebook's 2016 woes with fake news have been
well documented. Foreign actors used your platform to generate
and cultivate untrue stories, and Russian-backed Facebook posts
reached millions of Americans. Your company has been working to
fight fake news since then, but misinformation still exists.
Does Facebook believe that it has a responsibility to fact-
check our platform, and looking ahead to November, are you
planning on doing anything different for the midterm elections
compared with what you're doing now?
Ms. Bickert. Yes, Congressman, we're doing a lot more, and
I think we've gotten a lot better since the 2016 election. I'll
point to three things quickly. One is we've gotten much better
at removing fake accounts. The accounts that Russia's IRA had
on Facebook around the 2016 election were inauthentic. We now
have a mix of technical tools and human reviewers that have
gotten much faster at identifying and removing those types of
account. And before the French election, the German election,
we removed tens of thousands of such accounts that we know to
have been inauthentic.
The second thing we're doing is requiring much greater
transparency around advertising. Now if somebody runs a
political or issue ad in the United States, you can see who
paid for that advertisement. You can also see all the ads that
that entity is running, even if they are not targeting you at
all. We're requiring identity verification for anybody who is
running those ads.
And, finally, we are working to reduce the spread of false
news through Facebook. We know this is a problem, and we're
doing things like working with third party fact-checkers to
identify when content might be false and then providing
relevant information to users so that they can make an informed
decision about what to trust.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you.
And, Mr. Chairman, Ms. Downs, could she respond to that
briefly?
Chairman Goodlatte. Yes. And I will, without objection,
extend another minute because I want to follow up with one of
the questions that Ms. Bickert answered of yours.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. I'll yield to the gentleman.
Chairman Goodlatte. The second point you made about
disclosing who paid for a political ad. Do you also disclose
how much they paid or the rate they paid for the ad?
Ms. Bickert. No, Mr. Chairman, we just disclosed--I believe
we just disclosed who paid for it. I can follow up with details
on how we do that.
Chairman Goodlatte. Thank you. Ms. Downs, you can answer
the question.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you.
Ms. Downs. Google has strong security protections in place
to protect against state interference. And we have worked to
extend those security protections to campaigns. We've trained
over 1,000 campaign professionals on a suite of tools called
Protect Your Election. These are digital tools designed to
protect election websites and political campaigns from digital
attacks.
As I mentioned, we also have implemented more transparency
with election advertising, as I described previously, and we're
continuing to fight misinformation on our products, both
through enforcement of our policies against deceptive behavior
and through surfacing more authoritative content when people
are looking for news or current events. We do that across both
search and YouTube.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Thank you, and I yield back.
Chairman Goodlatte. The chair recognizes the gentleman from
Texas, Mr. Gohmert, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Gohmert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We appreciate you being here today. And I want to that my
colleagues across the aisle for their concerns about Russian
interference with our elections because it's been going on for
70 years. It helped Truman get elected in 1948. Eisenhower
called the Russians on it in '56, the manipulation there.
Khrushchev bragged in '60 that he helped throw the election to
Kennedy. It's been going on. The Progressive Party, as they
were called previously, and now it's been reemerged, and the
Democratic help to Jimmy Carter. It's--or the help from
Russians.
So I am thrilled that we're going to get help across the
aisle to get to the Russian input stopped. But I need to ask
each of you: You have been asked specifically about Russian use
of your platforms, but did you ever find any indication of use
of your platform utilized by the Chinese, North Korea, or any
other foreign country, intelligence, or agency of that country?
First, Ms. Bickert.
Ms. Bickert. I would note, Mr.--I would note, Congressman,
that we are not in North Korea or China. In terms of whether
we've seen attacks on our services, we do have--we are, of
course, a big target. We do have a robust security team that
works to----
Mr. Gohmert. But that is not my question. It's just very
direct question. Have you found use? You don't have to be in
North Korea to be North Korean intelligence and use--we have
foreign governments' intelligence agencies in this country. So
have--it would seem to me you were each a little bit vague
about how, oh, yes, we found hundreds or whatever. I'm asking
specifically, were any of those other countries, besides
Russia, that were using your platform inappropriately? It
should be a yes or no.
Ms. Bickert. I don't have the details. I know we definitely
work to detect and repel attacks----
Mr. Gohmert. I know that, but were any of them foreign
entities other than Russia?
Ms. Bickert. I can certainly follow up with you on that.
Mr. Gohmert. So you don't know? You sure seemed anxious to
answer the Democrats' questions about Russia influence, and you
don't really know of all the people--of all of the groups that
inappropriately used your platform, you don't know which were
Russians and which were other foreign entities?
Chairman Goodlatte. Congressman, we certainly have seen
attacks from people other than Russians. As far as the details
of from whom those attacks have come, I would have to have my
team follow up with you on those.
Mr. Gohmert. So you don't know about China? You're sure
about Russia, but you don't even know about China?
Ms. Bickert. I would have to have my team follow up with
you----
Mr. Gohmert. So you came prepared to help the Democrats
establish about Russia, but you can't point out any other
country. Is that right?
Ms. Bickert. Congressman, we have put public statements----
Mr. Gohmert. Well, let me go--you're not answering the
question.
Let me go to Ms. Downs. How about on Google, did you detect
any other countries besides Russia utilizing your platform
inappropriately?
Ms. Downs. Our security team is trained to protect our
services from foreign interference----
Mr. Gohmert. Are we going to get to an answer to my
question?
Ms. Downs. So the team has certainly----
Mr. Gohmert. Are we going to get to an answer of my
question? Did you find any other countries besides Russia that
were using your platform inappropriately? Very simple.
Ms. Downs. The investigation that we conducted was specific
to Russian interference in the 2016 election, but----
Mr. Gohmert. You don't know if China did or not?
Ms. Downs. My guess would be that our security team has----
Mr. Gohmert. You're here to guess?
Ms. Downs [continuing]. At breaching our security from
other foreign governments as well, but that information is held
confidentially, even internally.
Mr. Gohmert. So you're only here to condemn the Russians.
Thank you.
How about you, Mr. Pickles, are you prepared to identify
any other foreign countries or just here to help the Democrats
blast Russia after 70 years of Russia helping Democrats?
Mr. Pickles. Well, certainly happy to help the committee
and yourself understand our work to defend elections.
Mr. Gohmert. I understand that. But did you find any other
countries besides Russia that inappropriately used Twitter?
Mr. Pickles. So we suspend these accounts because they are
breaking our rules.
Mr. Gohmert. I understand that. Did you find any other
countries or their agencies inappropriately using Twitter?
Mr. Pickles. Well, to echo points of my colleagues, I think
our services, people----
Mr. Gohmert. So did you find any other countries besides
Russia that inappropriately used your Twitter?
Mr. Pickles. Sir, I'm happy to follow up on that specific
question.
Mr. Gohmert. But you did not come prepared to answer any
questions about any other country but Russia? Is that correct?
Mr. Pickles. So I think it was important on the election--
--
Mr. Gohmert. You answered the question about Russia. You
can't answer about China? Yes or no.
Mr. Pickles. So we make these decisions based on our
rules----
Mr. Gohmert. You're very good at dodging refusing to answer
the questions. Let me just say, I think Mr. Raskin had the key
to the solution here when he said that he didn't think they
discriminated, but if they did, they have every bit as much
right as FOX News and Sinclair. There's the key. They should be
just as liable as FOX News and Sinclair. I yield back.
Chairman Goodlatte. The time of the gentleman has expired.
And the gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Jackson Lee, is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Please forgive me, I am probably going to
be coughing, and I apologize. But let me thank Ms. Bickert, Ms.
Downs, and Mr. Pickles, first of all, for representing the kind
of technological engines that have been a real asset, an anchor
of America's genius.
It is a responsibility of Congress to give guidance and
regulation, as we have noted the expanse of both, including--
not both, it's three of you: Twitter, Facebook and Google. And
I think you recognize that in your businesses that it's
important for congressional oversight.
Ms. Bickert, I'm just getting a yes or no. Is that your
appreciation?
Ms. Bickert. Yes, definitely.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Ms. Downs.
Ms. Downs. Yes, we're always happy to work with Congress.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Pickles.
Mr. Pickles. Yes, absolutely.
Ms. Jackson Lee. And you have done so. And so I'm going to
have a line of questioning. I know my colleague earlier, Mr.
Raskin, mentioned a lot of issues that this committee should be
addressing, and my time is going, but I will reiterate: We have
not had hearings dealing with the snatching of children from
families. And we're not and have not had elections dealing with
the intrusion and the invasion of the election, in particular
by certain countries.
So let me just ask you this: On July the 13th, the Mueller
investigation issued an indictment of 12 Russian intelligence
officers, some of them military. Again, I will be asking yes or
no questions. Ms. Bickert, did your company have any
involvement in that indictment?
Ms. Bickert. Congresswoman, we have cooperated with the
investigations since we have been asked, and we've been public
about that cooperation.
Ms. Jackson Lee. You have cooperated, but did you have any
direct involvement with the ultimate result of an indictment?
Ms. Bickert. I can't speak to the indictments or how they
were put together, but we have cooperated with investigations.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Ms. Downs.
Ms. Downs. Not to my knowledge.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Pickles.
Mr. Pickles. We have cooperated, but specifically on the
indictment, not to my knowledge.
Ms. Jackson Lee. So we have three people here that have
provided the necessary information, but if we are to
extrapolate what a prosecutor does--and we know that they do
that independent of the information that they receive. So I
want to pose a comment and then proceed with a series of
questions.
First of all, as I indicated, this committee needs to
proceed with hearings involving the question of the Russian
intrusion and stealing of the 2016 election. And I have come to
a conclusion now that it was truly stolen. And dealing with
these engines that have been effective for the United States on
that issue seems to be a stretch and inappropriate. But I do
think it's important that we have the ability to provide to
allow freedom to the extent that people are utilizing the First
Amendment.
Do you believe that the First Amendment covers your--each
of your companies? Ms. Bickert, I'm just going down the line.
Ms. Bickert. Well, Congresswoman, we do have community
standards about what is acceptable and not acceptable. But
certainly, to the extent that the First Amendment regulates the
governments, we operate consistent with U.S. laws.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Ms. Downs.
Ms. Downs. As a private company, we aren't bound by the
First Amendment, but obviously we work with the U.S. government
on meeting any of our obligations in terms of how speech is
regulated in the U.S.
Mr. Pickles. I'd echo those points. Just to emphasize
again, we have our own rules that we're proactive in enforcing
to make sure that speech on Twitter is within those rules.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Well, I think what you're saying, I think
private companies are bound by the First Amendment. I think
what you're saying is that we can't cry ``fire'' in a crowded
theater. So you're able to regulate accordingly.
Let me ask the question: Ms. Bickert, what are doing to
prevent Unite the Right, the organizer of the Charlottesville
rally, from using the FB to plan their upcoming rally mid-
August if it is declared and is conspicuously hate speech?
Ms. Bickert. Congresswoman, any time that we see somebody
organizing an event for violent purposes or engaging in calls
for violence or hate speech, we will remove it from the site.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Ms. Downs, what are you doing as relates
to your company's data privacy policies and methods in which
you comply with these policies?
Ms. Downs. We've invested considerable resources at Google
to create one of the most sophisticated privacy programs in
existence. Thousands of employees are dedicated across the
company to daily to ensure that we protect the privacy and
security of our users. Our three guiding principles are
transparency, control, and choice. We believe in being
transparent with users, communicating in clear language, and
there's a single destination called My Account that we have
created where users can see all of the data we collect and
store, and have control over revoking any permissions they have
given previously, et cetera. It is a very well-used site, over
1.6 billion visitors in 2016.
Ms. Jackson Lee. Mr. Pickles, can you share any of the
changes--you've made about 30--of your product changes, so can
you share some of them with us?
Mr. Pickles. Absolutely. So one example might be we rolled
out a new policy focusing on violent extremist groups. Those
are groups who focus on encouraging violence against civilians,
which we clarified our policy. We also rolled out a change last
week, you may have seen, where we updated people's following
numbers to make sure they're authentic and don't include locked
accounts. And we've also rolled out for the U.S. midterms
specific new labeling for accounts that belong to candidates in
those elections.
Chairman Goodlatte. The time of the gentlewoman has
expired.
Ms. Jackson Lee. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. My final
sentence is just to thank them. They are international
companies; I wanted to clarify that. But I also want to clarify
that they do represent an economic engine that we have to
appreciate, work with, and protect others from bad speech.
Chairman Goodlatte. We thank the----
Ms. Jackson Lee [continuing]. And also recognize their
value.
Chairman Goodlatte. The chair recognizes the gentleman from
Pennsylvania, Mr. Marino, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Marino. Thank you, Chairman.
I want to that all--over here. I want to thank all of you
for being here. I am going to start with you, Mr. Pickles,
because Ms. Bickert gets hit with usually the first, tell us
what you think. I'm going to read a legal term: libel. You're
all familiar with that. Liable is to publish in print,
including pictures, writing, or broadcast through radio,
television, or film, an untruth about another which will do
harm to that person or his or her reputation by tending to
bring that target into ridicule, hatred, scorn, or contempt of
others. So we all understand what that is.
Given the fact that your companies reach, I think, far more
people than a conglomeration of the newspapers, radios, and
televisions combined in the United States. Have any of you sat
back and considered libel, or do you think you are immune from
it. Sir?
Mr. Pickles. I'm happy to start, and thank you for the
opportunity to outline what we do in this area. So, as I say,
we have clear rules that govern what happens on Twitter. Some
of those behaviors are deplorable, and we want to remove them
immediately. So terrorist content is one example where we now
detect 95 percent of the terrorist accounts that we removed----
Mr. Marino. I understand that, sir. But how about--we, in
Congress, we put up with it all the time. I know that we are
public officials, the same way as people in the movies or so
on, but do you specifically look for and address republication
can be used in a defamation case. Do you look at libel and
defamation content?
Mr. Pickles. So we--as I say, we focus on our rules. Those
rules govern a wide range of behavior.
Mr. Marino. With all due respect, I've heard you focus on
your rules about 32 times today. Do you look for libel or
defamation in your company's opinion?
Mr. Pickles. Sir, I think our company's opinion is
expressed in those rules that publicly available----
Mr. Marino. Okay. Now you've answered my question. Thank
you. Next.
Ms. Downs. Thank you, Congressman. So YouTube is a platform
for user-generated content, and we respect the law in the
nearly 200 countries where we operate, which means once we're
on notice of content that may violate the law, we take action
by blocking it for the relevant jurisdictions.
Mr. Marino. Is it specific towards defamation and/or libel?
Ms. Downs. Including defamation removal, yes.
Mr. Marino. Because you know the reproduction of those
statements--have you ever been sued, that you know of, based on
defamation and libel?
Ms. Downs. I don't know the answer to that question.
Mr. Marino. Okay.
Ms. Bickert.
Ms. Bickert. Thank you, Congressman. Similar to YouTube, we
do have a notice and takedown approach where people can submit
legal--notifications to us of illegal speech, and that would
include, where appropriate, notifications of libel.
Mr. Marino. Where do you draw the line, each of you? We
still have some time. I'll start with you, Ms. Bickert. Where
do you draw that line? Do you have specific rules, a policy,
that determine in your company's opinion what is libel and what
is defamation?
Ms. Bickert. There's two ways this might be addressed. One
would be if it was a violation of say our bullying or
harassment policies.
Mr. Marino. Because we know young people are committing
suicide because of things that are said about them on the
internet. But please go ahead.
Ms. Bickert. And we take that threat extremely seriously,
which is why we don't allow bullying, and we do consider it a
safety-related policy.
Mr. Marino. I appreciate that.
Ms. Bickert. Those are our own lines. And then separately
we sometimes will receive notifications that are legal takedown
requests for speech that breaches the law in a specific
jurisdiction. Our legal team evaluates those, and if
appropriate, then we'll remove that speech.
Mr. Marino. Ms. Downs.
Ms. Downs. We have a very similar process in place for
legal removals. Once we're on notice of content that has been
deemed to violate the law, then our team evaluates and then
blocks the relevant jurisdiction. On top of that, we also have
content policies for our platforms like YouTube that prevent
and prohibit things like harassment and so on.
So we take those policies particularly seriously when it
comes to young people, and we have various protections in place
to ensure that we're enforcing them robustly.
Mr. Marino. Mr. Pickles.
Mr. Pickles. One additional, hopefully useful, piece of
information is we also work with a site Lumen, which is a
project that discloses when we do take content down, subject to
legal orders as described. And we also publish the number of
times we do that in a transparency report.
Mr. Marino. Do you do that through AI, artificial
intelligence, and/or individuals reviewing? Could you all three
quickly answer that because my time has just run out, and I
yield back.
Mr. Pickles. People.
Ms. Downs. We use a mix of humans and technology to enforce
our policy, and legal removal requests are reviewed by a
special legal team.
Chairman Goodlatte. The time of the gentleman has expired.
The chair recognizes the gentlewoman from California, Ms. Bass,
for 5 minutes.
Ms. Bass. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And I also want
to thank my colleague, Representative Deutch, for allowing me
to go out of order. There's been an awful lot of discussion and
questions today about social media and conservatives, but I
wanted to ask, particularly, Ms. Bickert, about over-censorship
of activists on the left as well, and what is Facebook doing to
address disproportionate censorship of people of color on the
platform. And an example is, over the last few years, multiple
well-known black activists have had their content removed or
accounts banned for speaking out about racial injustice.
What is your plan to ensure that voices like this are not
silenced on your platform?
Ms. Bickert. Thank you, Congresswoman. It is so important
to us that we are a platform for all of these voices. We know
that at our scale we have billions of posts every day, and we
review more than a million reports every day. We know that we
sometimes will make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes have
affected activists.
One of the things that we're doing is offering appeals so
that if we get a decision wrong, people can ask us to take a
second look, and we will. That is live now. We're continuing to
increase the robustness of the appeals process, but that is
something that we--something that we rolled out after talking
to many of these groups.
Ms. Bass. How would a person know about the appeal? So, in
other words, if you remove content, then do you send a message
saying you can appeal?
Ms. Bickert. So, if somebody posts something on Facebook
and we remove it, we send a notification, and then that gives
them the opportunity to stay: Facebook, I think you got it
wrong.
And then we will----
Ms. Bass. When did you start doing this?
Ms. Bickert. We began--well, let me be clear. We did have
appeals for pages and groups and profiles for years. But in
early May, late April, early May of this year, we began
offering appeals for when somebody has a post or a photo
removed. By the end of this year, we're hoping to have this
also available for--if you reported something to us, and we
have failed to remove it, and you think it should be removed.
That's one thing we're doing.
We're also talking to a number of groups directly, and
that's something that we do with groups across the political
spectrum and around the world to understand mistakes that we've
made and how our policies affect them. And we've also hired
Laura Murphy, prominent civil rights attorney and law firm
Relman, a civil rights law firm, to do a comprehensive
assessment of how our policies and our practices affect civil
rights.
Ms. Bass. So maybe some of the activists that had their
sites removed are not aware of that, so you know, Facebook
might consider taking another look at that for some of the
groups that have had their sites removed.
Ms. Bickert. Thank you, Congresswoman.
Ms. Bass. What is Facebook doing to prevent Russians from
pretending to be black activists and buying ads targeting black
users? You remember that. The ads that went out really to
discourage African Americans from voting. And then the pretend
sites that seemed as though they were from black activists, but
they were not.
Ms. Bickert. Congresswoman, there are two primary things
that we're doing. The first is we've gotten a lot better at
removing fake accounts like those that were--that the Russian
IRA had on Facebook. Those were inauthentic accounts. We should
have caught them sooner, but they always violated our policies.
We have now gotten much better at finding those accounts.
The second thing we're doing is requiring transparency
around political and issue ads in the United States such that
now, if you see an ad on Facebook about a political issue, you
can see who has paid for that ad. You can also see any ad that
a particular entity is running by going to their page and
clicking on a button that will take you to their ads library,
even if you haven't been targeted with any of the ads.
Ms. Bass. You mentioned a woman that was working with you
from civil rights arena, and you announced that there was a
civil rights review that would evaluate how the platform impact
people of color, and specifically what is the audit looking at?
Ms. Bickert. We want to make sure that the policies that we
have are being enforced consistent with civil rights. So we
need to understand how these policies are affecting all these
different communities. We're hopeful that what we learn from
this assessment and from the audit will help us become a better
platform that will respect voices across the political
spectrum.
Ms. Bass. So, since you're receiving so much criticism
today, let me just end by thanking Facebook, actually, for
never taking down memorial pages for people who have passed
away, even for years and years after they have passed away. I
appreciate that.
Chairman Goodlatte. Would the gentlewoman yield?
Ms. Bass. Yes.
Chairman Goodlatte. I just want to follow up with a
question, Ms. Bickert made a comment again about the ability
to--now requiring that a campaign has to disclose who is paying
for the ad, which I think is a good thing. And I wanted to
follow up--I asked earlier about whether you also disclosed the
rates. Now, with television or radio, an opposing campaign, I
guess the media, can probably check and find out what the rates
are. Can you do that with Facebook, too? If the opposing
campaign sees a lot of Facebook advertising, can they find out
the rate and see if their rate is comparable to the rate for
the ad that they're seeing----
Ms. Bickert. Mr. Chairman, the way that Facebook's ads
pricing works, through an auction model is something that's
fairly complex, and I'm afraid I'm probably not the best
equipped to explain the details of that, but we can certainly
follow up with you----
Chairman Goodlatte. Yeah, we'll follow up, and I do--would
like to know more about that.
Ms. Bickert. Will do. Thank you.
Chairman Goodlatte. Thank you very much. The chair
recognizes the gentleman from Texas--actually, I have a
unanimous consent request, too, and you may want to comment on
this, if anybody allows you time. I just want to put this in
the record. Asia Times, June 2, 2018, ``Is Facebook helping
Vietnam suppress online dissent?''
Without objection, that will be made a part of the record.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Smith, is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Americans deserve the
facts objectively reported. They know media bias is pervasive.
A recent Morning Consult poll found that only a quarter of
voters now trust the media to tell them the truth, a record
low. The media savages the President and portrays his
administration in the worst possible light. Over 90 percent of
his network news coverage has been negative, higher than any
other President.
The muting of conservative voices by social media also has
intensified. Social media companies have repeatedly censored,
removed, or shadow-banned conservative journalists, news
organizations, and media outlets that do not share their
liberal political views. Facebook's new algorithm for what
users see on their timeline has disproportionately harmed
conservative publishers. They are getting fewer readers, while
their liberal counterparts haven't been impacted to the same
degree.
Recently, Google's employees easily convinced the company's
management to cut ties to contracts with the military. And
Google has long faced criticism from fact checkers over
manipulating search results to slight conservatives. Google has
also deleted or blocked references to Jesus, Chik-fil-A, and
the Catholic religion. When will it stop?
Also alarming are the guidelines being written by these
companies to define hate speech. Facebook's newly published
community standards, which determines what content is allowed,
defined these terms for the American people. It violates
Facebook rules, quote, to exclude or segregate a person or
group, end quote. So a conservative organization, for example,
calling for illegal immigrants to be returned to their home
country could be labeled a hate group by the platform and their
content removed all together.
Some platforms have allowed liberal interest groups to
determine what information is available to the public. The
Southern Poverty Law Center is allowed to influence platform
guidelines and sometimes censor content that they deem hate
speech. The SPLC has a hate map that lists over 900
organizations. These include pro-life, religious freedom, and
border security groups, all popular with the American people.
And they are unfairly targeted by the SPLC.
It's no secret the social media organizations are typically
controlled and run by individuals who lean liberal, sometimes
radically so. It will require a constant effort by these
entities to neutralize this relentless bias if in fact they
really want to do it. All media entities should give the
American people the facts, not tell them what to think.
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask all of our panelists today
one question that is pretty direct and I think can be answered
yes or no. And the question is this: Would you pledge publicly
today to make every effort to neutralize bias within your
online platforms?
And, Ms. Bickert, we'll start with you.
Ms. Bickert. Congressman, we're making those efforts now.
There is no place for bias on Facebook.
Mr. Smith. Thank you.
Ms. Downs.
Ms. Downs. Yes, we design products that are for everyone,
and we enforce our policies in a politically neutral way.
Mr. Smith. And you feel every effort should be made to try
to neutralize the bias?
Ms. Downs. Correct. We design our algorithms to check for
bias.
Mr. Smith. Mr. Pickles.
Mr. Pickles. I think you're right to highlight that people
have biases when they come to work, and our focus, as you say,
should absolutely be making sure that bias is not a factor. And
our rules are enforced impartially.
Mr. Smith. Thank you all.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Goodlatte. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Smith. Yes, I will be happy to advance my time to the
chairman.
Chairman Goodlatte. I wonder, Ms. Bickert, are you familiar
with the story about the contention that Facebook's content
filtering practices, which, as has been testified here earlier,
comply with local law, is effectively censoring free speech in
Vietnam?
Ms. Bickert. Mr. Chairman, I can speak to how we respond to
requests under local law. If we get a request from a government
telling us that speech is illegal, the first thing that we do
is see if that speech complies with our community standards. If
it doesn't, then we will remove it. If it does comply with our
standards but is nevertheless illegal, we will look at the
legal requests that we've received. Our legal team will look at
the requesting authority, the process itself, who was affected
by the speech, any human rights implications, and then we will
make a decision about whether or not we should restrict content
in accordance with that local law. If we do, then we remove
that content only in the jurisdiction where it is illegal, and
we report on that in our government transparency report.
I do want to emphasize that this is very different from us
providing data to a foreign government. There is a process
through which governments can ask us for data, like an FBI
search warrant, let's say, and our legal team analyzes those.
But I think you mentioned that the article was about Vietnam.
We do not store data in Vietnam. They can present legal process
to us. If they do, we will scrutinize that, and you can see
from our government transparency report that those requests
from Vietnam are very low, and we don't comply with all of
them.
Ms. Lofgren. Mr. Chairman, could I ask unanimous consent?
Chairman Goodlatte. The gentleman's time has expired, but
we'll follow up in writing with a question about that.
And the gentlewoman is recognized.
Ms. Lofgren. I ask unanimous consent to put into the record
a letter sent by a bipartisan group this week on the issue in
Vietnam to both Facebook and Google.
Chairman Goodlatte. Without objection, that will be made a
part of the record.
The chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr.
Deutch, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Deutch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, there was an interesting article in this
morning's Wall Street Journal entitled ``Publishing Executives
Argue Facebook is Overly Deferential to Conservatives.'' Ms.
Bickert, I just wanted to follow up on what you had talked
about earlier. In particular, the review that's being led by
former Senator Jon Kyl, along with the Heritage Foundation
about what many articles recently point out as unsubstantiated
claims of anticonservative bias. But the question is: You put
this together. They're conducting this review. After the review
started, my understanding is that the RNC Chair, Ronna McDaniel
and Brad Parscale, the campaign manager for the President's
reelection campaign, then doubled-down on the narrative,
complained of suppression of conservative speech. And rather
than pointing to this review that is taking place, instead
there were meetings immediately scheduled between the head of
the RNC, the President's reelection campaign, and high-ranking
officials at Facebook. Is that right?
Ms. Bickert. I'm afraid I don't know about that. I could
follow--have our team follow up.
Mr. Deutch. If you could just follow up on that and get
back to us, we'd appreciate it.
I represent Parkland, Florida, and in this discussion of
social media the first thing that comes to mind to me is the
savage attacks on the student survivors of Stoneman Douglas.
One of the most virulent strains of these attacks was that the
students didn't survive a school shooting, that they were
crisis actors, that they were planted by some mysterious cabal
to finally get Congress to do something about gun violence.
And in the weeks after the shooting, Alex Jones' YouTube
channel posted a video that was seen by 2.3 million subscribers
alleging that these were merely--that these were actors and not
real students who had experienced the most horrific thing
anybody one could possibly imagine. The video violated
YouTube's rule against bullying, and it was removed. An article
posted to Slate.com describes this as a strike against the
channel.
Ms. Downs, how many strikes does a channel get?
Ms. Downs. Typically, a channel gets three strikes, and
then we terminate the channel.
Mr. Deutch. So the reason I ask is, Alex Jones obviously is
one of the conspiracy theorists whose brand is bullying. He
wants similar attacks against the families whose 6- and 7-year-
old kids were slaughtered at Sandy Hook, and he's not the only
one. Truthers have spread these lies claiming that Sandy Hook
never happened at all.
A Slate article references a study by Jonathan Albright,
director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia
who found 9,000 videos on YouTube with titles that are--and I
quote, a mixture of shocking vile and promotional themes that
include rape game jokes, shock reality, social experiments,
celebrity pedophilia, false flag rants, and terror-related
conspiracy theories dating back to the Oklahoma City attacks in
1995.
Ms. Downs, does Google think that this is a problem, and
what is the solution that you're coming up with to address it?
Ms. Downs. Thank you for the question. So, as you noted,
when Alex Jones posted the video you described saying that the
survivors at the Parkland massacre were crisis actors, that
violated other harassment policy. We have a specific policy
that says if you say a well-documented violent attack didn't
happen and you use the name or image of survivors or victims of
that attack, that is a malicious attack, and it violates our
policy.
In terms of conspiracy theory content generally, our goal
is to promote authoritative content to our users. So we have
two principles that guide the way here. That's the first one,
as we want to provide users with authoritative, trustworthy
and----
Mr. Deutch. I'm sorry to cut you off. I only have a minute
and a half, and I don't really need to hear what you're trying
to provide. I want to know how you're dealing with all these
conspiracy theorists on your platform.
Ms. Downs. So the first way is by demoting low-quality
content and promoting more authoritative content. And the
second is by providing more transparency for users. So we're
introducing boxes that provide factual information at the top
of results that have shown themselves to turn up a lot of
information that is counterfactual, such as searching for the
Earth is flat on YouTube, where you see a lot of videos
claiming----
Mr. Deutch. Okay. Your response is to put a box saying,
``Nope, the Earth is not flat''?
Ms. Downs. Correct.
Mr. Deutch. I have a question, Ms. Bickert, for you. You
recently decided not to ban Infowars. Can you explain that
decision? And do you use a strikes model like YouTube?
Ms. Bickert. Congressman, we do use a strikes model. What
that means is, if a page or a profile or a group is posting
content and some of that violates our policies, we always
remove the violating post at a certain point, and it depends--
it depends on the nature of the content that is violating our
policies. At a certain point, we would also remove the page or
the profile or the group at issue.
Mr. Deutch. So the question is, how many strikes does a
conspiracy theorist who attacks grieving parents and student
survivors of mass shootings get? How many strikes are they
entitled to before they can no longer post those kinds of
horrific attacks?
Ms. Bickert. I want to be very clear that allegations that
survivors of a tragedy like Parkland are crisis actors, that
violates our policy and we removed that content. And we would
remove and continue to remove any violations from the Infowars
page. If they posted sufficient content that it violated our
threshold, the page would come down. That threshold varies
depending on the severity of different types of violations.
Mr. Deutch. Thank you. I yield back.
Chairman Goodlatte. The chair recognizes the gentleman from
Idaho, Mr. Labrador, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Labrador. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Downs, you mentioned in your opening statement or
sometime in the beginning that there was only limited activity
on your side from some of the Russian trolls and some of these
entities. Is that correct?
Ms. Downs. That is correct.
Mr. Labrador. What did you mean by ``limited activity''?
Ms. Downs. Pursuant to our investigation around the 2016
election, we found two accounts that had a spend of less than
$5,000 in advertising and 18 YouTube channels with just over
1,000 videos in English that we terminated as soon as we
identified them. Those were all linked to the Internet Research
Agency.
Mr. Labrador. Mr. Pickles, would you consider that limited
activity that happened on Twitter?
Mr. Pickles. We have 336 million users. As a proportion of
that, yes, this was a small proportion, but the accounts we
believe that were linked to the Internet Research Agency did
run to several thousand. That was too many. We have taken steps
to make sure----
Mr. Labrador. But there were millions of users, and there
were several thousand of these accounts.
Mr. Pickles. Yes.
Mr. Labrador. Ms. Bickert, what about on Facebook?
Ms. Bickert. Congressman, we have more than 2 billion
people using the site every month, and we had fewer than 500
pages, groups, and accounts.
Mr. Labrador. So what all three of you are telling us is
that the Democrats' campaign was so weak that this limited
activity apparently influenced the elections and cost the
United States to actually choose the wrong person for
President. Is that what you're telling us? That's a rhetorical
question. You don't have to answer it. I yield the rest of my
time to the current chairman of the committee.
Mr. Gaetz [presiding]. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. Pickles, is it your testimony or your viewpoint today
that Twitter is an interactive computer service pursuant to
section 230, sub(c)(1)?
Mr. Pickles. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't want to speak to
that, but I understand that, under section 230, we are
protected by that, yes.
Mr. Gaetz. So, if section 230 covers you, and that section
says no provider or user of interactive computer service shall
be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information
provided by another, is it your contention that Twitter enjoys
a First Amendment right under speech while at the same time
enjoying section 230 rights?
Mr. Pickles. Well, I think we discussed the way the First
Amendment interacts with our companies. As private companies,
we enforce our rules, and our rules prohibit a range of
activities.
Mr. Gaetz. I am not asking about your rules. I'm asking
about whether or not you believe you have First Amendment
rights. You either do or you do not.
Mr. Pickles. I'd like to follow up on that. As someone
who's not a lawyer, I think it very important----
Mr. Gaetz. Well, you're the senior public policy official
for Twitter before us, and you will not answer the question
whether or not you believe your company enjoys rights under the
First Amendment?
Mr. Pickles. Well, I believe we do, but I would like to
confer with my colleagues.
Mr. Gaetz. So what I want to understand is if you say, I
enjoy rights under the First Amendment and I'm covered by
section 230 and section 230 itself says no provider shall be
considered the speaker, do you see the tension that that
creates?
Mr. Pickles. Yes, but I also see that Congress we worked
with previously to identify why it's important to remove
content that is of child sexual abuse and why it's important
to----
Mr. Gaetz. Well, let's explore some of those extremes then.
I know Twitter would never do this; I'll disclaim that. But
could Twitter remove someone from their platform because
they're gay or because they're a woman.
Mr. Pickles. Well, we would remove someone breaking our
rules, and that behavior is not prohibited under our rules.
Mr. Gaetz. So it's your contention that Twitter does not
have the ability then to remove someone because they are gay or
because they are a woman?
Mr. Pickles. I say that context is not part of the context
of whether they break our rules.
Mr. Gaetz. Okay. Well, Jared Taylor is a horrible human
being who you're currently litigating with, but that litigation
seems--the transcript from it seems to have some tension with
what you're telling Congress. The court in that litigation
asked the question: Does Twitter have the right to take
somebody off its platform because it doesn't like the fact that
the person is a woman or gay? And the response from the
attorney for Twitter was: The First Amendment would give
Twitter the right, just like it would give a newspaper the
right to choose to not run an op-ed from someone because she
happens to be a woman. Would Twitter ever do that? Absolutely
not. Not in a million years. Does the First Amendment provide
that protection? It absolutely does.
So was your lawyer correct in that assessment? Or were you
correct when you just said that that would not be permitted?
Mr. Pickles. Well, I'm not familiar with the facts of that
case, and I can appreciate--I can't comment on ongoing
litigation. But this is absolutely a critical public policy
issue, one that is important we debate, because as our
companies seek to reassure you in this committee, the way that
we take our decisions in a neutral way, not taking into account
political beliefs, I think the fact our rules are public and
that we're taking steps to improve the transparency of how we
improve the enforcement of those rules are important steps to
take.
Mr. Gaetz. Right, but it is not in service of transparency
if your company sends executives to Congress to say one thing,
that you would not have the right to engage in that conduct and
then your lawyers in litigation say precisely the opposite.
That serves to frustrate transparency.
But my time has expired, the gentleman from Rhode Island,
Mr. Cicilline, is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cicilline. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I begin by saying
that America has stood as a beacon of hope to the rest of the
world, and America has been defined by a set of ideals that
have established our moral leadership in the world, propelled
by our respect for freedom, human rights, and the rule of law.
Yesterday, the President's statements and behavior as well
as his conduct in the preceding weeks has severely damaged our
standing in the world by siding with Russia and its brutal
thuggish dictator against the United States, and he has created
a crisis in our beloved country. But rather than conducting any
oversight of these important issues relating to the integrity
of our elections, the disgraceful conduct of the President, and
the threat to our democracy, we have this hearing.
So I'd like to begin by associating myself with the remarks
of several of my colleagues about the seriously misguided
priorities of this committee under Republican leadership. Let's
make something very clear: There is no evidence that the
algorithms of social networks or search results are biased
against conservatives. It is a made-up narrative pushed by the
conservative propaganda machine to convince voters of a
conspiracy that does not exist.
But in spite of studies and research by data analytic firms
that show that there is no systemic bias against conservatives
online, the Republican effort to advance its victimhood complex
is somehow working. Over the past 2 years, Facebook has bent
over backwards to placate and mollify conservatives based on
this fiction. It's refused to evenly enforce its platform
policies against hate speech, conspiracy theories, and
disinformation. It will not ban pages that share dangerous
hoaxes. And it has tailored its news feed algorithm to boost
posts based solely on engagement, resulting in significantly
more traffic to hyperpartisan conservative sources and
misinformation at the expense of local news and other sources
of trustworthy journalism.
Facebook also fired its team of news curators in response
to Republican criticism and legitimized the baseless claims of
top Republican officials, including President Trump's campaign
manager, by initiating a study on this issue conducted by the
conservative Heritage Foundation and a former Republican
Senator.
But aside from the obvious hypocrisy of the conservative
agenda to delegitimize any information that undermines their
media narrative, why does this matter? It matters because
nearly three-quarters of Americans access news online through
Facebook and Google while more than two-thirds of online
traffic is channeled through Facebook and Google. Last year,
these two companies alone pulled in more than $42 billion from
online ads, more than 60 percent of all online ad revenue, and
are projected to account for 83 percent of growth in the
digital ad market.
It is overwhelmingly clear that this enormous unchecked
power to dictate and profit from what people see online is a
fundamental threat to the free and diverse press in our vibrant
democracy. News publishers, local businesses, and media
companies are at the mercy of the dominant corporations. But
don't take it from me, take it from the chief executive of News
Corp, who recently warned that we have entered into an era in
which the pervasiveness of the largest digital platforms make
Standard Oil look like a corner gas station; or the chairman of
The New York Times, who recently referred to Facebook CEO Mark
Zuckerberg's approach to news, and I quote, a terrifyingly
naive perspective that makes my blood run cold, end quote; or
the editor in chief of Wired who said earlier this year that
news publishers have been reduced to, and I quote,
sharecroppers on Facebook's massive industrial farm, end quote.
There's no question that we've reached a tipping point.
We're at the precipice sacrificing the news organizations that
are essential of uncovering corruption, holding the government
and powerful corporations accountable, and sustaining our
democracy to the profit margins of a few dominant companies.
As Justice Robert Jackson remarked in 1937, we cannot
permit private corporations to be private governments. We must
keep our economic system under the control of the people who
live by and under it. It's long overdue that we take these
concerns seriously, rather than listening to the fevered dreams
and conspiracy theorists of conservatives. That's why we must
restore and protect our democracy by creating an even playing
field for news publishers and giving power back to Americans
through greater control over their data.
So, Ms. Bickert, I'll start with you. My question is: I've
introduced legislation to ensure fairness and an even playing
field between publishers and dominant platforms such as
Facebook. This bill provides for a limited safe harbor for news
publishers to ban together for purposes of negotiating branding
attribution and interoperability of news. What objection does
Facebook have to collective bargaining by news publishers to
promote to access to trustworthy sources of news? And, second
question is: Facebook and other companies are required by
Article 20 of the European Union as general data protection
regulation to give consumers the ability to take their data
from Facebook to a competing service. Why has Facebook not made
this right available to American users? And does Facebook
oppose giving American consumers the right to move their data
to competing services like you do as part of this agreement
with the European Union?
Ms. Bickert. Thank you, Congressman. We definitely support
data portability. In fact, we've had that in place for years.
And the services that we apply--that we offer in Europe for
data portability, we are also offering similar options for
users in the United States. And we have offered such options
for years. That means that people can take their data with them
from Facebook to another service.
I would note that when we hear concerns from any community
on Facebook, whether it is news publishers or whether it is
people on the right or people on the left, we want to make sure
that we understand those concerns, are responsive to them. We
always want to apply our policies fairly to all of these
groups. That's the reason that we are undertaking various
audits and assessments. We just want to make sure that we're
doing our job right and that we're understanding if our
policies are in fact being applied as fairly as we intend for
them to be. We can always do better.
Mr. Gaetz. The gentleman's time has expired.
Mr. Cicilline. Can she answer the first question?
Mr. Gaetz. Well, we've gone a minute over, Mr. Cicilline.
So I am going to recognize the gentleman----
Mr. Cicilline. Mr. Chairman, I have a unanimous consent
request.
Mr. Gaetz. The gentleman is recognized to make his
unanimous consent request.
Mr. Cicilline. I request unanimous consent to enter the
following materials into the record, a 2017 report by NewsWhip,
an internet analytics firm, on the rise of hyperpolitical
media; an article Nieman Lab entitled ``Has Facebook's
algorithm change hurt hyperpartisan sites? According to this
data, nope''; an article by April Glaser in Slate entitled
``Facebook won't make the bed it lies in.''
Mr. Gaetz. Without objection.
The gentlemen from Louisiana, Mr. Johnson, is recognized
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Johnson of Louisiana. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I thank all of you for being here. I know this is a
difficult subject area. Prior to my election to Congress, I was
a constitutional law attorney, and I litigated free speech
cases in the courts for almost 20 years, defending religious
liberty and the First Amendment. And so I'm very wary of
censorship efforts. Sometimes they are well intended, but
there's always a high degree of subjectivity, and it causes
problems. And I'm still trying to understand what standards
each of your organizations utilize to determine exactly how
offensive or controversial or fake content is defined. And as
you've noticed, many of us have come in and out of the hearing
because we have other things going on. If you've answered some
of these, I apologize in advance. But this is a question that I
think my constituents back home really want to know because
they ask me this all the time: How do each of your companies
define fake news?
Let me start with Ms. Bickert.
Ms. Bickert. Thank you, Congressman. First, I want to say
that we actually published a new version of our standards in
April that gives all of the detail of what we tell our content
reviewers in terms of how to apply our policies against things
like hate speech or bullying, so forth. We also include in
there a section on what we're doing to combat false news.
It is not against our policies, meaning we don't remove the
content just for being false. What we do instead is we try to
provide--if we have an indication that a news story is false,
and that would be because it's been flagged as potentially
being false, and then we've sent it to third-party fact
checkers who have rated it false, then we will provide
additional information to people who see that content. And that
will be related articles from around the internet. We will also
try to counter any virality of that post by reducing its
distribution.
Mr. Johnson. Okay. Ms. Downs.
Ms. Downs. Our goal is to provide our users with
trustworthy information that's responsive to what they're
looking for.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. So how do you define fake news?
Ms. Downs. Fake news is obviously a term used to describe a
spectrum of content. So at one end of the spectrum you have
malicious, deceptive content that's often being spread by troll
firms, et cetera. That content would violate our policies and
we would act quickly to remove the content and/or the accounts
that are spreading it.
In the middle, you have misinformation that may be low
quality. This is where our algorithms kick in to promote more
authoritative content and demote lower quality content. And
then, of course, you even hear the term used to refer to
mainstream media in which case we do nothing. We don't embrace
the term in that context.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Let me ask you before I move to
Twitter. If a content reviewer determines that something is
fake news, is there an appeals process for the person who
produced that content? I mean, are they notified formally?
Ms. Downs. Any time we remove content for violation of our
policies, the user is notified and given a link to an appeals
form.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. How long does the appeals process
take?
Ms. Downs. I'm not familiar with the average turnaround
times, but I could get back to you with that information.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. Well, I wish you would. I mean, the
news cycle obviously is constantly changing. So if the appeals
process takes days or weeks, then it's a moot point by the end
of that process.
And our concern is, of course, that you would--any
organization, any company, would filter things that they may or
may not or their internal reviewers may not agree with. And
then by the time the appeals process is exhausted, it's stale
content anyway. And if the objective was to pull it down and
take it out of the public's view, then that was accomplished
just because of the time delay. So there's a due process
concern that we have, even though you're not the government. I
mean, it still should apply here, I think.
Let me ask you. I'm getting to Twitter next, but hold on.
Are individuals outside of your company consulted with
regard to appropriate content or the purveyors of the content?
Ms. Downs. Our policies are developed by us, but we
sometimes consult experts when we feel we need additional
expertise to understand particular kinds of content. However,
all enforcement decisions are made internally by the company.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. A controversy developed this year
with regard to you guys about the Southern Poverty Law Center,
the SPLC. And they labeled some mainstream Christian and
conservative organizations as hate groups because they didn't
like what they were doing. And then Google and YouTube used the
SPLC designation, at least allegedly, to flag the content of
those groups.
Did that happen? Do you admit that that happened?
Ms. Downs. So that references to a program that we call the
Trusted Flagger program which is one where we engage NGOs and
government agencies with expertise on the particular kinds of
things we prohibit per policy. They get access to a bulk
flagging tool so they can flag videos to us in bulk rather than
one at a time.
They do not have any authority to remove content, restrict
content, or demote content on our services. All of those
decisions are made by us. So we're leveraging our expertise,
but decision-making authority is retained by the company.
Mr. Johnson of Georgia. I guess this goes to the appeals
process. But, I mean, some of these groups I know personally
are legitimate, well-respected, faith-based organizations. And
I just want to say SPLC is not a neutral watchdog organization.
So I'm glad to know they don't get editorial control where I
think some of that needs to be looked at.
I got 2 seconds. I didn't get to get to Twitter. But I
appreciate you all being here.
I'll yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Gaetz. The gentleman from California, Mr. Lieu, is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Lieu. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I served on Active Duty in the U.S. military. I never
thought I would see the American Commander in Chief deliver the
talking points of the Kremlin. This Judiciary Committee has
oversight over the Department of Justice. Our President
disparaged members of the Department of Justice. Are we having
a hearing on that? No.
As we sit here today, there is nearly 3,000 babies and kids
ripped away from their parents by the Trump administration.
They have not been reunified yet. Are we having a hearing on
that? Because we have jurisdiction over immigration. No.
Instead, we are having this ridiculous hearing on the
content of speech of private sector companies. It's stupid
because there's this thing called the First Amendment. We can't
regulate content. The only thing worse than the Alex Jones
video is the government trying to tell Google not to do it, to
prevent people from watching the Alex Jones video. We can't
even do it if we tried. We can't even do any legislation on
this committee. And we're having this ridiculous second
installment hearing on the very first hearing about Diamond and
Silk not getting enough likes on Facebook.
So let me just ask some very basic questions so the
American public understands what a dumb hearing this entire
hearing is.
So, Ms. Bickert, are you a private company?
Ms. Bickert. Congressman, we are.
Mr. Lieu. All right. And you report to a board of
directors, and you're publicly traded, correct?
Ms. Bickert. Yes, we do.
Mr. Lieu. Okay. And as a publically traded private sector
company, one of your goals and your duties to shareholders is
to maximize profit, correct?
Ms. Bickert. Yes.
Mr. Lieu. So if it turns out that elevating stories about
cats generates more profit for your company, you have the
absolute right to do that, don't you?
Ms. Bickert. Within certain guardrails, we work to maximize
the profitability of our company, yes.
Mr. Lieu. Thank you.
All right. So, Ms. Downs, are you a private company?
Ms. Downs. Yes.
Mr. Lieu. And you report to your shareholders. You have a
duty to your shareholders, right?
Ms. Downs. Correct.
Mr. Lieu. All right. And so if it turns out that if you
don't play Diamond and Silk because people don't like to watch
them, but you elevate, let's say, pictures of kittens and that
makes you more money, you could absolutely do that. Isn't that
right?
Ms. Downs. We could.
Mr. Lieu. Okay. Thank you.
All right. So, Mr. Pickles, I'm going to ask you the same
question. You're a private sector company?
Mr. Pickles. Yes, sir.
Mr. Lieu. All right. And you have a duty to your
shareholders to maximize profit?
Mr. Pickles. Yes, sir.
Mr. Lieu. Okay. So if it turns out that you've got accounts
that can generate revenue for you, but they're saying all sorts
of crazy things, for example, that--let's say, I don't know,
red tomatoes taste worse than purple tomatoes, but generates
you revenue, you could talk about that and elevate that on your
platform, right?
Mr. Pickles. Yes, sir.
Mr. Lieu. All right. I notice all of you talked about your
own internal rules, because that's what this should be about.
You all get to come up with your own rules, but not because
government tells you what to do or that government says you
have to rule this way or that way. And the whole notion that
somehow we should be interfering with these platforms from a
legislative governmental sort of point of view is anathema to
the First Amendment, and really, it's about the marketplace of
ideas. So if you're a user and you don't like the fact that,
you know, I don't know, Facebook isn't playing Diamond and
Silk, well, go to some other social media platform. Go find
Diamond and Silk on a website and watch their videos. Or if you
don't like how Twitter is operating, well, go use WeChat or go
use KakaoTalk or go use some other social media platform.
I don't even know why we're having this hearing. We should
be having a hearing on the President of the United States,
statements he has made that show that he has this bizarre
relationship to Vladimir Putin, who is not our friend. Russia
is not an ally. And yet we're sitting here talking about
something we have no control over, we cannot regulate.
And it's from--actually, it's not a partisan issue. There
were--there were questions from members of my own side that
also trouble me. Because, again, you all need to be able to do
whatever you want to do that maximizes your profit based on
your internal rules, not because the House Judiciary Committee
says that you shouldn't play, you know, Alex Jones or you
shouldn't play Diamond and Silk or whatever it is that
conservatives come up with or liberals come up with. This is an
issue of the First amendment. That's why it's made America
great.
Thank you all for being here. Just keep on doing what
you're doing. Your duty is to your shareholders, not to the
members of this Judiciary Committee.
I yield back.
Mr. Gaetz. Will the gentleman yield for a question?
Mr. Lieu. Sure.
Mr. Gaetz. Thank you. Thank you for yielding.
So I understand your argument and agree with most of it as
it relates to the First Amendment. But is your view of section
230 that it's consistent with First Amendment principles? Or do
you read section 230 to say that if you choose to be a public
forum, then you surrender those First Amendment rights for the
liability protections you get to host content?
I yield back for the answer.
Mr. Lieu. Thank you. I am a supporter of section 230.
I yield back.
Mr. Gaetz. The gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Jordan, is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Jordan. I thank the chairman.
Ms. Bickert, what percentage of digital advertising market
does Facebook have?
Ms. Bickert. Congressman, I can say that advertising I know
is, in the United States, a $650 billion industry. We have
about 6 percent of that.
Mr. Jordan. Six percent of--and just from the digital
platform, though. I'm not talking advertising in general.
Ms. Bickert. I don't have an exact statistic on that.
Sorry. We can follow up on that.
Mr. Jordan. How about you, Ms. Downs?
Ms. Downs. I'd have to follow up with that number as well.
Mr. Jordan. Mr. Pickles.
Mr. Pickles. I can follow up on that.
Mr. Jordan. Because it's been reported that it's like
somewhere around three-quarters of all digital advertising
marketing dollars are with the three of you guys. Is that not
accurate?
That's a number I've heard. Seventy-five percent of digital
advertising market is controlled by Facebook, Google, and
Twitter. That's not accurate?
Ms. Bickert.
Ms. Bickert. Congressman, again, I know that we have about
6 percent of the overall advertising market, which is about
$650 billion.
Mr. Jordan. Yeah. But that's not what I'm asking you. I'm
not asking overall advertising. I'm talking about the digital
area.
Ms. Bickert. I'd be happy to have our team follow up with
you on that.
Mr. Jordan. Okay. If you could, that'd be fine.
Ms. Bickert, in your opening statement, you talked about
fake news. I think you called it false news. And there's been
discussions about third-party fact checkers who assist you in
determining what, in fact, is fake news or false news.
Can you tell me how that process works at Facebook?
Ms. Bickert. Yes, Congressman. We do work with third-party
fact checkers. All of them are approved, they're pointer
approved, and they are signatories to the International Fact-
Checking Network code of principles. Although they meet these
high standards, we also want to make sure that we are not--we
know this is not a perfect process, so----
Mr. Jordan. How many are there?
Ms. Bickert. In the United States, I believe right now
there are five currently. And that includes groups like the AP
and The Weekly Standard.
We are open for others. They can apply to----
Mr. Jordan. So do you use all five of those?
Ms. Bickert. The way the process works is if something is
flagged that's potentially false, it is sent to all five--or
all participating fact checkers. Right now there--I believe
there are five.
Mr. Jordan. Who flags it?
Mr. Bickert. If one of them--who flags it? It could either
be from people reporting that content is false or it could be
from our technology noting that, for instance, in comments
people are saying that this content is false.
Mr. Jordan. So your system can flag it or someone can just
send you some kind of message, say, hey, we think this is fake
news.
Ms. Bickert. And if content is flagged as potentially being
false, again, sent to these fact checkers. Now, if any one of
the fact-checking organizations--organizations rates the
content as true, then the content is not downranked. But if
they agree that this content is----
Mr. Jordan. So if all five say this is fake news, then what
does Facebook do?
Ms. Bickert. We don't remove it, but we do reduce the
distribution. And we also will put related articles beneath the
content so that people see other stories from around the
internet that are on the same topic.
Mr. Jordan. Are these five entities who are making this
determination, are they the same all the--I mean, are they them
same five entities or does it rotate? Or how does--and who are
these five entities? Tell me that.
Ms. Bickert. The entities include AP, The Weekly Standard,
factcheck.org. And, by the way, this list is--we are open to
receiving additional fact-checking organizations. They can
apply and----
Mr. Jordan. Associated Press, The Weekly Standard,
factcheck.org, and who else? Who are the other two?
Ms. Bickert. I--PolitiFact, and there's one that I'm
forgetting. I can get these to you. These are public. We've
listed these five publicly.
And if others apply, they will also--and they meet the
standards, they will also be added.
Mr. Jordan. Okay. And then would it still be unanimous
before this gets downgraded or flagged on your platform?
Ms. Bickert. Right now our practice is, if any one
organization flags it as true, then it will not be demoted.
But, of course, over time, we are learning from this process.
We know it's not perfect right now. We will continue to iterate
and get better on it.
Mr. Jordan. Okay. Ms. Downs, same question to you. How does
it work for you guys? Same way?
Ms. Downs. We briefly introduced a fact-check feature and
our knowledge panel who--the goal was to provide information
about publishers. So users have greater context in evaluating
what they read. However, it was an experimental feature. We got
some critical feedback that we felt was valid, so we put the
feature on pause until we could fix those concerns and decide
whether to----
Mr. Jordan. And who were the organizations doing it for
you?
Ms. Downs. I think that--I would have to get back with
you--to you on the details, but I believe----
Mr. Jordan. Let me go to where Mr. Johnson was just a few
minutes ago.
Was the Southern Poverty Law Center one of those entities
for part of this third-party fact-checking operation?
Ms. Downs. I do not believe so, no.
Mr. Jordan. Okay. All right.
Thank you, Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Gaetz. The gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Raskin, is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Yesterday, a day that will live in infamy, the President of
the United States openly sided with Vladimir Putin, a despot, a
kleptocrat, and a tyrant who freely orders the assassination of
journalists and political adversaries, as opposed to the
American intelligence community, the foreign policy community,
and the law enforcement community.
The President, in the face of Russia's clear aggression
against our political sovereignty and democracy in the 2016
election, instead apologized, which is the equivalent of
America going out and apologizing to Japan after Pearl Harbor.
This is an absolute outrage and a scandal. And, of course, this
is what the Judiciary Committee in its right mind would be
working on today. This is what we would be investigating.
Mr. Chairman, it seems as if Facebook and Twitter and
Google have been arraigned here on charges of completely
fanciful and mythical anti-conservative bias. When you look at,
for example, Facebook's community standards, which I've read
through, they are completely viewpoint neutral. They ban things
like the advocacy of violence and criminal behavior, hate
speech from whatever political perspective, child pornography,
and so on.
What concerns me, and this is where I guess I suppose I
would depart from my friend and colleague, Mr. Lieu--what
concerns me is the political pressure that's apparently being
brought to bear now on all of these entities and the suggestion
that they are buckling under to this myth of some kind of anti-
conservative conspiracy. So there is this article in this
morning's Wall Street Journal saying publishing executives
argue that Facebook is now overly deferential to conservatives.
And so we know the dynamic of people working the refs and
harassing and haranguing the entities.
And I wanted to ask Ms. Bickert, who's here to represent
Facebook, is it true that you chose a former Republican
Senator, Senator Jon Kyl, and the right wing Heritage
Foundation to do a study about bias under the Facebook, and you
chose no former Democratic Senator or independent or anybody
else, and no liberal think tank, like the Center for American
Progress, to participate in that review? Is that true?
Ms. Bickert. Thank you, Congressman. We've hired Senator
Kyl for a very specific purpose, which is to dig in and
understand concerns about the way that our policies are applied
and how that affects conservative voices.
I want to emphasize, though, that we have similar efforts,
not just in the U.S., but also around the world----
Mr. Raskin. Well, let me just ask you about that. Because
my colleague, Mr. Deutch, raised a very profound concern about
the continuing demonization and vilification of families and
children who are victimized in episodes of mass gun slaughter.
And we know it's now an ideological fixture on the right wing
in America to deny the existence of these atrocities, like what
took place in Newtown, Connecticut, what took place in
Parkland, and then to allege that they're the product of some
kind of conspiracy or hoax. And, of course, the founding myth
in this vein is Holocaust revisionism which claims that the
Holocaust never took place.
But so Mr. Deutch asks the question, what's being done
about this. Have you appointed a committee to review the
problem of bias against people who are victims of gun violence
and the way that they are being treated on the internet and the
way that there is voice being given to people who are denying
the historical fact of their experience?
Ms. Bickert. Certainly, if anybody alleges that the
Parkland survivors are crisis actors, that violates our
policies. We remove it.
But to your question about----
Mr. Raskin. You remove it. And then--and they're allowed to
continue to keep putting it up in the future or are they banned
from Facebook?
Ms. Bickert. We would remove that content if they put it up
again. And at a certain point, their account or their page
would be removed.
Mr. Raskin. So just explain, what's happened with Infowars?
Because they've made a cottage industry out of this. What they
do is they deny that these events have happened.
Why are they still on Facebook?
Ms. Bickert. We have removed content from the Infowars page
to the extent that it's violated our policies. They have not
reached the threshold at which they're entire----
Mr. Raskin. What's the threshold?
Ms. Bickert. It depends, Congressman, on the nature of the
violation. So there are sometimes more severe violations and--
--
Mr. Raskin. All right.
Well, look, I'm with Mr. Lieu, which is that you guys are
private journalistic entities right now. But if you're going to
be ideologically badgered and bulldozed to take positions in
the interest of right wing politics, then we are going to have
to look at what's happening there, because at that point
there's not viewpoint neutrality.
Would you agree that you should not be catering to
particular interests as opposed to everybody who's concerned
about what's taking place online?
Mr. Gaetz. The gentleman's time has well expired.
So we're going to now recognize Mr. Rutherford of Florida
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, can she answer the question?
Mr. Gaetz. Well, she--Mr. Raskin, she answered the first
question that you asked after your time had expired, so we'll
probably conclude it there.
Mr. Rutherford, you're recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. Rutherford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Committee, I just want to go back to some earlier
statements. My--one of our colleagues across the aisle who--
listen, I believe that this is an incredibly important hearing.
The potential censorship of free speech, I think, goes to the
core of our country's freedoms. And to suggest that because
we're not talking about some other items that are in the news
is somehow this is, quote, ridiculous when considered in light
of the balance between free speech and public safety.
When we look at what went on with Backpage, the lives that
were destroyed, the children that were trafficked, the
prostitution that was rampant. That--that's why this hearing, I
think, is so vitally important.
And, Ms. Bickert, I'd like to ask you, today, citizens can
hold newspapers and other media groups legally accountable if
they knowingly lie, if they show indecent content, or if they
use materials or photos that they are not authorized or did not
pay to use and so on. Technical platforms are currently making
in-depth decisions about what information users receive and how
they receive it, often driven by financial and other unknown
motives. And Mr. Zuckerberg himself has repeatedly said that
his platform is, quote, responsible for the content that they
host.
Should the tech platforms be subject to the same content
regulations and civil penalties as those who produce the
content?
Ms. Bickert. Thank you, Congressman. We do feel a sense of
accountability and responsibility to make sure that Facebook is
a place where people can come and be safe and express
themselves. And that is at the core of everything we are trying
to do.
In terms of regulation, we are happy to talk to this
committee and others. We think that there is a place for--for
these conversations, and we hope that we could be a part of
guiding any regulatory efforts.
Mr. Rutherford. I'm very pleased to hear you say that. Your
platform generates revenue based on ads, yet the content
provided in some cases is illicit, which is--why is it
acceptable to Facebook, Google, Twitter, Bing, and others to
make money off of illegal content while these other media
outlets are held accountable civilly and criminally without the
protection of section 230?
Ms. Bickert. Congressman, we do--if content is brought to
our attention that violates our policies or is illegal, we do
have measures for removing that. And I would also note that we
were supportive of the act to protect sex trafficking victims.
That's something we care a lot about.
Mr. Rutherford. In fact, this Congress, and I believe the
public, are beginning to question the full protections afforded
under section 230. And as you just referenced, on April 11 of
this year, the President signed into law an additional
provision under 230 that declared that 230 does not limit a
Federal civil claim for conduct that constitutes sex
trafficking, a Federal criminal charge for conduct that
constitutes sex trafficking, or a State criminal charge for
conduct that promotes or facilitates prostitution.
So my question is those are two examples, trafficking and
prostitution, that are now exemptions to the protection under
230. Do you see any other--and this is for the whole panel. Do
you see any other areas where those kinds of exemptions to the
protections under 230 should be examined?
Let me throw out an example. How about sedition? Mr.
Pickles, any comment?
Mr. Pickles. Well, I think we've spent a lot of time
talking about these issues today. And, firstly, you're right to
highlight the work that's been done to tackle child
trafficking. Before the passage of that bill, we already had a
zero tolerance approach to this. We work very closely with the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to help law
enforcement bring to justice those people who are seeking to do
harm to children.
And we also take a range of actions under our rules that we
think are the right thing to do. Our rules go far beyond what's
required by law, because this is--these are our rules that we
set.
So I've highlighted previously terrorist content that we
are proactively taking down at speed and scale, because we
think it keeps our platform safe, and it's the right thing to
do. And I think the demonstration you're seeing is of companies
who are responsible and taking the right----
Mr. Rutherford. Do you think Congress should look at
codifying that?
Mr. Pickles. Well, I think the balance of regulation that
we see----
Mr. Rutherford. To have a rule is one thing; to have a law
is another.
Ms. Downs, what do you think?
Ms. Downs. YouTube remains a service provider that hosts
user-generated content at an unprecedented scale. We have a
natural incentive to protect our product from harmful content,
and we invest a lot of resources in enforcing our policies
using both technology and humans.
Mr. Gaetz. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from New York, Mr. Jeffries, is recognized
for 5 minutes.
Mr. Jeffries. Thank you very much. And good afternoon,
everyone.
Ms. Bickert, am I correct that it was in May that Facebook
engaged the former Senator Jon Kyl to investigate political
bias?
Ms. Bickert. I believe it was around that time.
Mr. Jeffries. And Senator Kyl was a Republican Member of
the Congress. Is that correct?
Ms. Bickert. Yes, that's my understanding.
Mr. Jeffries. And has Facebook engaged any former
Democratic members of the House or the Senate to participate in
this exercise as it relates to determining political bias?
Ms. Bickert. With regard to this--to Senator Kyl's inquiry,
he is working with his law firm; my understanding is they're
reaching out to many people. But I want to emphasize that we do
have conversations on both sides of the aisle. We've engaged
Laura Murphy, civil rights attorney, to look at how our
policies are affecting different groups who might have concerns
about civil rights. And we have conversations--through my team,
we have conversations on a weekly basis with groups that care
about these issues from both sides of the aisle.
Mr. Jeffries. And are you aware that Senator Kyl is
currently the White House designee to help the administration
navigate through the confirmation process of arch conservative
right wing justice nominee Kavanaugh?
Ms. Bickert. I'm not aware of all of Senator Kyl's
activities, nor was I a part of the Facebook team that is
working on that audit. I'm just aware--or an audit assessment.
I'm just aware of the assessment.
Mr. Jeffries. Are you aware that Senator Kyl once stated on
the floor of the Senate that 90 percent of Planned Parenthood's
activities were abortion related?
Ms. Bickert. Again, Congressman, I'm not aware of
everything about Senator Kyl. I just know that we have engaged
him and his law firm to carry out this assessment.
Mr. Jeffries. And, actually, the figure is 3 percent of
Planned Parenthood's activities are abortion related. So I
guess I'm a little confused that we would embrace the notion of
someone investigating political bias who himself, as a Member
of the United States Congress, would broadcast such fake news.
And that's just one example. He also has a close affiliation
with the Center for Security Policy, which promotes the
conspiracy theory that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated
the U.S. Government to threaten our democracy.
It's amazing how we get concerned about all of these other
entities, but somehow we can live through what we witnessed
yesterday as it relates to the President of the United States
continuing to play footsie with Vladimir Putin. Nobody's
alarmed, apparently, at any of these other affiliations as it
relates to Senator Kyl.
Now, The Heritage Foundation has also been brought in to
address the so-called conservative bias. Is that right?
Ms. Bickert. We can follow up with you on the details of
everybody that Senator Kyl's group is reaching out to.
Mr. Jeffries. Okay. I'd be interested in just understanding
the political leanings of every organization that's been
brought in. But it's our understanding that The Heritage
Foundation, which obviously leans very right, has been brought
in as well.
Now, Facebook has engaged third-party organizations to help
filter what it calls fake news. Is that right?
Ms. Bickert. Congressman, we use third-party fact checkers.
In the United States we currently have five. We're open to
more.
Mr. Jeffries. Am I correct that those five are AP, one;
PolitiFact, two; factcheck.org, three. Snopes, is that correct,
four? And the Weekly Standard, five?
Ms. Bickert. Yes, that's correct.
Mr. Jeffries. Now, when I look at this list, I'm trying to
figure out. So the Weekly Standard is a, again, right wing
conservative leaning organization. I'm struggling to look at
this list of five.
Is there a left leaning progressive organization in this
list of five fact-checking organizations?
Ms. Bickert. Each of these five fact-checking organizations
was selected because it is pointer approved and it also adheres
to the code of principles of the International Fact-Checking
Network.
But I also want to make clear----
Mr. Jeffries. I guess the answer would be no, is that
correct, to my question? Is there a progressive left leaning
organization amongst these five different entities that are
fact checking?
Ms. Bickert. Congressman, I'm sure different people would
characterize these organizations different ways. We know that--
that people will have those opinions. And that's why we're not
removing content if these organizations flag content as false.
Instead, what we are doing is we are demoting content and we're
providing relevant information about other articles on the
internet about the same topics that people have better
information.
Mr. Gaetz. The gentleman's time has expired.
The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Poe, is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you all for being here.
Just as a note, the whole idea of now we are going to have
corporations censure speech based upon their definition of fake
news, based on their definition of hate speech is opening up a
Pandora's box. What one person may think is fake news somebody
else believes is the gospel truth. And we're going to turn that
over to a group of people to decide. It's going to be, I think,
very chaotic.
Are any of you familiar with the general data protection
requirements regulations? Is anybody familiar?
Ms. Downs, are you familiar with it?
Ms. Downs. Yes, I'm familiar with GDPR.
Mr. Poe. Okay. And, basically, if I'm correct, it's now the
policy in the European Union that consumers must opt in to the
dissemination of their private information that is carried by
one of your organizations. Is that a fair statement, Ms. Downs?
Ms. Downs. There are consent requirements built into GDPR,
yes.
Mr. Poe. All right. And what do you personally think of
this regulation in Europe?
Ms. Downs. We very much support a goal of protecting the
privacy of our users, and we're--we are happy to continue to
work with Congress on that here in the U.S. as we do with
European Union for Europe.
Mr. Poe. I agree with you. I think the privacy of most
Americans and people--consumers should be something looked at
by, not only your companies, but Congress so that the consumer
is protected because we all know and have heard all of the
stories about how our private--we think is private information
is not private at all. It's disseminated by your organizations
to people we don't even know, and so that citizens, users,
should at least know where that information is going to and
have the ability to opt in to the dissemination of private
information, not to mention all of the cyber attacks that take
place daily by nefarious organizations.
Mr. Pickles, did you want to say something?
Mr. Pickles. Just to agree. I think privacy is, you're
right, a defining public policy issue. We have a global privacy
policy for this reason. So while Europe has passed GDPR, we
think privacy is something important to all of our users all
around the world.
Mr. Poe. And you think that the United States Congress
should look into that issue, working with all three of you all
and other people that are providers, to come up with some
privacy guidelines for consumers? Just your opinion, Mr.
Pickles.
Mr. Pickles. I think that conversation has already started.
And you're absolutely right, I think it's one that Congress and
industry can engage on to make sure that Americans citizens
and, indeed, companies strike that right balance.
Mr. Poe. All right.
Ms. Bickert, let me ask you this. What--I agree with you,
Mr. Pickles.
What is your definition of fake news?
Ms. Bickert. Congressman, we have a set of policies that
are public that define everything that we are doing to counter
fake news and how we----
Mr. Poe. So what is fake news? Just tell me your definition
of fake news.
Ms. Bickert. Well, really, it depends how people use that
term.
Mr. Poe. I mean, it depends on what? What is fake news?
You said that you're going to try to keep it off of all
these platforms. I'm not arguing with you. But what is fake
news?
Ms. Bickert. No, we don't have a policy of removing fake
news.
Mr. Poe. You just--but you point it out to individuals.
Ms. Bickert. What we do is, if people have----
Mr. Poe. Excuse me. I'm just trying to understand. If you
think something is fake news, you have one of these five
organizations--and Snopes is a left wing organization, by the
way. If you want to have one of these organizations tag it,
what is it? What are we talking about is fake news?
Ms. Bickert. Congressman, what we do is, if people flag
content as being false or if our technology detects that
comments or other signals suggest that content might be false,
then we send it to these fact-checking organizations. If they
rate the content as false and none of them rate it as true,
then we will reduce the distribution of the content and add the
related articles.
Mr. Poe. So you let somebody else determine what fake news
is and whatever their opinion of fake news is. But you don't
have a definition of fake news?
Ms. Bickert. We do--sharing information that is false does
not violate our policies.
Mr. Poe. All right. Thank you.
I yield back to the chair.
Mr. Gaetz. The gentlelady from Washington, Ms. Jayapal, is
recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me associate my remarks with some of my colleagues
earlier in saying that there are so many things we should be
discussing, particularly given the news of yesterday, given
something that I've been fierce about, which is the separation
of families. So many things. And I was pleased today--shocked
but pleased today to see that Chairman Goodlatte had said that
time and time again, this is his quote, that Russia will stop
at nothing to interfere with and undermine our system of
government.
Just days ago, the Department of Justice announced more
Russian nationals have been charged with attempting to
interfere with the 2016 Presidential election. This is not a
country that can be trusted.
I would urge Chairman Goodlatte to hold hearings on that
very important topic. He seems to think it's a problem, and yet
the Judiciary Committee that has jurisdiction over these issues
has yet to hold a single hearing on election security, on
protecting our democracy, on Russian hacking of our elections.
And so I really hope that we do that.
All of that said, I do think that there are some important
issues raised here. And I think that, in many ways, this
hearing and the questions that it raises are a tribute to the
success of social media platforms. That's what's happened.
Mark Zuckerberg, when he started Facebook, I don't think
had any idea that it would take off, or maybe he did. I think
he didn't. But, you know, that it would take off in the way
that it has.
And so the questions that are before you are critical, and
your responsibility and your actions and your timeliness around
all of these issues is absolutely essential to making sure that
these platforms aren't misused and don't actually contribute to
the detriment of our democracy. And I appreciate that there has
been some work that all of your companies have done in trying
to find the right answers, and I don't think it's easy.
I would like to just echo some of the comments that Mr.
Raskin made and that Mr. Jeffries made about how Facebook
ensures that it is not bending to the other side with the
criticism that it gets.
And I want to point out--I don't know if you're aware of
this, Ms. Bickert, but I just saw a news article 2 days ago
that Facebook has recently donated to Chairman Nunes, who, as
you may know, is one of the leading voices that's fighting
Special Counsel Mueller's investigation into Russian
interference in the 2016 election.
Now, I understand that you donate to Democrats and
Republicans. I have a bill that I am working on now that would
not allow donations to members of a committee where there is an
interest at stake. Why? Because I think it's important for
there to be transparency and for the American public to
understand that those donations don't affect how we look at
issues.
But are you concerned about the fact that Facebook has just
in the last few weeks given money to an individual who is--who
is countering the Russian investigation when you and Facebook
are so deeply tied into what access the Russian Government and
Russian operatives were able to get to our elections?
Ms. Bickert. Thank you for the question, Congresswoman. I
know that the Facebook PAC does have bipartisan contributions.
They are publicly disclosed.
Ms. Jayapal. Were you aware that Facebook has--the Facebook
PAC donated to Chairman Nunes just in the last month multiple
times?
Ms. Bickert. I don't keep up-to-date on the details----
Ms. Jayapal. Are you concerned that that would--that would
taint the notion that Facebook really is trying to come to good
solutions around these questions?
Ms. Bickert. Congresswoman, I know that we try to be very
evenhanded in the way that we donate, and we also make sure
that we're very open about our donations.
I'd be happy to have a member of our team follow up with
you on that.
Ms. Jayapal. That would be great. Because, again, look, I
know you donate to everybody. I don't think that's right. But I
know you donate to everybody. But I would just encourage you to
look at this question of whether Facebook is bending too much
to appease some of our right wing interests that I think are
undermining our democracy.
Let me go to this question of false news, because I think
the challenge here is that it is difficult to determine exactly
what may qualify as false news. But the bigger problem to me is
that we somehow get to a standard that truth is relative. Truth
is not relative. An apple is an apple. It can't be a tomato
tomorrow and a pear yesterday. It is an apple.
And so the question for you is, in your strategy, you say
that you do take steps to try to not share false news, and yet
at the same time, you're saying you don't take down any pages.
And I guess I just don't understand what the lines are here and
how you're determining the broad guidance.
Ms. Bickert. Yes. There's a couple of different things we
do. One thing is we know that the majority--the biggest amount
of false news that you see on social media tends to come from
spammers, financially motivated actors. And so we have tactical
means--that violates our policies, and we have tactical means
of trying to detect those accounts and remove them. And we've
made a lot of progress in the past few years.
Then there is this content that people may disagree about
or it may be widely alleged to be false. And we've definitely
heard feedback that people don't want a private company in the
business of determining what is true and what is false. But
what we know we can do is counter virality by--if we think that
there is--that there are signals like third-party fact checkers
telling us the content is false, we can counter that virality
by demoting a post, and we can provide additional information
to people so that they can see whether or not this article is
consistent with what other mainstream sources around the
internet are also saying.
Ms. Jayapal. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Gaetz. The gentlelady's time has expired.
I'll now recognize myself for 5 minutes. And I'll begin by
associating myself with some of the comments from Mr. Lieu and
Mr. Raskin. When they indicate that the government should not
foist upon the technology community, the--you know, the
overregulation of the government, I completely agree.
My question is, when you avail yourself to the protections
of section 230, do you necessarily surrender some of your
rights as a publisher or speaker?
The way I read that statute now, it's pretty binary. It
says that you have to be one or the other. You have to be
section 230 protected or you're a speaker with a full
complement of your First Amendment rights.
I'm cool with that. I would love you guys to make the
choice. I come from the Libertarian leaning segment of my
party. I just think it's confusing when you try to have it both
ways. When you try to say that, you know, we get these
liability protections, but at the same time, we have the right
to throttle content. We have the right to designate content.
And in the most extreme examples, when you have a Twitter
attorney saying in court, we would never do this, but we would
have the right to ban people based on their gender or their
sexual orientation. So I wanted to clear up those comments.
But my question--my next question is for you, Ms. Bickert.
I've provided to you a screenshot I've taken from content that
was published on Facebook from a page that is Milkshakes
Against the Republican Party. There are two posts. Would you
read the first one? And there is one naughty word there that
you're welcome to skip over.
Would you read it aloud?
Ms. Bickert. Congressman, this is a post, Milkshakes
Against the Republican Party. It has a picture, and it says:
Parents in the waiting area for today's school shooting in
Florida.
And then it says: You remember the shooting at the
Republican baseball game? One of those should happen every week
until those NRA--and then there are unpleasant words--and then
there's--I'm not sure if this is another post beneath it or
not.
Mr. Gaetz. Yeah. That's a second post.
Will you read that? That has no naughty words.
Ms. Bickert. It says: Dear crazed shooters, the GOP has
frequent baseball practice. You really want to be remembered?
That's how you do it. Signed, Americans tired of our
politicians bathing in the blood of the innocent for a few
million dollars from the terrorist organization NRA.
Mr. Gaetz. Do these posts violate your terms of service?
Ms. Bickert. Any call for violence violates our terms of
service.
Mr. Gaetz. So why is Milkshakes Against the Republican
Party still a live page on your platform?
Ms. Bickert. I can't speak--I haven't reviewed this page. I
can't speak to why any page is up or not up. But we can
certainly follow up with it.
Mr. Gaetz. So a member of my staff provided these comments
to Facebook. And we said, based on our reading of your terms of
service, and, frankly, based on your testimony today where you
say we are committed to removing content that encourages real
world harm, based on that, this would be a facial violation.
But I received back what I've provided to you, and the
highlighted portion of Facebook's message back to my staff
includes: It doesn't go against one of our specific community
standards.
So do you see the tension between your public testimony
today, your terms of service, and then your conduct when you're
presented with violent calls to shoot people who are members of
my party at baseball practice?
Ms. Bickert. Congressman, there's no place for any calls
for violence on Facebook. I will certainly follow up after the
hearing and make sure that we're addressing content you bring
to our attention.
Mr. Gaetz. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, I brought it to your
attention when I emailed it to you. And then I brought it to
your attention when I went to Facebook with Mr. Ratcliffe. We
went to California. We went to your corporate headquarters. I
showed these posts to your executives. And the response I got
from your executives is: Well, we removed those specific posts,
but we're not going to remove the entire page.
So I guess if a page hosts repeated content that threatens
violence and that references the shooting of Republicans at a
baseball game, why would you not remove the page?
Ms. Bickert. Thank you, Congressman. Okay. So these posts
were removed but the page has not been removed. Is that
correct?
Mr. Gaetz. Correct.
Ms. Bickert. Okay. So we remove pages or groups or profiles
when there is a certain threshold of violations that has been
met. So--and this depends. If somebody, for instance, posts an
image of child sexual abuse imagery, their account will come
down right away. But there are different thresholds depending
on different violations. So I can follow up with you on that.
Mr. Gaetz. Yeah. How many does a page have to encourage
violence against Republican Members of Congress at baseball
practice before you will ban the page?
Ms. Bickert. Congressman, I'm happy to look into this and
look at the page specifically and then come back to you with an
answer.
Mr. Gaetz. You agree this is a mistake, right?
Ms. Bickert. These--the posts should not be on Facebook. I
have to look at a specific page before--with my team before we
can----
Mr. Gaetz. Do you think that this page should be hosted on
Facebook with these multiple calls for violence against people
in my party?
Ms. Bickert. Congressman, I personally have not seen the
page on Facebook. But I will look into----
Mr. Gaetz. You've seen these posts, though, right?
Mr. Raskin. Would the chairman yield?
Mr. Gaetz. Yeah.
Mr. Raskin. I just had a question. I'm agreeing with the
chairman about this. And I think we arrived at the exact same
place when we were talking about at what threshold does
Infowars have their page taken down after they repeatedly deny
the historical reality of massacres of children in public
schools.
And so when you follow up with it, and obviously you want
to look into specifics of the case, I would love it if you
would follow up also about Alex Jones and Infowars. If certain
content you're saying has been taken down when they are
taunting the students from Parkland, but at what point does the
whole page get taken down?
And I agree, certainly, that the--that these posts should
be taken down that the chairman's talking about.
I yield back.
Mr. Gaetz. I thank the gentleman, and would concur with his
sentiments.
My time has expired.
And seeing no further business before the committee, this
concludes today's hearing.
Thank you to the distinguished witnesses for attending.
Without objection, all members will have 5 legislative days
to submit additional written questions for the witnesses or
additional materials for the record.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:54 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]