    [Senate Hearing 115-232]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                                                            S. Hrg. 115-232

                      OPEN HEARING: SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCE
                           IN THE 2016 U.S. ELECTION

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                        SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE

                                     OF THE

                              UNITED STATES SENATE

                         ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION

                                   __________

                          WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2017

                                   __________

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                        SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE

               [Established by S. Res. 400, 94th Cong., 2d Sess.]

                     RICHARD BURR, North Carolina, Chairman
                    MARK R. WARNER, Virginia, Vice Chairman

    JAMES E. RISCH, Idaho                DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
    MARCO RUBIO, Florida                 RON WYDEN, Oregon
    SUSAN COLLINS, Maine                 MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
    ROY BLUNT, Missouri                  ANGUS KING, Maine
    JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma             JOE MANCHIN III, West Virginia
    TOM COTTON, Arkansas                 KAMALA HARRIS, California
    JOHN CORNYN, Texas
                     MITCH McCONNELL, Kentucky, Ex Officio
                      CHUCK SCHUMER, New York, Ex Officio
                        JOHN McCAIN, Arizona, Ex Officio
                      JACK REED, Rhode Island, Ex Officio
                                  ----------
                          Chris Joyner, Staff Director
                     Michael Casey, Minority Staff Director
                       Kelsey Stroud Bailey, Chief Clerk
                                    CONTENTS

                                  ----------

                                NOVEMBER 1, 2017

                               OPENING STATEMENTS

    Burr, Hon. Richard, Chairman, a U.S. Senator from North Carolina.     1
    Warner, Hon. Mark R., Vice Chairman, a U.S. Senator from Virginia     4

                                   WITNESSES

    Stretch, Colin, Vice President and General Counsel, Facebook.....     7
        Prepared statement...........................................     9
    Edgett, Sean, General Counsel, Twitter...........................    16
        Prepared statement...........................................    18
    Walker, Kent, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Google..    38
    Prepared statement...............................................    41

                             SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

    Exhibits used by Chairman Burr...................................    47
    Exhibits used by Vice Chairman Warner............................    54
    Exhibits used by Senator Collins.................................    69
    Exhibits used by Senator King....................................    79
    Answers to questions for the record from Colin Stretch...........   100
    Answers to questions for the record from Sean Edgett.............   130
    Answers to questions for the record from Kent Walker.............   173
    Submission from Senator Harris...................................   199

         OPEN HEARING: SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCE IN THE 2016 U.S. ELECTION

                                  ----------

                          WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2017

                                           U.S. Senate,
                              Select Committee on Intelligence,
                                                        Washington, DC.
        The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:34 a.m. in Room
    SH-216, Hart Senate Office Building, Hon. Richard Burr
    (Chairman of the Committee) presiding.
        Committee Members Present: Senators Burr, Warner, Risch,
    Rubio, Collins, Blunt, Lankford, Cotton, Cornyn, Feinstein,
    Wyden, Heinrich, King, Manchin, Harris, and Reed.

       OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD BURR, CHAIRMAN, A U.S.
                      SENATOR FROM NORTH CAROLINA

        Chairman Burr. I'd like to call the hearing to order. Good
    morning.
        I'd like to welcome our witnesses today. Before I introduce
    them, I want to say, on behalf of the full Committee, that our
    hearts and our prayers go out to the individuals in New York,
    the families and the friends of those who were affected by a
    senseless terror act. To most on this Committee, we've come to
    expect this. We spend countless hours working through the
    threats that exist to this country and around the world, and
    it's sad that we've come to the point where, really, nothing
    can happen that surprises us.
        But it's the responsibility of this Committee to work hand-
    in-hand with our intelligence community to help to keep America
    safe by providing the tools that they need to accomplish their
    mission. We will continue to do that.
        As is the case that we're here today, and I welcome our
    witnesses, Colin Stretch, Vice President and General Counsel at
    Facebook; Sean Edgett, General Counsel at Twitter; and Kent
    Walker, Senior Vice President, General Counsel at Google.
        For several months now, the media has been fixated on the
    role that social media platforms played in spreading
    disinformation and discord during the 2016 elections. This is
    an opportunity for each of you to tell your respective stories
    and, if necessary, correct the record. My sense is that not all
    aspects of those stories have been told accurately. I'll note
    for the record that this Committee is now having its
    seventeenth open hearing this year, and the twelfth at which
    we'll be discussing Russia and Russia's activities.
        Today, I'm hopeful we can provide the American people with
    an informed and credible assessment of how foreign actors used
    your platforms to circulate lies and to agitate unrest during
    last year's elections.
        I'm also hopeful you'll share with us what your companies
    are doing to make it harder for foreign actors to use your
    platforms' automated accounts and falsified stories to
    influence sentiment in the United States.
        Very clearly, this kind of national security vulnerability
    represents an unacceptable risk, and your companies have a
    responsibility to reduce that vulnerability. While we're on the
    topic of responsibility, I want to use this forum to push back
    on some narratives that have sprung up around the subject. A
    lot of folks, including many in the media, have tried to reduce
    this entire conversation to one premise; foreign actors
    conducted a surgical, executed covert operation to help elect a
    United States president.
        I'm here to tell you this story does not simplify that
    easily. It is shortsighted and dangerous to selectively focus
    on one piece of information and think that that somehow tells
    the whole story.
        We've heard from the media how a series of, I quote,
    ``Russian-linked Facebook ads were specifically aimed at
    Michigan and Wisconsin during the lead-up to last year's
    presidential election,'' unquote, and that, quote, ``some of
    those ads targeted specific demographic groups in two states,''
    unquote. The narrative here is that ads linked to Russia were
    targeted at pivotal states and directly influenced the
    election's outcome.
        What you haven't heard is that almost five times more ads
    were targeted at the State of Maryland than of Wisconsin,
    Maryland, which is targeted by 262 ads in comparison to
    Wisconsin's 55 ads, and Maryland was not up for grabs. It was a
    State the Democrat candidate carried by 26 percent; or that 35
    of the 55 ads targeted at Wisconsin ran prior to the Wisconsin
    primary, before there was an identified Republican candidate;
    and moreover, that not one of those 55 ads mentioned President
    Donald Trump by name; or that the key election State of
    Pennsylvania had fewer ads targeted at it than Washington,
    D.C., where 87 percent of the electorate voted for Hillary
    Clinton; or that the three most heavily targeted states in
    America--Maryland, Missouri, and New York--were all determined
    by at least 18-point margin, and two of them won by Hillary
    Clinton.
        One point the media has gotten correct is that more of
    these geographically targeted ads ran in 2015 than 2016--again,
    before President Trump was identified as the Republican
    candidate for president. But some of the context surrounding
    the more than $100,000 worth of divisive ads on hot-button
    issues purchased by Russian actors is missing. To add some
    detail here where the media has failed to do it and put the
    $100,000 into a frame of reference, the total ad spend for the
    State of Wisconsin was $1,979, with all but $54 being spent
    before the primary--again, before the emergence of a Republican
    candidate. The ad spend in the State of Michigan was $823;
    Pennsylvania, $300.
        To believe the narrative, you have to accept that these
    sophisticated, well-resourced Russian actors studied our
    process, assessed what states would be critical to the election
    result, then snuck and invested all of $300 to execute their
    plan in Pennsylvania--$300. More than five times as much money
    was spent on advertising in California, a State that hasn't
    voted Republican in presidential elections since 1988.
        Even with the benefit of numbers and what can be calculated
    and measured, this is an incredibly complex story. We can look
    at the amount of money spent, the number of ads purchased, and
    draw conclusions about priorities. We can look at the divisive
    content of the ads and the pages that they directed people
    towards, the number of tweets and retweets, and the manipulated
    search results, and draw inferences about the intent of the
    information operation. What we cannot do, however, is calculate
    the impact that foreign meddling in social media had on this
    election, nor can we assume that it must be the explanation for
    an election outcome that many didn't expect.
        I understand the urge to make this story simple. It's human
    nature to make the complex manageable, find explanations, and
    interpret things in ways that conform to your conclusions. But
    that's biased. Pointing to a State and saying that no ads ran
    there after the election doesn't prove intent, or even motive.
    It just shows that no ads ran there after the election.
        This subject is complicated. There's a whole new vocabulary
    that comes with this stuff. Impressions are different than
    views. Views are different than clicks. But there's one thing
    that I'm certain of and it's this: Given the complexity of what
    we've seen, if anyone tells you they've got this all figured
    out, they're kidding themselves. And we can't afford to kid
    ourselves about what happened last year and continues to happen
    today.
        That complexity, I'll note, is exactly why we depend on you
    for expert insight and reliable information. Sixty percent of
    the U.S. population uses Facebook. A foreign power using that
    platform to influence how Americans see and think about one
    another is as much a public policy issue as it is a national
    security concern. Crafting an elegant policy solution that is
    effective, but not overly burdensome, demands good faith and
    partnership between companies and this Committee.
        Just recently, on the basis of a more complete and
    sophisticated analysis, the original estimate that 10 million
    Americans were exposed to Russian-origin content on Facebook
    was increased to 126 million. That tells me that your companies
    are just beginning to come to grips with the scale and the
    depth of the problem.
        That's encouraging, but know this: we do better when you do
    better. I'd urge you to keep that in mind and to work with us
    proactively to find the right solution to a very constant and
    complaining challenge.
        I'll take a moment here to stress what this hearing is and
    is not about. This isn't about relitigating the 2016 U.S.
    presidential election. This isn't about who won or who lost.
    This is about national security. This is about corporate
    responsibility, and this is about the deliberative and
    multifaceted manipulation of the American people by agents of a
    hostile foreign power.
        I'll say it again: agents of a hostile foreign power
    reached into the United States, using our own social media
    platforms, and conducted an information operation intended to
    divide our society along issues like race, immigration and
    Second Amendment rights. What's even more galling is that, to
    tear us apart, they're using social media platforms Americans
    invented, in connection with the First Amendment freedoms that
    define an open and democratic society.
        While it's shocking to think that foreign actors use the
    social networking and communications mediums that are so
    central to our lives today in an effort to interfere with the
    core of our democracy, what is even more troubling is the
    likelihood that these platforms are still being used today to
    spread lies, provoke conflict and drive Americans apart.
        Your three companies have developed platforms that have
    tremendous reach and, therefore, tremendous influence. That
    reach and influence is enabled by the enormous amount of data
    you collect on your users and their activities. The American
    people now need to understand how Russia used that information
    and what you're doing to protect them. Your actions need to
    catch up to your responsibilities.
        We have a lot to get to this morning. I'm going to stop
    here. Again, I want to thank each of our briefers--our
    witnesses today, and I turn to the vice chairman for any
    comments he might have.

     OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MARK R. WARNER, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
                                VIRGINIA

        Vice Chairman Warner. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and
    let me also express our concerned thoughts about the tragedy
    yesterday in New York.
        Let me get right at it. In the age of social media, you
    can't afford to waste too much time or, for that matter, too
    many characters, in getting the point across. So I'll get
    straight to the bottom line: Russian operatives are attempting
    to infiltrate and manipulate American social media to hijack
    the national conversation and to make Americans angry; to set
    us against ourselves, and, at their most basic, to undermine
    our democracy. They did it during the 2016 U.S. presidential
    campaign. They are still doing it now. And not one of us is
    doing enough to stop it. That's why we're here today.
        In many ways, the threat is not new. Russians have been
    conducting information warfare for decades. But what is new is
    the advent of social media tools with the power to magnify
    propaganda and fake news on a scale that was unimaginable back
    in the days of the Berlin Wall.
        Today's tools in many ways seem almost purpose-built for
    Russian disinformation techniques. Russia's playbook is simple,
    but formidable. It works like this.
        First, disinformation agents set up thousands of fake
    accounts, groups and pages across a wide array of platforms.
    These fake accounts populate content on Facebook, Instagram,
    Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, LinkedIn, and many other platforms.
        Each of these fake accounts spends literally months
    developing networks of real people to follow and like their
    content, boosted by tools like paid ads and automated bots.
    Most of the real-life followers have no idea that they are
    caught up in these webs. These networks are later utilized to
    push an array of disinformation, including stolen e-mails,
    state-led propaganda like RT News and Sputnik, fake news, and
    divisive content.
        The goal is pretty simple. It's to get this so-called news
    into the news feeds of many potentially receptive Americans and
    to covertly and subtly push those Americans in the directions
    the Kremlin wants to go.
        As someone who deeply respects the tech industry and who
    was involved in that industry for more than 20 years, it's
    taken me quite a bit of time--and I'm still learning--to truly
    understand the nature of this threat. Even I struggle to keep
    up with the language and the mechanics, the difference between
    bots, trolls, and fake accounts; how they generate likes,
    tweets, and shares; and how all these players and actions are
    combined into an online ecosystem.
        What is clear, however, is that this playbook offers a
    tremendous bang for the disinformation buck. With just a small
    amount of money, adversaries use hackers to steal and weaponize
    data, trolls to craft disinformation, fake accounts to build
    networks, bots to drive traffic, and ads to target new
    audiences. They can force propaganda into the mainstream and
    wreak havoc on our online discourse. And if you look back at
    the results, it's a pretty good return on investment.
        So where do we go from here? I believe it will take all of
    us--you, some of the platform companies, the United States
    government, and the American people--to deal with this new and
    evolving threat.
        The social media and innovative tools each of you have
    developed have changed our world for the better. You've
    transformed the way we do everything from shopping for
    groceries to growing small businesses.
        But Russia's actions are further exposing the dark
    underbelly of the ecosystem you have created, and there is no
    doubt that their successful campaign will be replicated by
    other adversaries--both nation-states and terrorists--that wish
    to do harm to democracies around the globe. This is not a
    unique American phenomenon.
        As such, each of you here today needs to commit more
    resources to identifying bad actors and, when possible,
    preventing them from abusing our social media ecosystem. Thanks
    in part to pressure from this Committee, each company has
    uncovered, I believe, only some of the evidence of the ways
    Russians exploited their platforms during the 2016 election.
        For Facebook, much of the attention has been focused on the
    paid ads that Russian trolls targeted to Americans. However,
    these ads are just the tip of a very large iceberg. The real
    story is the amount of misinformation and divisive content that
    was pushed for free on Russian-backed pages, which was then
    spread widely on news feeds of tens of millions of Americans.
        According to the data Facebook has provided, 120 Russian-
    backed pages built a network of over 3.3 million people. From
    these now-suspended pages, 80,000 organic unpaid posts reached
    an estimated 126 million real people--more than a third of the
    population.
        This is an astonishing reach from just one group in St.
    Petersburg. And I doubt that the so-called Internet Research
    Agency in St. Petersburg represents the only Russian trolls out
    there.
        Facebook has more work to do to see how deep this goes,
    including into the reach that we've just found in the last 48
    hours of information you've provided, of IRA-backed Instagram
    posts, which, again, if we just take for an example, 80,000
    posts from IRA-based trolls on Facebook, 120,000 pieces of
    content on Instagram, and we don't even have the data on how
    many--how much that content reached.
        The anonymity provided by Twitter and the speed by which it
    shares news makes it an ideal tool to spread disinformation.
    According to one study, during the 2016 campaign, junk news
    actually outperformed real news in some battleground states,
    leading up to Election Day. Another study found that bots
    generated one out of every five political messages posted on
    Twitter over the entire presidential campaign.
        I'm concerned, sir, that Twitter seems to be vastly
    underestimating the number of fake accounts and bots pushing
    disinformation. Independent researchers, people who've
    testified before this Committee, have estimated that up to 15
    percent of active Twitter accounts, or potentially 45 million-
    plus accounts, are fake or automated.
        Despite evidence of significant incursion and outreach from
    researchers, Twitter has to date only uncovered a small piece
    of that activity, although I will acknowledge that in the last
    few days your numbers have gone from about 200 accounts to over
    2,700 accounts. And again, I believe there's more to be done.
        Google search algorithms continue to have problems in
    surfacing fake news or propaganda. Though we can't necessarily
    attribute to Russian efforts, false stories and unsubstantiated
    rumors were elevated on Google Search during the recent mass
    shootings in Las Vegas.
        Meanwhile, YouTube has become RT's go-to platform. Google
    has now uncovered 1,100 videos associated with this Russian
    campaign. Much more of your content was likely spread through
    other platforms.
        But it's not just the platforms that need to do more. The
    United States government has thus far proven incapable of
    meeting this 21st-century challenge. Unfortunately, I believe
    this effort is suffering in part because of lack of leadership
    at the top. We have a President who remains unwilling to
    acknowledge the threat that Russia poses to our democracy.
    President Trump should stop actively delegitimizing American
    journalism and acknowledge and address this very real threat
    posed by Russian propaganda.
        I believe that Congress, too, must do more. We need to
    recognize that current law was not built to address these
    threats. I partnered with Senators Klobuchar and McCain on what
    I believe is the most light-touch legislative approach, which I
    hope all my colleagues on this panel will review. The Honest
    Ads Act is a national security bill intended to protect our
    elections from the foreign interference we all want to avoid.
        Finally, but perhaps most importantly, the American people
    also need to be aware of what is happening to our news feeds.
    We all need to take a more discerning approach to what we are
    reading and sharing and who we're connecting with online. We
    need to recognize the person at the other end of that Facebook
    or Twitter argument may not be a real person at all.
        The fact is that this Russian weapon has already proved its
    success and cost-effectiveness. We can be assured that other
    adversaries, including foreign intelligence operatives and
    potentially terrorist organizations, have read this playbook
    and are already taking action. It's why we, collectively, must
    act.
        To our witnesses today, I hope you will detail what we saw
    in the last election and, most importantly, tell us what steps
    you will undertake for us to get ready for the next one. We
    welcome your participation and encourage your commitment to
    addressing this shared responsibility.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Burr. Thank, Senator Warner.
        I'd like to notify Members we will have seven-minute rounds
    today by seniority.
        Gentlemen, if I could ask you to please stand and raise
    your right hand. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the
    whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
        Mr. Stretch. Yes.
        Mr. Walker. I do.
        Mr. Edgett. Yes.
        Chairman Burr. Please be seated.
        Mr. Stretch, we're going to recognize you, then Mr. Edgett,
    then Mr. Walker. Mr. Stretch, the floor is yours.

    STATEMENT OF COLIN STRETCH, VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL COUNSEL,
                                FACEBOOK

        Mr. Stretch. Chairman Burr, Vice Chairman Warner and
    distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for this
    opportunity to appear before you today. My name is Colin
    Stretch and since July 2013 I've served as the General Counsel
    of Facebook. We appreciate this Committee's hard work to
    investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election.
        At Facebook, our mission is to create technology that gives
    people the power to build community and bring the world closer
    together. We are proud that each of you uses Facebook to
    connect with your constituents, and we understand that the
    people you represent expect authentic experiences when they
    come to our platform to share and connect.
        We also believe that we have an important role to play in
    the democratic process and a responsibility to protect it on
    our platform. That's why we take what's happened on Facebook so
    seriously.
        The foreign interference we saw during the 2016 election is
    reprehensible. That foreign actors hiding behind fake accounts
    abused our platform and other internet services to try to sow
    division and discord and to try to undermine our election
    process is directly contrary to our values and everything we
    stand for. Our goal at Facebook is to bring people closer
    together. These foreign actors sought to drive people apart.
        In our investigation, which continues to this day, we have
    found that these actors used fake accounts to place ads on
    Facebook and Instagram that reached millions of Americans over
    a two-year period, and that those ads were used to promote
    pages which in turn posted more content. People shared these
    posts, spreading them still further.
        Many of these ads and posts are inflammatory. Some are
    downright offensive. We know that much of this content is
    particularly hurtful to members of the Facebook community that
    engaged with this content believing it was authentic. People
    should believe content on Facebook is authentic, and should not
    have to worry that they are being exploited in a cynical effort
    to prey on painful fault lines in our society in order to
    inflame discourse in this country.
        In aggregate, the ads and posts we are here today to
    discuss were a very small fraction of the overall content on
    Facebook, but any amount is too much. All of these accounts and
    pages violated our policies, and we removed them.
        Going forward, we are making significant investments. We're
    hiring more ad reviewers, doubling or more our security
    engineering efforts, putting in place tighter ad content
    restrictions, launching new tools to improve ad transparency,
    and requiring documentation from political ad buyers.
        We're building artificial intelligence to help locate more
    banned content and bad actors. We're working more closely with
    industry to share information on how to identify and prevent
    threats, so that we can all respond faster and more
    effectively. And we're expanding our efforts to work more
    closely with law enforcement.
        We know bad actors aren't going to stop their efforts. We
    know we'll all have to keep learning and improving to stay
    ahead of them. We also know we can't do this alone. That's why
    I want to thank you for this investigation. We look forward to
    the conclusions you will ultimately share with the American
    public. And I look forward to your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Stretch follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Burr. Mr. Edgett, the floor is yours.

           STATEMENT OF SEAN EDGETT, GENERAL COUNSEL, TWITTER

        Mr. Edgett. Chairman Burr, Vice Chairman Warner and Members
    of this Committee, Twitter understands the importance of the
    Committee's inquiry into Russia's interference in the 2016
    election, and we appreciate the opportunity to appear here
    today. The events underlying this hearing have been deeply
    concerning to our company and the broader Twitter community. We
    are committed to providing a service that fosters and
    facilitates free and open democratic debate and that promotes
    positive change in the world.
        We are troubled by reports that the power of Twitter was
    misused by a foreign actor for the purpose of influencing the
    U.S. presidential election and undermining public faith in the
    democratic process. The abuse of our platform to attempt state-
    sponsored manipulation of elections is a new challenge for us
    and one we are determined to meet. Today we intend to show the
    Committee how serious we are about addressing this new threat
    by addressing the work we are doing to understand what happened
    and to ensure that it does not happen again.
        At the time of the 2016 election, we observed and acted on
    instances of automated and malicious activity. As we learned
    more about the scope of the broader problem, we resolved to
    strengthen our systems, going forward. Elections continue all
    the time, so our first priority was to do all we could to block
    and remove malicious activity from interfering with our users'
    experience. We created dedicated teams within Twitter to
    enhance the quality of information our users see and to block
    malicious activity whenever and wherever we find it.
        Those teams continue to work every day to ensure Twitter
    remains a safe, open, transparent and positive platform. We
    have also launched a retrospective review to find Russian
    efforts to influence the 2016 election through automation,
    coordinated activity, and advertising.
        While that review is still underway, we have made the
    decision to review and share what we know today, in the
    interest of transparency and out of appreciation for the
    urgency of this matter. We do so recognizing that our findings
    may be supplemented as we continue to work with the Committee
    staff and other companies, discover more facts, and gain a
    greater understanding of these events.
        My written testimony details the methodology and current
    findings of our retrospective review in detail. We studied
    tweets from the period September 1st to November 15th, 2016.
    During that time, we did find automated and coordinated
    activity of interest. We determined that the number of accounts
    we could link to Russia and that were tweeting election-related
    content was comparatively small: about one one-hundredth of a
    percent of total Twitter accounts at the time we studied.
        One-third of one percent of the election-related tweets
    people saw came from Russian-linked automated accounts. We did,
    however, observe instances where Russian-linked activity was
    more pronounced, and have uncovered more accounts linked to the
    Russian-based Internet Research Agency as a result of our
    review.
        We have also determined that advertising by Russia Today in
    seven small accounts was related to the election and violated
    either the policies in effect at the time or that have since
    been implemented. We have banned all of those users as
    advertisers, and we will donate that revenue to academic
    research into the use of Twitter during elections and for civic
    engagement.
        We are making meaningful improvements based on our
    findings. Last week, we announced industry-leading changes to
    our advertising policies that will help protect our platform
    from unwanted content.
        We are also enhancing our safety systems, sharpening our
    tools for stopping malicious activity, and increasing
    transparency to promote public understanding of all of these
    areas. Our work on these challenges will continue for as long
    as malicious actors seek to abuse our system and will need to
    evolve to stay ahead of new tactics.
        We have heard concerns about Russia actors' use of Twitter
    to disrupt the 2016 election and about our commitment to
    addressing that issue. Twitter believes that any activity of
    that kind, regardless of magnitude, is unacceptable, and we
    agree that we must do better to prevent it. We hope that our
    appearance today and the description of the work we have
    undertaken demonstrates our commitment to working with you, our
    industry partners, and other stakeholders to ensure that the
    experience of 2016 never happens again.
        Cooperation to combat this challenge is essential. We
    cannot defeat this evolving, shared threat alone. As with most
    technology-based threats, the best approach is to combine
    information and ideas to increase our collective knowledge.
    Working with the broader community, we will continue to test,
    to learn, to share, and to improve so that our product remains
    effective and safe.
        I look forward to answering your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Edgett follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Burr. Thank you, Mr. Edgett.
        Mr. Walker, the floor is yours.

      STATEMENT OF KENT WALKER, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL
                            COUNSEL, GOOGLE

        Mr. Walker. Thank you very much, Chairman Burr, Vice
    Chairman Warner, Members of the Committee, for the opportunity
    to speak with you today. My name is Kent Walker. I'm Senior
    Vice President and General Counsel at Google. I oversee our
    legal, our policy, our trust and safety, and our Google.org
    teams. I've worked at the intersection of technology, security,
    and the law for over 25 years, starting my career as an
    assistant U.S. attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice
    focused on technology crimes.
        Let me start my conversation with you today by joining your
    earlier comments, acknowledging the victims and families of the
    awful attack in New York yesterday. As a New York employer, we
    know how strong and tough New Yorkers are and we look forward
    to do anything we can to help.
        Turning to the issues before the Committee today, Google
    believes that we have a responsibility to prevent the misuse of
    our platforms, and we take that very seriously. Google was
    founded with the mission of organizing the world's information
    and making it universally accessible and useful. The abuse of
    the tools and platforms we build is antithetical to that
    mission.
        Google is deeply concerned about attempts to undermine the
    democratic elections. We are committed to working with
    Congress, law enforcement, others in our industry, and the NGO
    community to strengthen protections around elections, to ensure
    the security of users, and to help combat disinformation. We
    recognize the importance of this Committee's mandate, and we
    appreciate the opportunity to share information and talk about
    solutions.
        Of course, disinformation and propaganda campaigns aren't
    new and have involved many types of media and publications over
    the years. And for many years, we've seen attempts to interfere
    with our online platforms. We take these threats very
    seriously. We've built industry-leading security systems, and
    we've put those tools into our consumer products as well.
        Back in 2007, we launched the first version of our Safe
    Browsing tool, which helps protect users from phishing,
    malware, and other attacks. Today, Safe Browsing is used on
    more than 3 billion devices worldwide.
        If we suspect that users are subject to government-
    sponsored attacks, we warn them about that. And last month, we
    launched our Advanced Protection Program, which helps protect
    those at greatest risk of attack, like journalists, business
    leaders, and politicians.
        We face motivated and resourceful attackers, and we are
    continually evolving our tools to stay ahead of ever-changing
    threats. Our tools don't just protect our physical and network
    security, but they also detect and prevent attempts to
    manipulate our systems. On Google News, for example, we use
    fact-check labels to help users spot fake news. For Google
    search, we have updated our quality guidelines and evaluations
    to help surface more authoritative content from the web. We've
    updated our advertising guidelines as well to prohibit ads on
    sites that misrepresent themselves.
        And on YouTube, we employ a sophisticated spam and security
    breach detection system, designed to detect anomalous behavior
    and catch people trying to inflate view counts of videos or
    numbers of subscribers. And as threats evolve, we will
    continually adapt in order to understand and prevent new
    attempts to misuse our platforms.
        With respect to the Committee's work on the 2016 election,
    we've looked across our products to understand whether
    government-backed entities were using our products to
    disseminate information in order to interfere with the U.S.
    election. While we did find some deceptive activities on our
    platform associated with suspected government-backed accounts,
    that activity appears to have been relatively limited. Of
    course, any activity like this is more than we would like to
    see. We've provided the relevant information to the Committee,
    have issued a public summary of the results of our review, and
    we will continue to cooperate with the Committee's
    investigation.
        Going forward, we will continue to expand our use of
    cutting-edge technology to protect our users and will continue
    working with governments to ensure that our platforms aren't
    abused. We will also be making political advertising more
    transparent, easier for users to understand, and even more
    secure. In 2018, we'll release a transparency report showing
    data about who is buying election ads on our platform and how
    much money is being spent. We'll pair that transparency report
    with a database, available for public research, of election and
    ad content across our ads products.
        We're also going to make it easier for users to understand
    who bought the election ads they see on our networks. Going
    forward, users will be able to easily find the name of any
    advertiser running an election ad on Search, YouTube, or the
    Google Display Network through an icon on the ad. We'll
    continue enhancing our existing safeguards to ensure that we
    permit only U.S. nationals to buy U.S. election ads.
        We already tightly restrict which advertisers can serve ads
    to audiences based on political leanings. Moving forward, we'll
    go further by verifying the identity of anyone who wants to run
    an election ad or use our political interest-based tools, and
    confirming that that person is permitted to run that ad.
        We certainly can't do this alone. We'll continue to work
    with other companies to better protect the collective digital
    ecosystem. And even as we take our own steps, we remain open to
    working on legislation that promotes electoral transparency.
        Moreover, our commitment to addressing these issues extends
    beyond our services. We've offered in-person briefings and
    introduced a suite of digital tools designed to help election
    websites and political campaigns protect themselves from
    phishing, unauthorized account access, and other digital
    attacks. We're also increasing our long-standing support for
    the bipartisan Defending Digital Democracy Project.
        Let me conclude by recognizing the importance of the work
    of this Committee. Our users, advertisers, and creators must be
    able to trust in their security and safety. We share the goal
    of identifying bad actors who attempted to interfere with our
    systems and abuse the electoral process.
        We look forward to continued cooperation both with the
    Members of this Committee and with our fellow companies to
    provide access to tools that help citizens express themselves,
    while avoiding abuses that undercut the integrity of elections.
        Thank you again for the opportunity to tell you about our
    ongoing efforts. We look forward to our continuing work with
    Congress on these important issues, and we are happy to answer
    any questions you might have.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Walker follows:]
        [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Chairman Burr. Mr. Walker, thank you for your testimony.
        The Chair would recognize himself and share with Members
    that I'm going to talk about one specific ad that--it's not
    going to count to my seven minutes, and the Vice Chairman is
    going to do the same at the beginning of his, to sort of set
    the stage for much of what we'll talk about today.
        As an example, I'd like to highlight one specific case with
    real-world implications involving two different Facebook
    groups, both of which are associated with the Russian Internet
    Research Agency.
        You'll see the first board that is up.
        [The material referred to follows:]
     [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        The first group's called ``The Heart of Texas,'' with over
    250,000 followers. This account promoted pro-Texas causes and
    included posts many would characterize as anti-immigration or
    anti-Muslim. The tagline for this group, as referenced in the
    top left-hand corner of the first chart, is ``Texas: homeland
    of guns, barbecue, and your heart,'' with the words ``time to
    secede'' emboldened on the Texas flag.
        Turning to the second group, which is in the bottom right-
    hand, it's called ``The United Muslims of America,'' with over
    328,000 followers. This account claimed to be pro-Islamic
    themes. The tagline for this group, as referenced in the
    bottom-right corner of the first chart, is ``I'm a Muslim and
    I'm proud.''
        So, if I could have the second board up. The Heart of Texas
    group created a public event on Facebook, to occur at noon, May
    21st, 2016, at the Islamic Center in Houston, Texas, to stop,
    quote, ``to stop the Islamization of Texas,'' unquote. The same
    group then placed an advertisement on Facebook to promote their
    event, with over 12,000 people viewed.
        The United Muslims of America subsequently created an event
    on Facebook to occur at noon, May 21st, 2016, at the Islamic
    Center in Houston, Texas, to, I quote, ``save Islamic
    knowledge''--same time, same place as the Heart of Texas event.
    The group then placed an advertisement, targeting people in
    Houston, Texas, area to promote their event to support the
    Islamic Center. More than 2,700 people viewed this ad.
        If I could have the third board.
        On May 21st, 2016, local news captured the events as they
    unfolded, reporting on the protest stage by the Heart of Texas
    group and resulting counter-protest. The pictures you see on
    the third board are from the streets in front of the Islamic
    Center in Houston, Texas.
        What neither side could have known is that Russia trolls
    were encouraging both sides to battle in the streets and create
    division between real Americans. Ironically, one person who
    attended stated, ``The Heart of Texas promoted this event, but
    we didn't see one of them.'' We now know why. It's hard to
    attend an event in Houston, Texas, when you're trolling from a
    site in St. Petersburg, Russia. Establishing these two
    competing groups, paying for the ads, and causing this
    disruptive event in Houston cost Russia about $200.
        Mr. Stretch, you commented yesterday that your company's
    goal is bringing people together. In this case, people were
    bought together to foment conflict, and Facebook enabled that
    event to happen. I would say that Facebook has failed their
    goal. From a computer in St. Petersburg, Russia, these
    operators can create and promote events anywhere in the United
    States and attempt to tear apart our society. I'm certain that
    our adversaries are learning from the Russian activities and
    even watching us today. Simply put, you must do better to
    protect the American people and, frankly, all of your users
    from this kind of manipulation.
        My time can start now. I have one simple question, yes or
    no from each of you. I'll start with Mr. Stretch and work my
    way to your left.
        The Federal Election Campaign Act prohibits any foreign
    national from spending funds in connection with any Federal,
    State, or local elections in the United States. Doesn't this
    law prohibit your publication of this content?
        Mr. Stretch.
        Mr. Stretch. Prohibit publication of the content we've
    seen?
        Chairman Burr. Does FEC law apply to Facebook?
        Mr. Stretch. Certainly, FEC law, yes, applies to----
        Chairman Burr. Prohibits foreign dollars influencing an
    election?
        Mr. Stretch. It prohibits foreign actors from using really
    any medium, including Facebook, to influence a foreign--a U.S.
    election.
        Chairman Burr. So FEC law applies to Facebook?
        Mr. Stretch. Yes, it does.
        Chairman Burr. Mr. Edgett.
        Mr. Edgett. It applies to Twitter as well.
        Chairman Burr. It applies Twitter.
        Mr. Walker.
        Mr. Walker. Yes, sir.
        Chairman Burr. Great.
        The prevalence of social media use among military members,
    who spend so much time outside the country, deployed away from
    friends, away from family, seems a likely target for foreign
    intelligence agencies who want to collect details on U.S. force
    movements, deployments, and other sensitive insight. Do you
    monitor your platforms for indications that your users in the
    U.S. military are targeted in any way?
        Mr. Stretch.
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, yes, and I would say that that sort
    of--that sort of security work really falls into the
    traditional cybersecurity work that we've long been focused on.
    We've had a threat intelligence team for years now that has
    been focused on tracking foreign actors, and it's exactly that
    sort of threat that we believe has historically been an area of
    focus for our adversaries, and likewise an area of focus for us
    on the defensive side.
        Chairman Burr. Mr. Edgett.
        Mr. Edgett. Similar to Mr. Stretch, we've been focused on
    that type of threat for years. We're also focused on education
    on the other side and helping law enforcement and military
    personnel understand how to use Twitter and both its benefits
    and its risks.
        Chairman Burr. Mr. Walker.
        Mr. Walker. We've been looking at cyber espionage for some
    years, and so this is all in focus. Because we're not a social
    network, we may not have as much visibility as to whether
    individual users of our service are veterans or not, but that
    would certainly be an area of concern.
        Chairman Burr. These questions are for Facebook, Mr.
    Stretch. In a blog published September 6th, 2017, Alex Stamos,
    Facebook's Chief Security Officer, wrote that the company had
    discovered about 3,000 political ads that were paid for through
    470 fake accounts and pages that likely operated out of Russia.
    Facebook shut down these accounts on the grounds that they were
    inauthentic. Had these accounts not violated Facebook's
    prohibition against fake accounts, would they have been shut
    down?
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, many of them would have, because many
    of them violated other policies related to the type of content
    that's permitted on the platform. The authenticity issue is the
    key.
        Referring to the content you surfaced earlier, it pains us
    as a company, it pains me personally, to see that we were--that
    our platform was abused in this way. People in this country
    care deeply in--about issues of public concern, and it's one of
    the strengths of our country that people are so willing to
    speak freely about them. The fact that foreign actors were able
    to use our platform to exploit that openness is a deeply
    painful lesson for us, and one we're focused on learning from
    going forward.
        Chairman Burr. Does it trouble you that it took this
    Committee to get you to look at the authentic nature of the
    users and the content?
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, we are certainly troubled--I'd say
    more than troubled--by the evidence of abuse of our platform
    during 2016, and we're certainly grateful for the Committee's
    investigation and the attention you're bringing to this issue.
    We think it's very important.
        We do believe that it's a larger issue than any one
    company, and we believe that, going forward, there are
    opportunities, not just for us to do better, but for us to work
    together to make sure we're all addressing this threat
    appropriately.
        Chairman Burr. What characteristics would indicate that an
    account or a page is likely operated out of Russia?
        Mr. Stretch. There are a number of characteristics that can
    signal potential location. The most obvious one that is
    typically the most reliable is location information that's
    transmitted by the user's browser when they access Facebook.
    It's also the most easily manipulable.
        There are many other signals that similarly will suggest
    location, but, because of the way the internet is architected,
    can also be faked. Our job is to look not just for the signals
    that are in plain sight, but understand how they can be
    manipulated, and look for patterns of activity that reveal
    efforts to abuse our platform that are shrouded, both
    geographically and in other ways.
        Chairman Burr. Mr. Edgett, your vice president at Twitter
    stated that Twitter's expanding its team and resources and
    building new tools and processes to combat automated Twitter
    accounts, or bots. What is Twitter's process for identifying a
    bot?
        Mr. Edgett. We have a lot of data behind sort of the things
    you see on Twitter that looks at the activity of an account--
    and remember, there are hundreds of millions of accounts--the
    activity of an account as it relates to other accounts. So as
    you or I, Senator, tweet, our activity looks pretty normal. As
    an automated account tweets thousands of times an hour, or logs
    in thousands of times a day, that looks pretty suspicious.
        So our technology is looking for that anomaly that
    differentiates sort of normal accounts from automated accounts.
    But spammers and bad actors are getting better at making
    themselves look more real.
        Chairman Burr. So what percentage of accounts on Twitter
    are actually bots and not real people?
        Mr. Edgett. So we do a monthly audit of this and
    investigation, and determined that for years less than 5
    percent of our accounts are false accounts or spam.
        Chairman Burr. What happens to accounts on Twitter that are
    suspended by Twitter? Is there an indefinite status?
        Mr. Edgett. Once we suspend an account, they're--especially
    an automated account--they're typically permanently banned from
    the platform. And we also do work to link those accounts with
    new accounts that may pop up. So the more we investigate and
    look into this and build the web of information around the
    signals we're seeing from these accounts, the better we get at
    linking those accounts and stopping them before they get on the
    platform.
        Chairman Burr. My time has expired, but I'm going to ask
    you to submit in writing for the record Twitter's assessment of
    why independent assessments of the number of bots on Twitter
    constantly, consistently, are higher than the 5 percent that
    you've stated today, if you would provide that for the record.
        Mr. Edgett. Happy to provide that for the record and
    address it today.
        Chairman Burr. Thank you.
        Vice Chairman.
        Vice Chairman Warner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I also want to demonstrate, but I'd also--as we're getting
    ready--we have had testimony before this Committee from a
    representative of NATO that fake and bot accounts on Twitter
    are more in the 12 percent to 15 percent account. A vast number
    of research studies--you know, 320 million active Twitter
    accounts--even if you assume 10 percent, you're still talking
    30-plus million potential accounts that could be misused and
    abused.
        If we could put up the chart here, this is another example
    of how people are kind of lured in.
        [The material referred to follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Vice Chairman Warner. The first ad is an ad that is pretty
    benign. It's obviously targeted towards Christians. It's a--
    it's an ``Army of Jesus'' Facebook ad, 217,000 followers. You
    like that page, and here's what happens: you would get a series
    of, for the most part, relatively benign Bible quotes or other
    items. This ad appeared in October of 2016.
        Late October, early November, suddenly, this benign site,
    in addition to your Bible quotes, suddenly we're getting these
    other posts, not paid ads, but posts from this organization.
    This message, obviously the bottom one would've gone to the
    217,000 followers. We have no idea how many times it was liked
    or shared with other individuals.
        Again, we've got two different examples of the type of
    tools, how people are lured in, and then once they're lured
    into what they think is a pro-Texas or pro-Muslim or here pro-
    Jesus account--and then they are manipulated by foreign actors
    and foreign agents.
        Go ahead and start my time.
        First of all, I hear all your words, but I have more than a
    little bit of frustration that many of us on this Committee
    have been raising this issue since the beginning of this year,
    and our claims were frankly blown off by the leaderships of
    your companies, dismissed, said, there's no possibility,
    nothing like this happening, nothing to see here.
        It bothers me, if you're really committed to trying to work
    with us to resolve this, that it took until this Committee
    continually went at you, and it was July and early August when
    you made your first presentations. And, candidly, your first
    presentations were less than sufficient and showed in my mind a
    lack of resources, a lack of commitment, and a lack of genuine
    effort.
        Candidly, your companies know more about Americans in many
    ways than the United States government does. And the idea that
    you had no idea any of this was happening strains your
    credibility.
        So my first question is this, and I want a yes or no
    answer, not a filibuster. Will you commit to continue to work
    with this Committee to provide additional information and
    additional documents as needed as we continue to explore this
    challenge and threat on a going-forward basis?
        We go right down the line. Mr. Stretch.
        Mr. Stretch. Yes.
        Vice Chairman Warner. Mr. Edgett.
        Mr. Edgett. Absolutely.
        Vice Chairman Warner. Mr. Walker.
        Mr. Walker. Absolutely.
        Vice Chairman Warner. Next, one of the things that I
    continue--again, and I will commend you here--that from the
    first our friends at Facebook, you identified 470 accounts,
    3,000 ads. And most of the work, at least it appears to me,
    from at least Twitter and Facebook, has all been derivative of
    that initial data dump.
        And again, this is a yes or no question: Do you believe
    that any of your companies have identified the full scope of
    Russian active measures on your platform? Yes or no?
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, our investigation continues. So I
    would have to say no, certainly not with certainty.
        Vice Chairman Warner. Mr. Edgett.
        Mr. Edgett. No, and we're still working on this.
        Vice Chairman Warner. Mr. Walker.
        Mr. Walker. I believe we haven't done a comprehensive
    investigation, but, as Mr. Stretch says, these are ongoing
    issues, and we continue to investigate.
        Vice Chairman Warner. Let me start again with Facebook
    here. You've identified 470 accounts from one troll farm in St.
    Petersburg. There have been plenty of press reports of other
    troll farms in Russia. There have been reports of other
    activities that were Russian-controlled in Central Europe and
    Eastern Europe. In meetings with your leadership, as you became
    more aware of this problem, you aggressively promoted the fact,
    for example, that you took down 30,000 accounts around the
    French elections. Now, you say not all of those were Russian-
    related.
        Have you gone back and cross-checked those Russian-related
    accounts that you took down in France to see if any of those
    accounts were active in the American election?
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, the 30,000 accounts that we took down
    in----
        Vice Chairman Warner. The accounts that were related to
    Russian accounts that you took down. Your leadership in fact
    bragged about how proactive you were in the French election
    process. Did you check those accounts to see if any of them
    were active in the American elections?
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, the system that ran to take down
    those accounts, which were fake accounts of, really, all type
    and for any purpose, has--is now active worldwide----
        Vice Chairman Warner. Have you----
        Mr. Stretch [continuing]. And has been operated----
        Vice Chairman Warner. Just please answer my question. Have
    you reviewed the accounts you took down in France that were
    Russian-related to see if they had played any role in the
    American election?
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, I apologize. I'm trying to answer the
    question.
        Vice Chairman Warner. Well, the answer is yes or no. I
    don't want a long explanation. I want to know if you have done
    this. I've been signaling this to you for some time. We wanted
    to make sure that you would review those accounts. We wanted to
    make sure--the 470 accounts that paid for the 3,000 ads, you
    said these were all accounts, except for one, that were paid
    for in rubles. Did you even run those accounts to see if any of
    those accounts were paid for with dollars or euros or other
    currencies?
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, those--let me try to state it----
        Vice Chairman Warner. Yes or no?
        Mr. Stretch. So we have, and we continue----
        Vice Chairman Warner. Mr. Stretch, yes or no?
        Mr. Stretch. Yes, we are looking and have looked at every
    possible indication of Russian activity in the 2016 election,
    and the investigation continues.
        Vice Chairman Warner. Sir----
        Mr. Stretch. That includes any evidence we've identified
    from those 30,000 accounts, as well as a number of----
        Vice Chairman Warner. All those accounts have been run,
    that database has been run, to see if any of those accounts
    were active in the United States?
        Mr. Stretch. I will have to come back to you on that,
    Senator.
        Vice Chairman Warner. Sir, we've had this hearing scheduled
    for months. I find your answer very, very disappointing.
        On the question of--we just discovered, and I appreciate
    this, you had 80,000 views in terms of Russian--views on
    Facebook. We now discovered in the last 48 hours 120,000
    Russian-based posts on Instagram. Have you done any of the
    similar analysis on those 120,000 posts? We know the 80,000
    ended up reaching 126 million Americans. Have you done that
    same analysis on the 120,000 posts on Instagram?
        Mr. Stretch. Yes, Senator, we have.
        Vice Chairman Warner. And how many Americans did those
    touch?
        Mr. Stretch. The data on Instagram is not as complete, but
    the data that we do have indicates that, beginning in October
    of 2016, those Instagram posts reached an additional 16 million
    people, in addition to the 126 million people that we
    identify----
        Vice Chairman Warner. So now we're seeing the Russian
    activities roughly at 150 million-plus Americans, without
    knowing how many times they were re-shared.
        Mr. Stretch. If I can add that the time period prior to
    October 16th, where our data is less reliable, would yield an
    incremental 4 million. So all told, that gets you to
    approximately a little less than 150 million. That's correct,
    Senator.
        Vice Chairman Warner. Mr. Edgett, on the Twitter account,
    you--there was one activity--and this was not something that
    happened during 2016. Again, I agree with the Chairman. We're
    not here to relitigate 2016. But there was a fake Tennessee
    Republican account, TEN-GOP. The irony was this account had
    154,000 followers; the real Tennessee GOP party had 13,000--
    13,400 followers, I believe, based on your numbers.
        I find very interesting, there have been some people who
    have said, ``Well, people should be able spot these fake
    accounts.'' Well, if they're able to spot these fake accounts,
    you had the President's communications director retweeting this
    account, Kellyanne Conway. You had the President's son, Donald
    Trump, Jr., retweeting this account.
        My question is, why did it take so long to take this down
    when the Tennessee Republican party was asking you repeatedly?
        Mr. Edgett. Yeah, that--and that was an absolute miss, and
    we've gotten better since. We've refined our policies around
    impersonation and parody accounts----
        Vice Chairman Warner. Let me just close with this. My
    time's about up.
        Mr. Edgett. Sure.
        Vice Chairman Warner. We've looked on this subject, on
    political information and disinformation. But the same way that
    these bots and trolls and click farms and fake pages, groups,
    algorithm gaming can be used in politics, these same tools can
    and have been used, I believe, to assist financial frauds
    around stock schemes. I think there is a lot of this activity
    in broad-based digital advertising. I think we've seen some of
    this in schemes to sell counterfeit prescription drugs, as well
    as the ability to encourage folks to download malware. I
    believe this is a real challenge, and to get this right we're
    going to need your ongoing cooperation.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Burr. Senator Risch.
        Senator Risch. Thank you.
        Gentlemen, thank you for coming today. By now it's probably
    pretty obvious to everyone that this Committee has spent lots
    and lots and lots of time on this, both as it relates to the
    election and on these kinds of things not related to the
    political process here in the country. But we have spent a lot
    of time, and I think have been able to reach some conclusions
    on this.
        No-one's exempt. I come from a State that's a lot smaller,
    Idaho. They tried to do exactly in Idaho exactly what was done
    in Texas, where they tried to promote a meeting where they had
    two conflicting sides, and no one showed up. So there was no
    success.
        In Idaho, just like Texas, it had absolutely nothing to do
    with the 2016 presidential election. It was simply a cultural
    type of acrimony that they were attempting to promote.
        The Chairman talked about the news reports that allege that
    the Russians used social media to promote a particular
    candidate, and may even, some of those, suggest that it changed
    the result of the election. But this whole thing goes a lot
    deeper than that. One of the things we've discovered--and I
    think you probably are aware of this--that you can't look at
    those ads and say, ``Okay, they were all promoting one
    particular candidate.'' There were ads going both ways, for and
    against both candidates, by the Russians. I'm going to get back
    to that in just a second.
        But the other thing that I think that we've come to a
    conclusion on, and very early, is that the U.S. isn't the only
    country suffering from this. The Europeans, France, Austria,
    Germany, just among others, have suffered from the exact same
    thing, and that is Russian attempted interference with their
    domestic affairs.
        I put a section in the sanctions bill, the Iran, Russia,
    North Korea sanctions bill, that requires the Executive Branch
    to do a study on this, on the effect in Europe, because they
    were much more overt in Europe than they were here--most of the
    work they did here was covert--and probably because in European
    countries there is actually a fair amount of Russian sympathy
    where they can mobilize these people, not so much here in the
    United States. Obviously some, but not nearly, what is there.
        So I want to come at this from a different perspective. The
    2016 elections got a lot of the politicians riled up because it
    went after the political process. But my conclusion is, and I
    think most people here would agree with me, that--and indeed,
    Senator Warner referred to this--that this is a lot deeper than
    just the elections.
        There are a lot of things that the Russians are trying to
    do, and not just inject themselves into the electoral process.
    It seems to me that, after you step back and look at this and
    say, ``What's going on here? What is the motivation? What are
    they doing?'' I always look at something from an objective
    standpoint--``What is their objective? What are they trying to
    accomplish?'' And you walk away from it just shaking your head,
    because we Americans don't think the same way they think about
    promoting our country.
        So the conclusion I've reached is that the Russians are
    doing what they've done all along, long before your technology
    even existed, and that is trying to sow discord, simply trying
    to sow discord.
        My question to each of you is: have you tried to analyze
    what the Russians were trying to accomplish here, not only in
    the 2016 elections, but in these other kinds of ads, with the
    discord? What are your personal views on that, whether
    they've--what they're trying to accomplish?
        Mr. Stretch.
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, it's very difficult for us to ascribe
    motive. It's I think why this Committee's work is so important.
    We've tried to provide you as much information as we can, and
    we hope that, with your visibility into other sources of
    information, you will be able to help the American people have
    a better assessment of what the motive is. We think that'll
    help all of us do better to prevent this sort of activity in
    the future.
        Senator Risch. Would you agree with me that the motive
    isn't obvious here, given the difference in the way they handle
    these things?
        Mr. Stretch. Yes, I would agree with that.
        Senator Risch. Mr. Edgett.
        Mr. Edgett. I would agree with that, as well. I mean, based
    on what we've seen, the advertisements from Russia Today, the
    types of content that was being put out by the IRA, also the
    automated account content, looks as if it's merely focused on
    divisiveness. But we're still investigating this issue, and
    look forward to working with this Committee to help put the
    whole picture together.
        Senator Risch. Mr. Walker.
        Mr. Walker. The large majority of the material we saw was
    in the socially divisive side, rather than direct electoral
    advocacy, yes.
        Senator Risch. And that has really been the focus of the
    media, that, oh, this was all about the 2016 election. You
    agree with me that this is much broader than that and is, as
    you say, divisive--aimed at divisiveness, or aimed at discord?
    Would you all agree with that?
        Mr. Edgett. Yes, and that's a problem we're trying to
    tackle every day.
        Senator Risch. Mr. Stretch, do you agree with that?
        Mr. Stretch. Yes, I would agree and note that the time
    period in question and the activity we saw even continued after
    the election.
        Senator Risch. Mr. Walker.
        Mr. Walker. That seems reasonable, hard for us to know and,
    again, ultimately for the Committee to decide.
        Senator Risch. I appreciate that. And as I said, my view of
    this is this a whole lot broader than simply the 2016 election.
        Mr. Walker, I have a specific question for you. I think I
    heard you say that you're enacting a policy where only a U.S.
    national can buy an election ad. Is that correct?
        Mr. Walker. That's correct.
        Senator Risch. Okay. What about other countries? Obviously,
    you operate in places other than the United States. Can a U.S.
    national buy an ad, for instance, for a French or German or
    Austrian campaign?
        Mr. Walker. I haven't studied the laws of individual
    countries, but we are not confining our work to the U.S. We are
    looking at other elections around the world to make sure that
    we do whatever we can to minimize electoral inference.
        Senator Risch. So what you're going to do is try to confine
    people to their own elections in their own countries? Is that
    pretty much your objective?
        Mr. Walker. Certainly that's the case for the United
    States, and any other country around the world where that's the
    law that's true, yes.
        Senator Risch. I think that's going to be a big challenge
    for you, but good luck, and I wish you well in that endeavor.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Burr. Senator Feinstein.
        Senator Feinstein. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
        I sat in the Judiciary hearing yesterday. It was a
    subcommittee hearing, but was able to ask some questions. And I
    want to just make a personal comment, because I've been very
    proud, and I know Senator Harris is as well, to represent this
    tech community from California. But I must say, I don't think
    you get it--I think the fact that you're general counsels, you
    defend your company--that what we're talking about is a
    cataclysmic change. What we're talking about is the beginning
    of cyber warfare. What we're talking about is a major foreign
    power with the sophistication and ability to involve themselves
    in a presidential election and sow conflict and discontent all
    over this country.
        We are not going to go away, gentlemen, and this is a very
    big deal. I went home last night with profound disappointment.
    I asked specific questions. I got vague answers, and that just
    won't do.
        You have a huge problem on your hands, and the United
    States is going to be the first of the countries to bring it
    your attention, and others are going to follow, I'm sure,
    because you bear this responsibility. You've created these
    platforms and now they are being misused, and you have to be
    the ones to do something about it, or we will.
        And this Committee is Intelligence. It's different from
    yesterday, so they're privy to different facts, and they're
    very potent facts.
        Let me go back to a couple of questions that I asked
    yesterday. Mr. Edgett, yesterday, you testified that Twitter
    only began to remove voter suppression posts that told people
    they could vote by texting or tweeting after you found out
    about them from other Twitter users.
        These were illegal tweets. Waiting for users to alert
    Twitter isn't sufficient. I'll give you another chance. What is
    Twitter doing to proactively identify illegal voter suppression
    tweets?
        Mr. Edgett. Thank you for letting me address that. We're
    constantly improving, not only on our technology around
    automated accounts that are trying to amplify these types of
    messages----
        Senator Feinstein. That's not enough.
        Mr. Edgett [continuing]. But also on putting people and
    technology on the content and the behavior and trying to make
    our workflows, our reporting flows, more efficient and using
    artificial intelligence to prioritize things like the illegal
    voter suppression ads and other things that we see on the
    platform, and taking those down faster.
        We are getting better, but this is a problem that we are
    focused on getting better at every day.
        Senator Feinstein. Well, you have to find a way to prevent
    them from going up.
        Mr. Edgett. That's right. And that's why we tend to----
        Senator Feinstein. That's the problem.
        Mr. Edgett. Right. That's why we tend to focus on behavior
    behind the accounts, to know before the content goes up. We've
    seen--we've seen great strides in other areas not related to
    that, and so we're trying to take that same solution to this
    problem set.
        Senator Feinstein. Mr. Walker, I asked your colleague
    yesterday why Google didn't immediately revoke Russia Today's
    preferred status after the intelligence community determined
    and publicly stated that RT was a part of the Russian
    government's efforts to interfere in our election.
        Mr. Salgado told me that RT only lost its preferred status
    because of a, quote, ``drop in viewership,'' end quote, not
    because it was part of the Kremlin's propaganda machine. This
    response was deeply troubling, and frankly, did not answer my
    question. So here it is again. Why didn't Google take any
    action regarding RT after the intelligence community assessment
    came out in January of 2017?
        Mr. Walker. Let me start by----
        Senator Feinstein. I'm sorry, your mic isn't on.
        Mr. Walker. Senator, let me start by responding to your
    initial comments to assure you we take this and have taken this
    issue very seriously. The question of cyber espionage is one
    that we have been working on for some years, publicly and
    privately, working with other companies and working on our own
    to identify some of these threats. This is one manifestation of
    that, but not the only one.
        With regard to RT, we recognize the concerns that have been
    expressed about RT and concerns about its slanted coverage.
    This is of course a question that goes beyond the internet. RT
    is covered--its channel is on major cable television stations,
    on satellite television stations. Its advertising appears in
    newspapers, magazines, airports. It's run in hotels in pretty
    much every city in the United States.
        We have carefully reviewed the content of RT to see that it
    complies with the policies that we have against hate speech,
    incitement to violence, et cetera. So far, we have not found
    violations, but we continue to look.
        Beyond that, we think that the key to this area is
    transparency--that Americans should have access to information
    from a wide variety of perspectives, but they should know what
    they're getting. And so we already on Google provide
    information about the government-funded nature of RT. We're
    looking at ways to expand that to YouTube and potentially other
    platforms.
        Senator Feinstein. Well, as you might guess, I'm really not
    satisfied with that. That's been the trend of the testimony all
    along. I think we're in a different day now. We're at the
    beginning of what could be cyber war. And you all, as a policy
    matter, have to really take a look at that and what role you
    play.
        I think my time is almost up. Let me try one more. A
    British report recently concluded that social media platforms
    such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube failed to remove
    extremist material posted by banned jihadist and neo-Nazi
    groups, even when that material was reported. The source for
    this is the British Parliament Home Affairs Select Committee.
        Last night, we saw a horrific attack on innocent people in
    New York by an individual who may have been radicalized online.
    We know one person, who is Anwar al-Awlaki, with 75,000 hits,
    the major radicalizer in the United States on the internet.
        I'm working on legislation to require tech companies to
    report known terrorist activity on their platforms to law
    enforcement and to provide law enforcement with civil
    injunction authority.
        So thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Burr. Thank you, Senator Feinstein.
        Senator Rubio.
        Senator Rubio. Thank you.
        Thank you all for being here.
        Mr. Stretch, I want to ask you--and it relates to all this
    in the following way, but let me work there. Guo Wengui is a
    whistleblower and a critic of the Chinese government, and his
    Facebook account was blocked, and Facebook has informed us and
    has said publicly that he violated terms of service. I think he
    published personal identifying information about individuals,
    and that violated the terms of service, so--and I understand
    that argument.
        My question--so what I want to be clear is, was there any
    pressure from the Chinese government to block his account?
        Mr. Stretch. No, Senator. We reviewed a report on that
    account and analyzed it through regular channels using our
    regular procedures. The blocking was not of the account in its
    entirety, but I believe was of specific posts that violated our
    policy.
        Senator Rubio. But you can testify today that you did not
    come under pressure from the Chinese government or any of its
    representatives, or people working for them, to block his
    account or to the block whatever it is you blocked?
        Mr. Stretch. I want to make sure I'm being precise and
    clear. We did receive a report from representatives of the
    Chinese government about the account. We analyzed that report
    as we would any other and took action solely based on our
    policies.
        Senator Rubio. Facebook is not allowed to operate in China.
    Is that correct?
        Mr. Stretch. Yes, that's correct. Our consumer services are
    blocked in China, that's correct.
        Senator Rubio. Okay. There have been press reports that
    Facebook may have potentially developed software to suppress
    posts from appearing in people's news feeds in specific
    geographic areas. And the speculation is it's being done for
    the purposes of getting into the Chinese market.
        Is that accurate? Has Facebook developed software to
    suppress posts from appearing in people's news feeds in
    specific geographic areas?
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, as you know, we are--we are blocked
    in China, so any software we have is certainly not operative
    there. We do have many instances where we have content reported
    to us from foreign governments that is illegal under the laws
    of those governments. So a great example of this is Holocaust
    denial in Germany, for example. And our position with respect
    to reports like that is, if there is content that's visible in
    a country that violates local law and we're on specific notice
    of that content, we deploy what we call geoblocking, or I.P.
    blocking, so that the content will not be visible in that
    country, but remains available on the service.
        Senator Rubio. So, for example, if criticizing a government
    is illegal in that country, you have the capability to block
    them from criticizing the government and thereby gaining entry
    into that country and being allowed to operate?
        Mr. Stretch. We have the capability to ensure that our
    service complies with local law, that's accurate. We take a
    very nuanced approach to reports of illegal content. We believe
    our mission is to enable people to share and connect, and we
    believe that political expression is at the core of what we
    provide. And so----
        Senator Rubio. What if that political expression is illegal
    in the country?
        Mr. Stretch. So, in the vast majority of cases where we are
    on notice of locally illegal content, it has nothing to do with
    political expression. It's things like blasphemy in parts of
    the world that are--that prohibit blasphemy.
        Senator Rubio. We could probably do a whole hearing on that
    topic. But here's why that's related to what we're talking
    about today: terms of service is the reason why he was knocked
    off. All of your companies have terms of service.
        Is a foreign influence campaign a violation of the terms of
    service of any of the three companies represented here today?
    If you can prove that someone is doing it on behalf of a
    foreign government, seeking to interfere in an election, does
    that violate your terms of service?
        [Pause.]
        Any of you? Any of the three companies, in terms of being
    able to operate or post things, and particularly Twitter and
    Facebook?
        Mr. Edgett. Generally, it would violate a number--we don't
    have state-sponsored manipulation of elections as one of our
    rules. But generally the other types of rules, like
    inflammatory ads content, would take down most of these, these
    posts. So we don't outright ban it, but----
        Senator Rubio. Well, let me ask you this. I've read that
    you can buy a bot army from between $45 to $100. Is buying
    and--if you can prove that someone's bought up and put together
    a bot army, would that be a violation of terms of service?
        Mr. Edgett. Those would violate our terms of service around
    the use of automated accounts, and those are the things that
    we're catching every day. We're blocking 450,000 suspicious
    logins a day. We're challenging 4 million accounts every week,
    to make sure that they're actually real people. But we have--we
    have terms of service around----
        Senator Rubio. I didn't get an answer on the face--is that
    a violation of terms of service, to buy for a foreign influence
    campaign or to put together a bunch of fake ads and put them
    together?
        Mr. Stretch. That campaign violates our terms and our
    policies in a number of ways. And we do not permit automated
    means for accessing the site, so using the bots likewise would
    be a violation.
        Senator Rubio. Okay. If someone goes on and posts the
    Social Security number and date of birth of an individual,
    that's a violation of terms of service, correct?
        Mr. Stretch. For Facebook it is, yes.
        Senator Rubio. I would imagine for all the platforms.
        Mr. Edgett. It is.
        Senator Rubio. What about if someone goes online and posts
    classified information, illegally obtained, that threatens the
    lives of individuals or methods, or potentially disrupts the
    ability to disrupt a plot that can endanger the lives of
    people? Is posting that online or posting that in one of your
    platforms a violation of terms of service? It happens
    sometimes. I don't know if you're aware of it.
        Mr. Edgett. We work with law enforcement all the time on
    matters like that, and balance free speech rights, obviously,
    with those of--obviously, an imminent threat, we would--we
    would take very seriously and act on right away.
        Senator Rubio. I guess my point is, personal identifying
    information is illegal to post it, right? It threatens
    someone's identity. It's also illegal to steal and reveal
    classified information. And I'm just curious if that's also a
    violation of terms of service, since in fact it could have
    real-life implications on individuals who could be compromised
    because of that release.
        Do we have any evidence that Russian accounts uploaded U.S.
    voter registration data and used it in conjunction with custom
    audiences to target specific voters by name? Do any of you have
    any information that registered voter data was uploaded and
    used to customize advertising or messaging to individual
    voters?
        Mr. Edgett. We haven't seen evidence of that.
        Mr. Stretch. The same is true for Facebook.
        Senator Rubio. And my last question is--the scope of this
    was not limited to 2016 or even the presidential race. As an
    example, I think, with the help of some of the companies here,
    we've identified Being Patriotic, LGBT United, United Muslims
    of America, Stop A.I., Heart of Texas; all were used to attack
    my campaign during the primary. What's interesting, though, is
    on the 3rd of July and on the 8th of August, after the primary
    but when I chose to run for reelection, one of those, LGBT
    United, attacked again.
        So my point being these operations, while we're talking
    about the 2016 presidential race, they're not limited to 2016,
    and they were not limited to the presidential race, and they
    continue to this day. They are much more widespread than one
    election. It is about our general political climate. Is that
    correct?
        Mr. Stretch. I would certainly agree with that statement,
    Senator.
        Senator Rubio. Okay. Thank you.
        Chairman Burr. Senator Wyden.
        Senator Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        With the current fascist leadership of Russia
    enthusiastically undermining our democracy, America must defend
    the values that made us great and aggressively confront this
    espionage and the enemies that sponsor it. The tools of the
    espionage range from political ads, to issue ads, sock puppets
    to fictional news stories, and from rallies, to protests, to
    marches, all presented under false pretenses.
        While the Supreme Court has ruled that Congress may place
    some limits on strictly political advertising, the other
    activities I just mentioned are beyond the reach of government
    and government regulation in a free society.
        To fight back against this espionage, Americans have to
    rely on our marketplace of ideas and the institutions that
    support it. Gentlemen, today you three represent those
    institutions.
        Now, you've discussed your response to these attacks, but
    it is self-evident, in relation to the power your platforms now
    have, in the past election you failed. And this is especially
    troubling because the same Federal law that allowed your
    companies to grow and thrive, the Section 230 law, gives you
    absolute legal protection to take action against those who
    abuse your platforms to damage our democracy.
        The same algorithms that power your companies can be used
    to identify the behavior indicative of these attacks, including
    fake accounts and fake news stories, and identify the source of
    money purchasing your ads.
        Now, I'm of the view ads are a small part of a much bigger
    problem. Fake users posting stories on Facebook, videos on
    YouTube, links on Twitter can be used by foreign and domestic
    enemies to undermine our society. You need to stop paying lip
    service to shutting down bad actors using these accounts.
    You've got the power and Congress has given you the legal
    protection to actually act and deal with this.
        So I want to start with a couple of quick yes or no
    questions and just go right down the row for the three of you.
    Mr. Walker, are you satisfied with your platform's response to
    foreign interference in the 2016 election? Yes or no? Just yes
    or no.
        Mr. Walker. We--we are constantly doing better.
        Senator Wyden. Is the answer no?
        Mr. Walker. We could have done more, but I think we are
    doing more today and have done more since the election.
        Senator Wyden. I'll take that as a no.
        Mr. Edgett.
        Mr. Edgett. No, we need to do more.
        Senator Wyden. Mr. Stretch.
        Mr. Stretch. The same is true.
        Senator Wyden. Okay.
        Do you all have--and we'll start with you, Mr. Walker--the
    technical ability and resources to better respond to future
    misinformation campaigns? Yes or no?
        Mr. Walker. Yes. The safe harbors and the Good Samaritan
    laws are important underpinnings for all of this. And we are
    doing more, we have done more to combat fake news----
        Senator Wyden. Mr. Edgett, yes or no?
        Mr. Walker. Yes.
        Mr. Edgett. Yes.
        Senator Wyden. Mr. Stretch.
        Mr. Stretch. Yes, and I would add, though, that I do
    believe we need information-sharing among industry, as well as
    working with the government, to enable us to do this
    effectively.
        Senator Wyden. All right.
        Gentlemen, specifically now describe the changes you're
    going to pursue that respond to not just the ads, but the sock
    puppets, the hoaxes, and the confidence operations? We'd like
    to walk out of here knowing the changes you're going to support
    going forward.
        Mr. Walker.
        Mr. Walker. Sure. Let me give you four on the ad side and
    three on the non-ad side.
        Senator Wyden. Quickly.
        Mr. Walker. Absolutely. The transparency report that we
    talked about for ads; an archive of content that--of all ads'
    content that's available; icons that make information on the
    site available to users as to who sponsors an ad; and enhanced
    verification techniques.
        When it comes to non-ads material, fake news, we're
    improving our algorithms, our rater guidelines, and the signals
    we use. We're using fake news fact-check labels to improve
    users' ability to evaluate fake news, and we're looking at our
    ads policies to improve and toughen rules against sites that
    misrepresent their nature.
        Senator Wyden. Mr. Edgett.
        Mr. Edgett. Coming out of the 2016 election and early this
    year, our CEO asked our entire engineering product and design
    teams, which make up a large majority of the company, to tackle
    the problem of safety, abuse, and misinformation on our
    platform, and to drop everything else that we're doing and to
    figure this out. We formed we call an information quality team.
        Senator Wyden. Those are three sentences. What are the
    changes?
        Mr. Edgett. Yes. We formed an information quality team
    focused on looking at both behavior and content and seeing how
    we could stop bad actors from using automated activity to
    amplify their message. We have just announced new transparency
    rules around not just political ads, but all advertisements, to
    educate not just American citizens, but our worldwide users.
        We are also continuing to collaborate with law enforcement
    and committees like this to make sure we're putting the right--
    --
        Senator Wyden. I know very few specifics from that answer.
        Mr. Stretch.
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, let me try four things.
        First, today there are 10,000 people working at Facebook on
    safety and security across our security product and community
    operations teams. By the end of 2018, there will be more than
    20,000.
        Second, we announced last week a series of ad transparency
    steps, drawing on the ideas in the Honest Ads Act that Senator
    Warner talked about earlier, that will bring much greater
    visibility to advertising generally and particularly to
    political advertising.
        Third, we are tightening our ad policies to limit
    divisiveness and to limit violence in the use of our ad tools.
        And fourth, we're standing up an organization to enable
    better industry sharing of threat information and also to help
    us work better with law enforcement so that we can share
    information and expertise in order to address this threat going
    forward.
        Senator Wyden. My last question is, it's not clear that you
    all or the public understand the degree of this sophisticated
    and manipulative intelligence operation. The Russians created
    Facebook pages, posted YouTube videos, all trying to appeal to
    specific audiences.
        Some of the content wasn't fake. It was intended to gather
    an audience and gain trust. It told people that they were
    already receptive to that, after gaining that trust, you could
    execute the espionage, for example, by gathering liberals and
    then discouraging them from voters.
        Mr. Stretch, I'd like you to confirm that this technique
    was used in the election.
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, we've provided all the information we
    can about the content that we've identified on the system. I
    think to make the sort of assessment you're describing really
    requires this Committee's work to look at all of the online and
    offline activity that would be necessary to effectuate a
    campaign like that.
        Senator Wyden. My time has expired. We have specific cases
    that that was used. I would like in writing, within a week,
    what you're doing about it.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Burr. Senator Collins.
        Senator Collins. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        It is very clear that Russian activities on your social
    media platforms go far beyond the paid political ads that
    appeared last year. The primary purpose of Russia's active
    measures is to exploit and to aggravate the divisions in
    American society and to undermine public confidence in our
    democratic institutions. And those efforts have not stopped.
    They continue to this very day. As Senator Risch has pointed
    out, no area of the country is immune.
        So let me give you an example, and we've passed it out to
    you, by describing three unpaid posts from Facebook pages
    created by the Russians that refer to the governor of Maine,
    Paul LePage.
        [The material referred to follows:]
    [GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

        Senator Collins. There are two negative posts related to
    the governor on one Russian Facebook page, called Williams &
    Calvin, that appeared in August of 2016. There's a video of
    comments made by Maine's governor from that same month. And the
    post in part says the following: ``LePage called up white
    people to kill blacks. After this statement, we can clearly see
    what kind of people serve in American government: white racist
    supremacy--that's for sure. The only way to avoid mass killings
    of black people is to fire LePage and all who have the same
    racist beliefs from American government.''
        There was a second post on the same website about 10 days
    later. Let me just read part of that: ``It is not a secret that
    America is the country of white supremacy, and people like
    LePage must be replaced from their positions in the government.
    America doesn't need racist politicians. Black people are tired
    of white supremacy.''
        Then, this year, this year, in August of 2017, Maine's
    governor was the subject of a positive post on a different
    Russian-backed Facebook page, called Being Patriotic. In this
    case, the post defended comments that the government made at
    the time about Confederate monuments.
        The post ends with its own incendiary conclusion. It says:
    ``When even the governor is not safe from leftist haters, then
    what can we say about ordinary citizens? Liberals are now
    acting like terrorists. They try to intimidate everyone who
    disagrees with them. Hope our police will take appropriate
    measures against these cowards.''
        Now, let me point out something. Our governor was not up
    for reelection last year; he is term-limited. He cannot run for
    reelection as governor. And yet these comments were made both
    last year and just a few months ago.
        And the posts are just three among 80,000 that reveal the
    Russian playbook of playing both sides off against each other
    and of sowing discord and division with inflammatory rhetoric.
    And there were other posts that involved lower-level officials
    in the State of Maine that we found as well. And the Russians
    continue to push this kind of divisive rhetoric to this very
    day.
        So my question to you is: what are you, as American
    companies, doing to effectively counter unpaid content posted
    by the Russians that is clearly designed to specifically
    polarize and anger the American people? And I would argue that
    you have a special obligation here, given your reach in
    American society and the fact that you are patriotic American
    companies.
        Mr. Stretch.
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, we agree that we have a special
    responsibility here. We value the trust that users place in our
    services. And when they show up to connect with friends and
    family and to discuss issues, they need to know that the
    discourse they see is authentic.
        What is so painful about this type of content is that it
    exploits truly and passionately held views and then inflames
    them to create more discord and more distrust.
        To prevent this, we are investing much more heavily in
    authenticity. We believe that one of the cornerstones of
    Facebook is that users are known by their real names and so
    that creates a level of authenticity in the discourse that
    users can trust when they come to the platform. This sort of
    content erodes that trust and it's contrary to everything we
    stand for as a company. As Americans, it's particularly painful
    because it is so exploitative of the openness of our society.
        And so the investment we are making and the commitment we
    are making is to ensure that our authenticity policy is more
    effectively policed and monitored to prevent exactly this sort
    of behavior.
        Senator Collins. Mr. Edgett, what is Twitter doing?
        Mr. Edgett. We're focusing on a number of things. The one
    we see the greatest strides in and where we see the greatest
    effect and protections from our users is on the amplification
    side, in the use of automated accounts. These bad actors need
    an audience for their voice, and generally they don't have a
    followership. So they are trying to use activity on the
    platform to automate and amplify their voices.
        So we're looking behind the message and behind the content
    at the behavior of doing that, and have been successful in
    doubling our effectiveness of doing that, year over year, and
    looking at the behavior, taking down millions of accounts every
    single week because they're not actually humans, they're
    actually----
        Senator Collins. Well, this just happened in August of this
    year. This isn't something old.
        Mr. Edgett. Right. We continue to try to stay ahead of
    their activities. We're also looking at things like coordinated
    human activity, where real people are coming together, like the
    IRA, and actually putting out divisive content like this. We
    are able to link those accounts and take action on them as we
    learn, not just what they're saying, but what's behind. What's
    behind it only we can see on the Twitter side. We've had great
    strides on the terrorism front in that regard, and we believe
    we can apply the same techniques and methodologies to this,
    this problem.
        Senator Collins. Mr. Walker. Thank you.
        Mr. Walker. We're also very concerned about this kind of
    deceptive and divisive content. We remove it immediately from
    our services and we have removed these.
        Going forward, and actually already, we have engaged a
    number of things to avoid the problem of fake news: changes to
    our algorithms, improving the training that our raters get in
    evaluating quality, labeling fake news where we can find it,
    working with third parties, et cetera.
        Senator Collins. Thank you.
        Chairman Burr. Senator Heinrich.
        Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Chairman.
        Mr. Stretch, I want to start with you. Last month,
    President Trump called Russian-purchased Facebook ads a hoax.
    I've looked at those Russian-sponsored Facebook ads. I
    certainly hope you've had a chance to review them. Are they in
    fact a hoax?
        Mr. Stretch. All the information we've provided to the
    Committee did run on Facebook, so----
        Senator Heinrich. It's a yes or no answer. I know you're a
    lawyer; it's hard. But----
        [Laughter.]
        Mr. Stretch. No. The existence of--those ads were on
    Facebook and were not a hoax.
        Senator Heinrich. So in the interest of just clearing this
    up and giving the American people some transparency into this,
    so that they can see the nature of what typically gets used to
    divide the American populace, why not simply release those
    Russian-financed Facebook ads to the public? Redact the
    pictures, but release the contents, so that people can
    understand how this works?
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, we believe this Committee is really
    best placed to determine what information to release. We stand
    ready to assist in that, in that effort. We agree that the more
    people can see the type of content that ran and the divisions
    that were sought to be exploited, the better.
        Senator Heinrich. Well, I think we have a disagreement on
    this Committee as to whether or not to release those. I would
    urge all of you as platforms to consider that kind of activity
    as well.
        I want to move on to Russia's RBC magazine, which recently
    revealed that St. Petersburg's troll factory employed hundreds
    of trolls, including 90 at the, quote-unquote, ``U.S. desk''
    alone, and spent about $2.3 million in 2016 to meddle in U.S.
    politics, actually contacted U.S. activists directly and
    offered them thousands of dollars to organize protests.
        Your platform--your platforms are all global. They're not
    just U.S. platforms. And there is substantial open-source
    reporting right now suggesting that similar divisive activity
    may be occurring, for example, in the Catalonian region of
    Spain right now.
        What are each of you doing right now to make sure that your
    platforms aren't being used in similarly divisive ways across
    the globe, to sow discord in Western democracies? And in
    particular with the Catalonian example, are you familiar with
    what you're doing there?
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, we are focused on preventing this
    form of abuse globally. So when we say we have an obligation to
    protect the platform from being used for abuse, that's a global
    obligation. So we are focused on elections as they appear on
    the calendar, including the Catalonian election that occurred
    recently, as well as the other elections that are on the
    calendar going forward.
        We're focused on ensuring that all actors on the platform
    comply with local law, as Mr. Walker suggested earlier, and we
    are focused on making sure that any foreign threat actors that
    are seeking to undermine democracy anywhere are removed from
    the platform.
        Senator Heinrich. Have each of you taken, had to take
    corrective action against actors in that debate who are not who
    they purported to be?
        Mr. Stretch.
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, the key I'd say progress we've made
    is----
        Senator Heinrich. That's a yes or no, once again.
        Mr. Edgett.
        Mr. Edgett. I believe so, but I'll need to follow up with
    your staff.
        Senator Heinrich. Thank you.
        Mr. Walker.
        Mr. Walker. We're constantly removing fraudulent and
    deceptive accounts from our services. I'm not familiar with the
    specifics there.
        Senator Heinrich. You can get back to us.
        Mr. Edgett, given the discussion we've had about automated
    Twitter accounts and bots--and the range is obviously very
    wide, but we know that's a problem. And you made an assertion
    earlier that I want to come back to and just make sure it's
    accurate. Do you require at Twitter, by service agreement, that
    profiles are linked to real names, real people, or some other
    way to make sure that those go back to real human beings, from
    Social Security numbers to other unique identifiers?
        Mr. Edgett. We do not. We require some information at sign-
    up, but we don't require you to verify your identity. We have
    services that verify identities on the platform.
        Senator Heinrich. Why on Earth not?
        Mr. Edgett. Because we see the power of Twitter being used
    by folks like political dissidents, embedded journalists in
    difficult countries who use the ability to not have to identify
    themselves by name, like on other platforms, to speak their
    truth to power. We see that----
        Senator Heinrich. So the reason is for social dissidents
    and people in third world countries or where there is a hostile
    government regime? It is not your business model? You're not
    reliant, for example, on those automated accounts to generate
    revenue?
        Mr. Edgett. We don't rely on--there's some good automation
    on the platform and I'm happy to talk about that. But we do not
    rely on this, the bad, malicious automation that we're talking
    about here.
        Senator Heinrich. If I were running a political campaign
    today and I were to advertise on local television, on cable
    television, in print or on the radio, or even through the mail,
    I would have to have a ``paid for by'' disclaimer on those ads.
    Now, Mr. Walker I believe has already addressed this issue. But
    is there any policy reason that online social media ads, given
    how effective and influential they have clearly become,
    shouldn't meet that same level of transparency?
        Mr. Edgett. We agree with the transparency efforts and last
    week announced that we're creating a transparency center, not
    just for political ads, which will have even more information
    than all ads, but a transparency center for all ads, so that
    you can see not just the ad that you've seen and why it's been
    targeted to you, but all of the other ads created from that
    same advertiser.
        On the election front, you'll also be able to see who's
    paying for the ad, how much they've spent on this ad campaign
    and all ad campaigns, and you'll--able to see what the
    targeting criteria are, so to better educate around why these
    ads are on the platform.
        Senator Heinrich. I appreciate that, Mr. Edgett.
        Mr. Stretch.
        Mr. Stretch. The same is true for Facebook. We are working
    both on political ad transparency, enabling more visibility
    into campaign ads by third parties, and also enabling campaigns
    to meet their disclosure obligations in their--in their online
    communications.
        Senator Heinrich. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Burr. Senator Blunt.
        Senator Blunt. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        So, Mr. Edgett, in response to Mr. Heinrich's question,
    there was a lot of information that you could get based on that
    policy, if you pursue it, like all the other ads they ran, how
    much. Would you get that by going to another spot? Surely
    that's not all right there on the ad.
        Mr. Edgett. Obviously we're a character-constrained
    platform, so we will be identifying very clearly whether or not
    something is a political ad, so that you can--you can see it
    right away. And then, depending on if you're on a web browser
    or on a mobile phone, you'll have to hover over or click on a
    spot to then see a sort of a full transparency center that
    gives you all that information right away.
        Senator Blunt. So would you be able, on the ad itself, to
    go ahead and put enough of a disclosure there that it's clear,
    when you're looking at the ad, who paid for it and how to find
    more information out about who paid for it?
        Mr. Edgett. We're still working through the technical
    details, but believe we'll be able to get that in front of----
        Senator Blunt. Mr. Walker, are you trying to do anything
    similar to that?
        Mr. Walker. We are. Our idea is to have an icon that a user
    can click on, so it's immediately available to them when they
    see the ad.
        Senator Blunt. But it wouldn't necessarily be--would any
    information be on the ad except the icon?
        Mr. Walker. It depends on the format of the ad. There may
    be, in display context or video context, where it makes more
    sense. In a very small amount of space, the FEC has struggled
    with figuring out appropriate disclosure requirements. We
    continue to look at that.
        Senator Blunt. And you're looking at the other disclosure
    requirements that other ads have to have on other media as
    you're considering this?
        Mr. Walker. Of course, broadcast, newspapers, and online.
        Senator Blunt. Mr. Stretch.
        Mr. Walker. Yes.
        Mr. Stretch. The same is true for Facebook.
        Senator Blunt. Looking at this same thing.
        Well, on--when you're talking--and I think I'll start with
    Mr. Edgett on this. When you're talking about Russians, are you
    referring to the Russian government, or any Russian citizen, or
    people who paid in rubles?
        You mentioned the IRA, which I assume is not either your
    individual retirement account or the Irish Republican Army. So
    how do you know they're Russians? And what are you looking for
    there when you're talking about Russians in retrospect?
        Mr. Edgett. Right. That's a great question. We are looking
    for signals. Not everyone identifies themselves as a Russian,
    especially these malicious actors. So we're looking at things
    like whether they registered in country in Russia. Do they have
    a Russian phone number? Are they on a Russian mobile carrier?
    Do they have a Russian email address? Are they coming in from a
    Russian I.P.? Have they ever logged in--you'll see in our
    retrospective work, we looked at have you ever logged in at any
    time from Russia.
        There are some technical--some technical challenges with
    that. The trail sometimes goes cold at data centers, where
    information is being processed. We saw about 14----
        Senator Blunt. Okay. Looking back at what the so-called--
    the Russians, however we're defining that, did during the
    election, when you're saying the Russians paid for these ads,
    these are ads paid for by the Russians because you've now gone
    back and checked groups like the Internet Research Agency, and
    you now know that's a Russian group?
        Mr. Edgett. Well, on the advertising side we also have some
    additional data around banking information, because folks are
    paying for these ads. But we didn't link the IRA accounts to
    advertising in the election. But what we did was found nine
    advertisers, based on the signals I talked about and also
    banking information. Largely it was Russia Today, who we have
    since removed as advertisers from the platform.
        Senator Blunt. Let's see if they got their money's worth.
    Everybody here has been involved in one way or another in
    buying advertising. I've always had some sense that in
    advertising you pretty much got what you paid for.
        Mr. Stretch, how much money did the Russians spend on ads
    that we now look back as either disruptive or politically
    intended? Is that $100,000? Is that----
        Mr. Stretch. It's approximately $100,000.
        Senator Blunt. I meant from your company.
        Mr. Stretch. Yes, approximately $100,000.
        Senator Blunt. How much of that did they pay before the
    election?
        Mr. Stretch. The----
        Senator Blunt. I've seen the number 44,000. Is that right,
    56 after, 44 before?
        Mr. Stretch. The ad impressions ran 46 percent before the
    election, the remainder after the election.
        Senator Blunt. Forty six percent? Well, if I had a
    consultant that was trying to impact an election and spent only
    46 percent of the money before Election Day, I'd be pretty
    upset about that, I think.
        So they spent $46,000. How much did the Clinton and Trump
    campaigns spend on Facebook during--I assume before the
    election?
        Mr. Stretch. Yes.
        Senator Blunt. They were more organized than the other
    group.
        Mr. Stretch. Combined, approximately $81 million.
        Senator Blunt. Eighty one million dollars. And before the
    election?
        Mr. Stretch. Yes.
        Senator Blunt. So $81 million. I'm not a great
    mathematician, but $46,000 out of $81 million, would that be
    like five one-thousandths of one percent? It's something like
    that.
        Mr. Stretch. It's a--it's a small number by comparison,
    certainly.
        Senator Blunt. Very small number by comparison. So the fact
    that we're talking about it today, it certainly seems like they
    got their money's worth after the election, whether they got it
    before or not. We're still talking about five one-thousandths
    of one percent of the Facebook money spent. And that was just
    by Clinton and Trump? Or was that all the presidential
    candidates put together?
        Mr. Stretch. No, those were the----
        Senator Blunt. The $81 million?
        Mr. Stretch. Those were the Clinton and Trump campaigns,
    combined.
        Senator Blunt. Well, probably got more attention here than
    they did.
        I know Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore were a couple of
    big targets in a lot of these ad campaigns. Is there a way you
    could do this to where you principally target viewers in the
    St. Louis area for Ferguson or in Maryland, for Baltimore?
        Mr. Stretch. It's important to distinguish between our ad
    tools and the organic tools. Our ad--our ad tools do permit
    geographic targeting of content. Approximately 25 percent of
    the ads that we've identified and turned over to the Committee
    were geographically targeted to a region smaller than the
    United States. Most of them were targeted on a State basis.
        Organic content--unpaid posts, if you will--are not
    geographically targeted.
        Senator Blunt. And some of those targeted dollars were
    spent in states where the election turned out not to be close
    at all. Is that right?
        Mr. Stretch. That's correct.
        Senator Blunt. The other questions that we'll get to, maybe
    in--maybe in writing later, but this--on the free media, I
    think we have to be very thoughtful here about who decides
    what's voter suppression and what's not; who decides what level
    of speech is acceptable and what's not. It's an unbelievable
    obligation that the government's never been very good at, and
    an unbelievable obligation that it sounds like to me your
    companies are all being asked to assume. And that'll be an
    ongoing discussion, I think, of whether that's possible or not,
    and the questions and problems that arise when somebody does
    begin to decide what's acceptable to talk about and what's not,
    and what discourages voters and what doesn't.
        I would think the general election process these days would
    discourage voters from participating, so maybe that would just
    mean none of it could be discussed. But we will see how that
    goes.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Burr. Senator King.
        Senator King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Gentlemen, you've done a good job this morning. I must say,
    though, I'm disappointed that you're here and not your CEOs,
    because we're talking about policy and the policies of the
    companies. And it's fine to send general counsel, but I think,
    if you could take a message back from this Committee, if we go
    through this exercise again, we would appreciate seeing the top
    people who are actually making the decision.
        I want to begin with two quotes, and I generally don't read
    quotes, but these are so apt. The first one says this:
    ``Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable
    obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption.
    These most deadly adversaries of republican government might
    naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more
    than one quarter, but chiefly from the desire of foreign powers
    to gain an improper ascendant in our councils.'' That's
    Alexander Hamilton in the 68th Federalist. He saw this coming.
        The other is a more recent quote from a fellow named
    Vladimir Kvachkov, who's a former GRU officer. And he said: ``A
    new type of war has emerged in which armed warfare has given up
    its decisive place in the achievement of the military and
    political objectives of war to another kind of warfare:
    information warfare.'' And that is exactly what we're talking
    about here today.
        I appreciate the Chair and the Vice Chair giving us the
    context of what we're doing. Their visual demonstrations I
    think were very vivid. And the warfare is the division of our
    society. And it's not only us; it's the entire West.
        We know that the Russians were involved in the French
    election. We know that they were involved in the German
    elections. We are now learning that they're involved in the
    separation of Spain, and my understanding is they've set up
    shop in Scotland, which is talking about an independence vote
    from Great Britain. So this is a sophisticated, worldwide
    strategy that applied here in 2016.
        There is one other piece I'd like to add to what the Chair
    and the Vice Chair did, and that is that it's still happening.
    This is a service of the German Marshall Fund called,
    interestingly, ``Hamilton 68,'' that follows hashtags on a
    daily basis. And I just picked a day in September to show.
    These are the hashtags that are being propagated, not created
    by Russians, but these are 600 Russian websites that are using
    these are the hashtags on these particular days.
        [The material referred to follows:]
        [GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T7398.139

        Senator King. The interesting thing, Syria's up there;
    clearly, Russia has an interest there. But then we have the
    NFL; and then we have ``boycott the NFL''; then we have ``Stand
    for our anthem''; we have, ``Make America great again'';
    Russia, ``Take a knee.'' In other words, they were tweeting on
    both sides of the NFL dispute in order to exacerbate the
    divisions.
        One witness said to this Committee that their strategy is
    to take a crack in our society and turn it into a chasm. And
    that's exactly what we saw in 2016. My point here is it hasn't
    stopped and it won't stop.
        So we have to figure out what to do about it. And it seems
    to me that there are three possibilities, one of which you can
    make a significant contribution to; the other two, frankly, are
    up to us.
        The first is a technical defense, the kind of thing you've
    already been talking about today: checking identities,
    identifying the source of this kind of information. I want to
    pursue that in a minute.
        The second is we as a society have to understand when we're
    being conned. I spent some time a year ago in Eastern Europe,
    before our election. And the Eastern European politicians, all
    they wanted to talk about was Russian meddling in their
    elections. And I said, ``How do you defend yourself? You can't
    undo the internet. You can't turn off the TV.''
        They said, ``All of our people now get it, that this is
    what the Russians are doing. And when they see one of these
    postings, they say, `Oh, it's just the Russians again.' ''
        We have to develop that level of sophistication so that we
    know when we're being misled. And to me, this is the mentality
    we all apply at the checkout counter of the supermarket and we
    see a tabloid that says a movie star had a two-headed baby. We
    say, ``Oh, that's just a tabloid.'' We need to apply that same
    kind of sensibility to these kinds of fake news, misleading and
    purposeful distortions.
        The third thing that we have to determine, I think, is that
    this country has to have some kind of cyber warfare deterrent
    capacity. Right now, there's no price to be paid for meddling
    in our democracy; and our adversaries have to understand that,
    if they're going to undertake a campaign like this, there will
    be a price to be paid; there will be results; and if they do X,
    we are going to do Y to them. Right now, that doesn't exist,
    and all of what the Russians did last year has basically been a
    free pass. And I think that's a very difficult problem.
        Now, let me ask the technical question. Mr. Stretch, can
    you guys--could you, for example, require a date line on a
    posting that said where it comes from, just like a news story
    says ``Moscow, September 23rd''? Is there some way to identify
    the source of information as it comes across your news feeds?
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, it's a great--it's a great question.
    We do permit users to identify the geographic location of the
    post. We don't require it. There are oftentimes privacy
    considerations that would prevent a user from----
        Senator King. You could require it by country, couldn't
    you? That's----
        Mr. Stretch. There are many uses of our services, Senator,
    where requiring people to designate their physical location
    could be problematic.
        I would make two other points. One is, because of the way
    the internet is architected, your geographic location is--can
    be disguised. That's something we need to work on in order to
    make sure we're not being fooled, because I think your larger
    point is an excellent one. The geography of the location of the
    user, paired with the content they're serving----
        Senator King. It's part of the information.
        Mr. Stretch [continuing]. Is part of the information, and
    we need to do a better job tuning our system to be more
    sensitive to that.
        Senator King. Mr. Walker, you said the people should know
    what they're getting. When we get information, we know it's in
    a--it's in a newspaper, we see the name of the author, we see
    the date line. We're in a new information distribution world
    here, and we need to think about how to apply some of the
    principles that have helped us to assess that information. And
    I hope that you all will continue to develop policies, just as
    the newspaper business did 100 years ago, that help your
    customers to analyze and assess the validity of the data. The
    problem now is we're just taking what comes as it comes.
        I'll end with this: I have a quote on my kitchen wall that
    my wife found, and it says, ``The great problem with quotes on
    the internet is determining whether they're authentic.''
    Abraham Lincoln.
        [Laughter.]
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Burr. Senator Lankford.
        Senator Lankford. Gentlemen, thank you for being here. I
    hope you hear loud and clear from this Committee there are lots
    of questions. You're asking lots of questions. This is not an
    opposition to free speech, though. This is actually a battle to
    try to protect free speech.
        We want to have good American dialogue, and the fear is
    that your platforms are being used by foreign actors that want
    to abuse our free speech. If two Americans have a disagreement,
    let's have at it. Let's walk it through as two Americans. If an
    outsider wants to be able to come do it, we do have a problem
    with that. And we're trying to be able to work through that.
        So we're grateful that you're here and to be able to walk
    through this, and we look forward to cooperation together and
    to be able to figure out how we actually resolve some of these
    extremely complicated issues.
        I do want to be able to push on a little bit this issue
    about the type of ads and the type of content. Mr. Edgett, you
    mentioned from your testimony that in Twitter, of the 131,000
    tweets posted during the time--and I assume that means that
    September to November time period that you were tracking--only
    9 percent of those tweets from those Russia-targeted accounts
    were actually election-related; the others were all social
    engagement, other issues. And I think that's being lost in the
    conversation, that only 9 percent of the tweets were election-
    related.
        Now, my question is, for all of your platforms, what are
    you seeing from Russian-related accounts that you're tracking
    now and trying to be able to pull down or identify? What are
    the social issues that are being discussed right now from those
    sites?
        You can go back for the last six months if you want to. But
    give me some examples of the type of social issues that they're
    engaging with. One has already been mentioned by Senator King
    and that's the NFL, either boycott the NFL or take a knee on
    that. Has that been actively pursued on your sites? Give me
    examples of topics here.
        Mr. Stretch. So one example we saw following the election
    was an effort by the accounts we've identified to inflame some
    of the post-election demonstrations we saw. So some of the
    accounts turned to questioning the Electoral College, as an
    example.
        Senator Lankford. Okay. So let me walk through multiple
    examples here. So Electoral College is one of them. Some of
    them, it's been publicly reported that the site was used to try
    to organize events that were election protest events in certain
    cities, that--was sending out messages saying, ``We're all
    going to protest at this spot,'' but obviously it was created
    by a Russian group.
        What else? NFL? Yes or no on that?
        Mr. Edgett. We've seen that activity.
        Senator Lankford. Okay. What else? What other issues?
        Mr. Walker. We've seen more limited use of our services,
    Senator, but among that I would say police shootings and racial
    issues.
        Senator Lankford. Okay. What else?
        Mr. Stretch. Certainly immigration has remained a topic
    throughout.
        Senator Lankford. Okay. Any other issues?
        [No response.]
        This is part of the reason that multiple members--and
    Senator Heinrich mentioned it earlier--we really do want these
    ads to get out in the public space. We think there's great
    value for all of your platforms to be able to say, ``This is
    the type of content that foreign actors are actually trying to
    put out, that are divisive content. When we put it out, that's
    one thing; when you put it out, it's completely different.''
        We think there's a great benefit for you to be able to say,
    when you're aware of things, ``Please note, this is the type of
    issue that's been coming out, that's coming out, and this is
    what it looks like,'' and so people can say, ``That's the type
    of thing I've seen before,'' or they can say, ``I've actually
    liked on that before and didn't have any idea that that was
    Russian-related.'' That'd be helpful.
        Can I ask a question? When were you aware of Russian
    activities on your platform during the election time? During
    the election or before your election? When were you aware that
    entities within the Russian government, whether that be the
    Internet Research Agency or other individuals that you knew of
    that were Russian, either government-related or at least
    policy-related, were involved in election issues on your
    platform? Before or after the election? And all three of you
    can say. Before or after?
        Mr. Stretch. We were aware of Russian state actors active
    on the platform prior to and through the election, separate
    from the Internet Research Agency. And we communicated with law
    enforcement about our concerns at the time. These actors were
    engaged in more traditional cyber threat activity, focusing on
    account compromise, as well as trying to direct attention to
    stolen information that was hosted on other sites.
        Senator Lankford. How far back? Early 2016, 2015?
        Mr. Stretch. We had seen activity as early as 2015.
        Senator Lankford. Okay. Mr. Edgett.
        Mr. Edgett. Twitter also saw activity from the IRA on our
    platform and took large-scale action to take down accounts in
    2015. We generally are aware of intelligence community reports,
    so became aware of the activity in the report that came out in
    January of this year; and then obviously, through the
    retrospective of work, have uncovered what we think is the full
    extent. We're continuing to look and to research that issue.
        Senator Lankford. Okay. Mr. Walker.
        Mr. Walker. We've been looking at cyber espionage issues,
    accounts compromise issues, for many years. It was only after
    the issuance of the report in January that we took a deeper
    dive on the particular kinds of things we're talking about here
    today.
        Senator Lankford. One of the things that we're trying to
    address is getting additional information. Getting the ads I
    mentioned before would be very helpful. Getting the type of
    posts that have been done would be very helpful to the American
    people to be able to see.
        Getting the statistical information would also be helpful.
    The statistics that you've given us are the number of accounts
    that are related to this, but it's not giving us the breadth
    and the depth of those accounts once they're activated. So for
    instance, it's helpful to know that one percent of those
    accounts were Russian-related. But what we're not getting
    statistically is was that one percent the first one percent?
    They actually created it, launched it, and then millions of
    people saw it after that? Are they in the middle, stirring it
    and advancing it? Or were they beginning it?
        That would be helpful to us as well. And I know you have
    that data to be able to see if they started it or were they in
    the middle of broadcasting it. So just giving us the percentage
    of users that shared it doesn't help us. Knowing when in that
    process and what happened after that is what helps us.
        You all have done a lot of work on terrorism, on Islamic
    extremism, on the advance of ISIS. You've done a lot of work on
    child pornography, on human trafficking, on the sales of
    illegal drugs on your sites. We're asking for help on this area
    as well. And this is something that I would hope that we do not
    have to engage legislatively or, if we do, it's the lightest
    possible touch. This is something you have been actively
    engaged in with other topics, and we look forward to
    cooperation in this as well, so that you all are managing that.
        But I do hope in the days ahead we continue to protect a
    platform for free speech, to allow individuals to be able to
    speak their opinions, whether its agreed or disagreed on by
    other Americans, so Americans can engage in that dialogue.
    Thank you.
        Chairman Burr. Senator Manchin.
        Senator Manchin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Thank you all. RT, the Russian state news organization that
    Federal intelligence officials call the Kremlin's principal
    international propaganda outlet, RT America TV broadcasts
    negative programs, derogatory information about the United
    States. It's essentially information warfare directed against
    the United States. According to the unclassified intelligence
    report released on the 2016 elections, the Kremlin staffs RT
    and closely supervises RT's coverage, recruiting people who can
    convey Russian strategic messaging.
        Additionally, the Kremlin spends $190 million a year on the
    distribution and dissemination of RT programming. Can you all
    answer, do any of your organizations allow RT to purchase space
    or advertise on your accounts?
        Mr. Edgett. We've off-boarded, which means we've banned,
    Russia Today and their related accounts from advertising on the
    Twitter platform.
        Senator Manchin. That's effective as of when?
        Mr. Edgett. That was effective as of a week or so ago.
        Mr. Walker. We have reviewed the RT accounts. As you know,
    RT advertises extensively in newspapers, magazines, airports
    across the United States. We've not found violations of our
    accounts. But we are focused on making sure that there is
    enhanced transparency with regard to government-funded
    broadcasting of all kinds, whether that's RT or Al Jazeera or
    other sources.
        Senator Manchin. Mr. Stretch.
        Mr. Stretch. The same is true for Facebook, Senator.
        Senator Manchin. Well, it says here that RT uses Google's
    YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter as the main distributors of
    their content. So you all have been the main go-to to get their
    propaganda out to the United States and do harm to us.
        Mr. Walker. That may be true online, Senator, but of
    course, RT is covered by--RT channels are included on major
    cable television networks, satellite television networks, hotel
    television choices, et cetera. So it is a problem that goes
    beyond the web.
        Senator Manchin. Let me ask you this question, if I may.
    Kaspersky Labs, their antivirus software, do any of you all
    have it on your personal computers? Your personal computers,
    are you using Kaspersky Labs?
        Mr. Walker. No, sir.
        Senator Manchin. Does your company use Kaspersky?
        Mr. Walker. I do not believe so.
        Senator Manchin. Could you check and find out?
        Mr. Walker. We will--we will follow up.
        Senator Manchin. How about any of the other two?
        Mr. Edgett. Not aware, but we'll follow up with your staff.
        Mr. Stretch. Likewise.
        Senator Manchin. Do you all have any doubts about Russia's
    involvement to interfere in our 2016 presidential election? Do
    you have any doubts at all that Russia intervened, interfered,
    had a profound outcome, basically, on our outcome to our
    election? Do you all have any thoughts on that? Do you have any
    doubts about that?
        Mr. Stretch. We have no doubt that there were attempted
    efforts at interference. It's something we're focused on
    addressing going forward. In terms of whether it had an effect
    on the outcome, that's not something we're in a position to
    judge.
        Senator Manchin. Well, let me ask this: Are you or your
    CEOs concerned about the threat and damage your companies can
    do to the U.S. with your far-reaching power, and that you have
    been identified as the major distributors of fake news? Are you
    concerned about that? Do your CEOs talk about the threats to
    the United States of America, where you're domiciled? Or is it
    basically just a business model that you're worried about?
        Mr. Edgett. We're deeply concerned. This is an issue that
    we talk about constantly. As I said earlier, the first part of
    this year, we pointed our entire engineering product and design
    team on tackling the issues of information quality, abuse of
    our systems and protecting our users.
        Mr. Walker. I'd join that. It's absolutely a very serious
    issue. The North Star of Google is to provide accurate,
    comprehensive, relevant information to people. We don't always
    get that right. But we have tens of thousands of engineers who
    are trying to improve our algorithms, improve the rating
    guidelines we use for individuals, address the problem of
    breaking news, which is a very challenging one to get right
    when there's just not a lot of content out there. So we take
    this very seriously.
        Senator Manchin. You all would agree, then, I guess, with
    the legislation that's been introduced by different members and
    bipartisan Members of this Committee and other committees, that
    you all should be regulated and overseen the same as we do
    other news medias?
        Mr. Stretch, you have any idea, a comment? Are you all
    going to fight back on that, lobby against it, or are you going
    to basically support the legislation that's going to be needed
    to make sure that the American people are getting the facts and
    not fake news?
        Mr. Edgett. Senator, we stand ready to work with the
    Committee on legislation. Any particular pieces of legislation,
    we're certainly happy to talk about.
        Senator Manchin. You've seen the legislation that we've put
    out there. You all three are lawyers. I'm sure you're watching
    it very closely, you know, the legislation that we have. Do you
    agree with the exemption? Would you support a change in law
    that treats all political advertising on the internet the same
    as print and broadcast ads, to require identification of
    sponsors, basically the legislation we're putting forth?
        Mr. Edgett. We're very supportive of the direction of the
    Honest Ads Act, and have had really productive conversations--
    --
        Senator Manchin. You all we will be speaking in support of
    these pieces of legislation?
        Mr. Edgett. Yeah, we have some fine-tuning that we'd love
    to talk about. But we, as you saw, put out our own transparency
    center that very much aligns with the information that the
    Honest Ads Act was asking us to provide to you.
        Senator Manchin. According to an Oxford University study
    released in October, Russian trolls are now targeting American
    military personnel and veterans on Twitter and Facebook.
    Allegedly, these trolls are pushing fake news and injecting
    them into veterans groups and to active-duty personnel.
        In fact, one fake Facebook page was highlighted in a Stars
    & Stripes article from October the 18th. The page was called
    ``Vietnam Vets of America,'' and it had attracted a follower
    network of nearly 200,000. The real veterans organization,
    Vietnam Veterans of America, called it an impostor page and
    another example of how military and veterans are being targeted
    with disinformation.
        A week after the original article was reported on October
    18th, Facebook reportedly took down the site, ostensibly for
    violating intellectual property of the real veterans service
    organization.
        So I would ask Facebook and Twitter, is the story accurate?
    Did you all know about this? And are you seeing our military
    and our veterans being targeted? And how come it took so long
    to take it down?
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, we're intensely proud of the use of
    Facebook by our military. You asked----
        Senator Manchin. We're not talking about that----
        Mr. Stretch. Right.
        Senator Manchin. We're talking about the people who are
    targeting them.
        Mr. Stretch. Yes. And we are very focused on making sure
    that it remains an authentic experience for them. We receive
    many reports of inauthentic behavior. We try to act on them
    quickly. We're trying to improve our tools to detect it even
    before it's reported to us. I'm not familiar with the
    particular--the particular page you've described.
        Senator Manchin. Stars and Stripes?
        Mr. Stretch. Yes, but I----
        Senator Manchin. I hope you will check into that.
        Mr. Stretch. I will certainly check into it, Senator.
        Senator Manchin. Let me just say this, as my time's
    wrapping up. You can see this is not a Democrat or Republican
    issue. This is an American issue that we're concerned about,
    the security of our Nation.
        We're getting hit from every way you possibly can imagine.
    And you all are the largest, one of the largest distributors of
    news. And there can be no doubt that it has to be authentic and
    true. You cannot allow what's going on against the United
    States of America.
        You are on the front lines with us, and we're doing
    everything we can to support our military, our veterans, all
    the people who put their lives on the line. And what you're
    doing by allowing this fake stuff to come across, this
    misleading, this damaging information, is really threatening
    the security and the sovereignty of our nation.
        I would hope that your CEOs--and I agree with Senator King.
    I wish that your CEOs would be here. They need to answer for
    this. It can't be a business model. It's got to be a security
    issue.
        Thank you.
        Chairman Burr. Senator Cotton.
        Senator Cotton. Thank you, gentlemen, for your appearance
    this morning.
        Mr. Edgett, I want to discuss Twitter's history of
    cooperation with our intelligence community. Last year, in an
    open hearing before this Committee, I asked then-CIA director
    John Brennan about Twitter's decision to prohibit a subsidiary
    called Data Miner from working with our intelligence community.
    Director Brennan stated that he was disappointed in Twitter's
    decision.
        But at the same time that we learned that Twitter was
    refusing to work with the CIA and the rest of the intelligence
    community, we also learned that Twitter was pitching Russia
    Today and Sputnik, propaganda arms of the Kremlin, to sell
    advertisements for profit.
        So, in essence, last year Russia was beginning its covert
    influence campaign against the United States, and Twitter was
    on the side of Russia, as opposed to the national security
    interests of the United States. How can your company justify
    this pattern of behavior to its fellow citizens?
        Mr. Edgett. We work frequently and hard with law
    enforcement all the time. We do have global policies that
    prohibit the use of our data hoses or publicly available data
    around tweets for purposes of surveillance. But we allow law
    enforcement to use Data Miner and Twitter products around news
    alerts, first response technology to see what's going on in an
    area if a 911 call is made and an emergency responder is going
    somewhere. But we do not allow surveillance based on Twitter
    data.
        Senator Cotton. Did Twitter cut off the CIA and the
    intelligence community from Data Miner last year?
        Mr. Edgett. We asked that our policy of surveillance be
    applied consistently to all organizations, and I believe that
    Data Miner has been enforcing that policy.
        Senator Cotton. Has it cut off RT and Sputnik?
        Mr. Edgett. As to Russia Today, when we approached Russia
    Today last year to talk about our advertising products and to
    sell them our advertising services, they were approached as a
    regular media organization like a BBC or an NPR.
        Senator Cotton. Do you consider RT to be a regular media
    organization?
        Mr. Edgett. Obviously not now. Coming out of the DNI report
    earlier this year and the retrospective work that we've done
    most recently, we don't. And that's why we have banned Russia
    Today from advertising on the Twitter platform.
        Senator Cotton. So there's a difference, though, between
    the advertising question, which was improvident, and the use of
    Data Miner. According to a Wall Street Journal report to which
    Director Brennan was responding, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey vetoed
    the Data Miner-CIA contract at the last minute because he
    objected to the, quote, ``optics'' of continuing to help U.S.
    intelligence agencies.
        That Wall Street Journal report also said, though, that
    customers still getting Data Miner include RT. Is that an
    accurate report? John Brennan had no reason to doubt its
    accuracy.
        Mr. Edgett. I'm--I don't--I don't have the information, but
    will follow up on Russia Today's use of Data Miner's products,
    which is the third party where we have a relationship. I
    believe Mr. Dorsey wanted to make sure that our policies were
    being applied consistently around surveillance.
        Senator Cotton. Do you see an equivalency between the
    Central Intelligence Agency and the Russian intelligence
    services?
        Mr. Edgett. We're not offering our service for surveillance
    to any government.
        Senator Cotton. So you will apply the same policy to our
    intelligence community that you apply to an adversary's
    intelligence services?
        Mr. Edgett. As a global company, we have to apply our
    policies consistently.
        Senator Cotton. This reminds me of the old line from the
    Cold War of one who did not see a distinction between the CIA
    and the KGB on the other hand, because the KGB officer pushed
    an old lady in front of an oncoming bus, the CIA officer pushed
    the old lady out from the path of the oncoming bus, because
    they both go around pushing old ladies.
        I hope that Twitter will reconsider its policies when it's
    dealing with friendly intelligence services in countries like
    the United States and the U.K. as opposed to adversarial
    countries like Russia and China.
        Would Twitter entertain the possibility of once again
    allowing the intelligence community to use Data Miner?
        Mr. Edgett. We do today, for purposes of news alerts and
    first response technology, getting information on certain
    areas. We do not allow anyone--our policy is not to allow
    anyone, for the purposes of user privacy, to use our technology
    to run surveillance.
        Senator Cotton. Okay, let's move on to another hostile
    intelligence service. Other than Vladimir Putin and Russia, I
    can't think of anyone who was more involved in efforts to
    influence our election last year than Julian Assange and
    WikiLeaks. The current director of the CIA, Mike Pompeo, as
    well as this Committee in our annual Intelligence Authorization
    Act, has labeled WikiLeaks a non-state hostile intelligence
    service who aids hostile foreign powers like the Kremlin. Yet,
    to my knowledge, Twitter still allows them to operate
    uninhibited. Is that accurate?
        Mr. Edgett. We have terms of service and rules that apply
    to all users and will apply those consistently and without
    bias. We take action on accounts like WikiLeaks----
        Senator Cotton. Is it bias to side with America over our
    adversaries?
        Mr. Edgett. We're trying to be unbiased around the world.
    We're obviously an American company and care deeply about the
    issues that we're talking about today. But as it relates to
    WikiLeaks or other accounts like it, we make sure that they're
    in compliance with our policies, just like every other account,
    and have and will continue, if we need to take------
        Senator Cotton. So you'll be unbiased towards WikiLeaks and
    Julian Assange, but you'll take down videos of people like
    Marsha Blackburn, a Republican running for the United States
    Senate?
        Mr. Edgett. Marsha Blackburn's video was never removed from
    the Twitter platform. She ran that tweet and that video as an
    advertisement, and we have different standards for our
    advertisements than we do for the organic tweets and content on
    our platform, because we're serving ads to users who haven't
    asked to follow Representative Blackburn or others and we want
    to make sure that that's a positive experience. And so our
    policies have a different standard. And in that case, we had
    users reporting that it was inflammatory and upsetting, and it
    was initially taken down.
        We're making these tough calls all of the time, and in that
    case we reversed the decision and allowed the advertisement to
    continue to run. But we never took down Representative
    Blackburn's tweet or allowed her not to convey that message to
    those who were following her and to engage in the dialogue with
    her.
        Senator Cotton. Mr. Edgett, I know that you're the acting
    general counsel, not the general counsel. And if you were the
    general counsel, these decisions are made at the CEO and the
    board of directors level. But I have to say most American
    citizens would expect American companies to be willing to put
    the interests of our country above, not on par with, our
    adversaries--countries like Russia and China, or non-state
    actors like WikiLeaks, or individuals like Julian Assange.
        As many other Members of this Committee have expressed, I
    think your companies have accomplished amazing things for our
    country and its citizens, and made our lives better in many
    ways. I also support the channels that you've created for free
    speech, especially for some oppressed or persecuted people
    around the world.
        But this kind of attitude I would submit is not acceptable
    to the large majority of Americans, and it's going to be part
    of what would lead to unwise or imprudent regulation, not
    sensible and smart regulation.
        My time's expired.
        Chairman Burr. Senator Harris.
        Senator Harris. Thank you.
        California is home to many of the world's most successful
    technology companies and we're proud of that. And we also know
    that with that great success comes great responsibility. Your
    companies, therefore, have a great responsibility to the
    American public.
        And, as you know, you are the modern town square and the
    modern postmaster. You are the phone company and the Yellow
    Pages. You are the newspaper and the radio broadcaster and the
    television station, and you are the emergency alert system.
    Your decisions fundamentally inform public discourse.
        So our Nation's enemies have used your platforms in a way
    that has been designed to create and disseminate and advertise
    hateful rhetoric, with the intent and the effect of disrupting
    our democracy. And that, of course, is why we're all here.
        I have several questions, but I'd like to start with what I
    think is, frankly, an elephant in the room. And I'm holding up
    the SEC Form 10-Q that has been filled out by each of your
    companies. And your response to this is pretty much the same,
    but I have in front of me that from Facebook. But Twitter and
    Alphabet have the same information.
        There's a section here which requests, ``What are the risks
    related to the business?'' And it reads, ``If we fail to retain
    existing users or add new users, that will be a problem for
    us.'' It goes on to say, ``We generate substantially all of our
    revenue from advertising. The loss of marketers or reduction in
    spending by marketers could seriously harm our business.''
        It goes on to say, ``Our advertising revenue could also be
    adversely affected by a number of other factors, including
    adverse legal developments relating to advertising, including
    legislative and regulatory developments, and developments in
    litigation.''
        So my question to you is about American ads, not the
    Russian ads, American ads that run on your platforms. There are
    legitimate ads that appeared alongside of the Russian placement
    and propaganda pages on Facebook, on Twitter and even on
    YouTube.
        So can you please tell me that, as it relates to those
    advertisements on Facebook, on Twitter or in YouTube, how you
    are addressing that, and in particular, how much money did you
    make off of the legitimate ads that ran alongside the Russia
    propaganda?
        And we can start with Alphabet or with Google, please. And
    that would be the advertisements that ran before your videos on
    YouTube.
        Mr. Walker. Sure. The total amount of advertising we
    discovered across our platforms was $4,700 from the Russian
    sources.
        Senator Harris. That's not my question.
        Mr. Walker. I understand.
        Senator Harris. My question is American advertising or
    legitimate advertising. How much money did you make from
    legitimate advertising that ran alongside the Russia
    propaganda?
        Mr. Walker. A de minimis amount, Senator. I don't have it
    in front of me. We'd be happy to follow up.
        Senator Harris. Okay. What about for Twitter?
        Mr. Edgett. I don't have the data, but I will follow up
    and------
        Senator Harris. Have you not looked into that?
        Mr. Edgett. I believe--are you asking how much advertising
    revenue we made for the period, totally? Or----
        Senator Harris. I'm asking how much advertising revenue did
    you receive from legitimate advertisers that advertised
    alongside or in connection with Russian propaganda?
        Mr. Edgett. We haven't done that analysis, but we'll follow
    up and work on that.
        Senator Harris. Okay. What about Facebook?
        Mr. Stretch. The same is true for Facebook, Senator.
        Senator Harris. You've not done that calculation?
        Mr. Stretch. We've not done that analysis.
        Senator Harris. I find that difficult to understand,
    because it would seem to me that we would figure out how much
    you've profited from Russian propaganda on your platforms. So
    please do follow up with us as soon as possible on that.
        And also, it is critically important that this Committee
    have access to all of the information it needs to understand
    the Russia propaganda in the 2016 election. So will you each
    commit to retaining records, as you are required to do from the
    minimum standard of media rating research, but do that and
    extend it beyond the 11 months that they require and extend it
    through the completion of our investigation into Russia's
    interference in the 2016 election? Will you commit to keeping
    those records during the duration of our investigation?
        Mr. Walker. We will commit--we will keep all relevant
    records to this investigation and provide them to the
    Committee, yes.
        Mr. Edgett. Same goes for Twitter.
        Senator Harris. Thank you.
        Mr. Walker. Yes.
        Senator Harris. And as for all three of you, can you please
    name the senior executive who is responsible in your operation
    for countering state-sponsored information operations? And if
    you do not have one, please indicate that, as well.
        Mr. Walker. It's a challenging question, because we have a
    number of people across different teams, including our cyber
    espionage teams, as well as our trust and safety teams. I would
    say our chief security officer is one such person. Another
    person would be the head of our trust and safety team. Then we
    also have separate teams at YouTube who work in these areas.
        Senator Harris. So I take it you have not designated an
    individual as part of your executive team who's responsible
    specifically for state-influence operations?
        Mr. Walker. I will take responsibility for that, Senator.
        Senator Harris. Okay, I appreciate that.
        Mr. Edgett. That role--there's two people filling that role
    at Twitter. The first is our general counsel. I'm currently our
    acting general counsel, so currently it is me. But also our
    head of our Twitter product, the Twitter product that we all
    use, has taken responsibility for safety, abuse, and
    information quality on the platform. So I feel like that's
    directly related to your question.
        Senator Harris. Okay. But I'd like you each to appreciate
    and everyone to appreciate that this is a very specific issue
    with its own pathology, requiring a great amount of resources,
    because we are talking about state-sponsored activity. This is
    not about an individual conducting this activity and then you
    need to review it.
        So as it relates to state-sponsored information operations,
    I'm requesting that you name whoever is responsible now, but as
    we go forward that you designate in your operation someone at
    the executive level who is responsible specifically for those
    types of operations, understanding that, as we know now, there
    are governments that are willing to put incredible amount of
    resources into manipulating the American public.
        And it is beyond what you might need to review in terms of
    activity on your sites that involves issues of posting
    inappropriate images and things of that nature.
        Mr. Stretch.
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, we have a chief security officer and
    a threat intelligence team that's acutely focused on this
    threat. I will take responsibility for our overall response to
    this threat.
        Senator Harris. And how many of your employees are
    dedicated to addressing state-sponsored operations
    specifically? And if there aren't, please follow up in terms of
    what you're prepared to dedicate to that.
        Mr. Stretch. This is a--it's a harder question, because
    there are so many vectors that we're investing in. I stated
    earlier that we have 10,000 people at Facebook across a number
    of teams who are focused on safety and security generally, and
    we're doubling that number. The number of people who think of
    this as their full-time job is something I'll have to come back
    to you on.
        Senator Harris. Okay, I appreciate that. And for each of
    the companies, we'd appreciate that.
        You can create automated systems that detect foreign
    propaganda. For example, you can determine whether a user is
    active during Moscow business hours, or connects through a VPN,
    or registers with a fishy voice over an IP telephone number.
    And you can feed those signals into a machine that can actually
    create an algorithm that can allow us to indicate or figure out
    if propaganda is actually being pushed through. Have you done
    that as it relates to state-sponsored manipulation of
    elections?
        Mr. Edgett. So our technology is agnostic. We have the
    technology you're talking about, which is an algorithm that
    helps us catch the bad actors based on their pattern and
    behavior, and also connect accounts so that if they start new
    accounts or new networks of accounts, we get those before they
    tweet.
        We want to catch that activity all over Twitter. That,
    having automated accounts, malicious actors on Twitter, is a
    bad experience for our users. So we've been tackling that
    problem for years, and the challenge is as we get better, these
    actors get better. And so it's a constant game of cat and mouse
    and one-upmanship.
        But we are committed every single day to making sure that
    we are removing those actors from our platform.
        Senator Harris. My time is running out, so perhaps we can
    just have quick answers for the remaining folks.
        Mr. Walker. Our answer would be similar.
        Mr. Stretch. The same.
        Senator Harris. Thank you.
        Chairman Burr. Members should be aware that there has been
    a series of votes started about seven minutes ago, two votes.
    We've got two Members left. We're going to move through those
    and wrap up.
        And at this time, I would ask unanimous consent that all
    Members be allowed for seven days to submit questions to our
    witnesses today.
        [No response.]
        Without objection, so ordered.
        Senator Cornyn.
        Senator Cornyn. Thank you for being here.
        It strikes me that the United States is operating at a
    tremendous disadvantage. We are a free and open society. We
    believe in freedom of the press, freedom of expression, and we
    respect the privacy rights of individual--of individuals. Our
    opponents have the opposite view. They view information as a
    tool of warfare, while denying their own citizens access to the
    sort of freedoms--the press, individual thought, and
    expression--that we celebrate in this country. But it seems to
    me that you're at the intersection of this problem, which
    brings us to why you're here today.
        I'll restate the Chairman's comments when he started by
    quoting H.L. Mencken who said, ``For every complex problem,
    there is a clear, simple, and wrong answer.'' And so we need to
    be very careful, I think, in how we deal with this.
        But I do think the public needs to understand how your
    platforms operate. My friend Senator Harris talked about your
    being the town square and the newspaper, the radio station. But
    you are more than just a publisher of information. As you point
    out, most of the income that your companies earn is from data
    mining. You know more about individual Americans than anybody
    else, including their own government. And, of course, you vow
    to protect that information and their privacy at the same time.
        But you use it in order to target ads. Many of us here on
    the panel have used your platforms in political campaigns to
    make sure that our message gets to voters who we think might be
    receptive to our point of view or our platform.
        But I'd like to know as a general matter how do you
    distinguish between somebody, like Senator Feinstein alluded
    to, using social media as a means to recruit and incite lone-
    wolf terrorists like the one that plowed down unsuspecting New
    Yorkers yesterday, killing 8 and injuring 11 others, between
    that person and a foreign government using your platforms in
    order to pursue the sort of disinformation and active measures
    that caused so much confusion and polarization in our election?
        And how do you distinguish between the way you treat those
    people on your platforms and how you treat sex traffickers, who
    are targeting young girls and selling them, in essence, for
    sex? How do you distinguish between those three?
        Mr. Walker. Senator, I'd say none of those activities are
    acceptable on our platforms. We have strong policies against
    abuse of platforms to promote hate, hate speech, incitement of
    violence, sex trafficking, human trafficking, et cetera. In
    addition, when you have the added layer of a deceptive actor,
    like a foreign government, trying to push its points of view in
    deceptive ways, without identifying itself, etcetera, that
    separately violates another layer of our policies.
        Mr. Edgett. It goes back to what we talked about earlier.
    We also have the same policies prohibiting all of this. We've
    had the best success so far looking at the behavior and the
    signals we see only on the Twitter side, around how accounts
    are linked and the activity of those accounts, where they're
    logging in from, what they're doing with each other, to stop
    these bad actors before they're even able to tweet.
        A good example of this is on the terrorism side. We are now
    able to automatically detect and take down 95 percent of
    terrorist accounts, 75 percent of those before they tweet for
    the first time. So because we're focusing on behavior and not
    the content, we don't have to wait for them to get their
    messages out. We take those down proactively before they're
    able to speak.
        Mr. Stretch. I would just add, Senator, that of the three
    forms of abuse of the platform you describe--child safety,
    terrorism, and foreign interference in elections--the first two
    we've been working on for quite a long time as an industry and
    with government, and I think we have a proven track record of
    working well together, as an industry and with government, to
    make sure we're taking appropriate steps to address those
    abuses. We have work to do, but we have made progress.
        This threat of foreign interference in the elections is
    something where we do need to up our game, I think, as a
    company and as an industry and working with government. But the
    success we've made or the successes we've had on those first
    two forms of abuse gives me some reason for optimism going
    forward, with respect to our ability to address the foreign
    interference threat.
        Senator Cornyn. For each of you, have the terms of service
    of your company changed at all since the 2015, 2016 actions of
    Russia? Your terms of service?
        Mr. Walker. Yes. We have changed our policies with regard
    to ads that are appropriate, as well as content that's
    available on YouTube.
        Senator Cornyn. Focused on active measures or on other
    matters?
        Mr. Walker. Our terms have to do with terms around
    advertising and terms about what acceptable content is. We are
    simultaneously using additional tools behind the scenes to
    identify material.
        Mr. Edgett. It's very similar at Twitter.
        Mr. Stretch. The same is true for Facebook.
        Senator Cornyn. Why should your companies be treated any
    different than the press from a legal accountability
    standpoint?
        Mr. Edgett. We believe, as a user-generated content
    platform, that the rules around Section 230 provide a platform
    to our users around free speech and expression, and don't
    require us to take a bias on removing content that we fear will
    violate certain rights. And so we work actively to prohibit
    things like violence and terrorism and abuse and harassment.
    And you'll see how we were tackling this problem with urgency
    and seriousness.
        But we believe that, as a user-generated content platform,
    we want to allow the free expression and debate without the
    interference of some of the things you're talking about.
        Senator Cornyn. So you believe you should be treated from a
    legal standpoint differently than a newspaper, cable TV show,
    or a radio show?
        Mr. Edgett. Yes. We're not producing the content; we're
    allowing users to upload. We have a lot of great journalists
    and news organizations who are putting content on our platform
    to share, linking back to their sites. We're offering the
    service to allow that interchange, that information sharing.
        Senator Cornyn. That may well be a distinction that is lost
    on most of us, that you're just a platform for other people to
    express their views, as opposed to being a publisher in your
    own right of those, of those views.
        Finally, let me just ask each of you, please, to continue
    to work with us on the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act of
    2017. As you know, this deals with the Communications Decency
    Act, which has been used as a legal bar to those who have been
    victims of sexual abuse, when they seek to bring the people who
    facilitated that sex trafficking to justice. And I think there
    is a way that, working together, we can come up with something
    that protects the victims, but also maintains the freedom of
    the internet. And I would just encourage each of you to
    continue working with us on that, so we can reach an acceptable
    outcome.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Burr. Senator Reed.
        Senator Reed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        For all the panelists, but starting with Mr. Stretch: When
    you discover a deceptive foreign government presentation on
    your platform, my presumption is from what you've said today
    you'll stop it and take it down. Do you feel an obligation in
    turn to notify those people who have accessed that? And can you
    do that? And shouldn't you do that?
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, we feel an obligation, as you say,
    first to stop the activity; second, to investigate it further,
    to fan out, essentially, from the account to make sure we're
    taking an expansive view of the investigation to try to capture
    any related activity; third, to share threat information with
    the industry and with the government so we can all do a better
    job; and then, fourth, to bring the issue to the attention of,
    in this case, this Committee.
        And the content itself, we've said we're supportive of this
    Committee making it publicly available. The question of
    reaching out to individuals who may have seen it is a much more
    difficult and complex one. But we believe our commitment to
    transparency on this issue generally should address that.
        Senator Reed. Well, potentially you could do that, I
    presume, or you could invest the resources to do it. And as a
    result, frankly, reporting to us about the nefarious activities
    of Russia is not going to immediately translate to the
    thousands or apparently 126 million people who saw the message
    and thought it was legit.
        You have the, I presume, the technical skill to do that.
    Again, apropos Senator Cornyn, you know, you'll see in the
    newspaper, ``We correct the statement we made the other day; it
    was wrong,'' or ``It was deliberately wrong.'' And I think you,
    given the First Amendment, you can live with that, I hope.
        Mr. Stretch. I'm sorry, Senator. Could you repeat the
    question?
        Senator Reed. Well, the question goes back to having an
    obligation under the First Amendment to notify people who you
    know have been deliberately misled by a foreign government--not
    just us, not just law enforcement.
        Mr. Stretch. The technical challenges associated with that
    undertaking are substantial, particularly because much of the
    data work underneath our estimate of the number of people who
    may have been exposed to this relies on data analysis and
    modeling.
        That said, we do believe transparency in this area is
    important, and we are supportive of making as much of this
    information available to the public as the Committee deems
    warranted.
        Senator Reed. Mr. Edgett. I deem it warranted, for whatever
    that's worth.
        Mr. Edgett.
        Mr. Edgett. It's an interesting proposition. We have a team
    dedicated to information quality and how we present information
    on the platform. We see, as an open platform, active dialogue
    around a lot of this false information, fake information right
    away. So when you're seeing the tweets, you're also seeing a
    number of replies to it, showing people where to go, where
    other information is that's accurate. But we will definitely
    take that idea back to explore how we could implement a process
    like that.
        Senator Reed. Mr. Walker, your platform?
        Mr. Walker. We're somewhat differently positioned in that,
    because were not primarily a social network, many of our users
    are not logged in at the time they access content. So it's
    difficult for us to know exactly who has seen what. But we too
    will take it under consideration.
        Senator Reed. Thank you.
        With respect to bots, what I've gleaned from the testimony
    is that you can technically identify a bot system operating on
    your platform; and then, am I right to assume that you will
    shut them down? Any bot system, you will shut down?
    Particularly a government-related bot system?
        Mr. Walker. When we refer to bots, it's primarily a Twitter
    issue. I'm not familiar with bots on Google per se.
        Senator Reed. Well, let's go to Twitter. I'm not the
    technical expert, but YouTube is your subsidiary, I presume.
        Mr. Walker. That's correct, yes.
        Senator Reed. And a lot of the hits on YouTube I presume
    were generated by electronic devices, not people, so that the
    RT program that was attacking Secretary of State Clinton had a
    2 percent over-the-air audience, but a huge number of hits on
    YouTube. And as a result, you know, you are being unwittingly
    or wittingly used by bot systems all of the time.
        Mr. Walker. A bot, an automation, an automated view of
    content, really isn't sort of the core issue. What people tend
    to do on YouTube is try to drive up their perceived view counts
    to make themselves appear to be more popular than they are.
        Senator Reed. And they do it by using electronic networks.
        Mr. Walker. That's certainly right. And so we--yes,
    across--and this is a problem not limited to this context. Many
    people would like to make themselves appear more popular than
    they are. So we have a lot of sophisticated tools that are
    precisely designed to combat that kind of phenomenon, yes.
        Senator Reed. And you will, if you find it, reduce the
    number of hits so it's no longer trending?
        Mr. Walker. Either that or remove people from our services
    for abuses of our terms of service, yes.
        Senator Reed. So you do have to deal with these bot
    networks, and you're dealing with it.
        Mr. Walker. In that sense, that's correct, yes.
        Senator Reed. Okay.
        Bots?
        Mr. Edgett. Similarly, we remove as many bad automated
    accounts as we can find. As I said earlier, some of these bad
    actors are trying to get more sophisticated, and so we're
    staying ahead of that by learning from the automated accounts
    that we're seeing. But we will remove them, and have technology
    to make sure that automated accounts aren't gaming trends, so
    that--the trending hashtags that people are seeing on the
    platform. We will remove their content from search and from the
    timelines, and we will remove them permanently from the system,
    you know, once we are able to investigate.
        Senator Reed. Mr. Stretch, please.
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, we--apologies.
        We prohibit automated account creation, and in doing so
    we're always looking for evidence of accounts being created en
    masse and engaging in either of the behaviors that Mr. Walker
    and Mr. Edgett identified.
        Senator Reed. Thank you.
        Just a quick question, because my time is going. This is a
    daunting effort. We're being attacked, and you have to go on
    the offense, the counter-offense, because the way we've
    structured this system, we have very limited government role in
    your regulation, your activities, et cetera.
        And it comes down ultimately to resources. So I would like
    to follow up officially. But what percent of your revenue are
    you devoting to these activities? I mean proactive activities,
    not, you know, just if someone complains enough we'll take it
    down, but finding bots, thinking about notifying recipients of
    clearly bad information. So what percent do you think, Mr.
    Stretch, right now?
        Mr. Stretch. Senator, I cannot give you a percentage. I can
    tell you that the company is committed to getting this right.
    Our most expensive resources are--resources are people and, as
    I stated earlier, we are doubling the amount of people who will
    be focused on these efforts in the coming year.
        Senator Reed. Can you get us a number, please, in writing?
        Mr. Stretch. Yes.
        Senator Reed. Thank you.
        Mr. Edgett, please.
        Mr. Edgett. We also dedicate a lot of resources to this,
    and I'll follow up with your staff.
        Senator Reed. Mr. Walker, similarly?
        Mr. Walker. Similarly.
        Senator Reed. Thank you.
        Thank you.
        Chairman Burr. The Chair recognizes the Vice Chair.
        Vice Chairman Warner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll be very
    brief. I know our time is limited.
        One, I want to acknowledge Senator Reed I think raised a
    very good question. And if you were in a medical facility and
    you got exposed to a disease, the medical facility would have
    to tell the folks who were exposed. The comment as well about
    TV and radio making corrections. I do think it's an interesting
    question about what obligation you might have.
        I just have to tell you, I think there has been some
    progress made and I appreciate some of your efforts. I still
    find it very disturbing that it appears that, at least from
    Twitter and Facebook, the sense is that all the Russian active
    measures only originated with one single troll farm in St.
    Petersburg, and it still appears that most of the work that you
    have provided us is derivative of your initial reports.
        I was hoping very much that you would come in today and
    either say that was absolutely all of it or we've identified
    other troll farms or other entities. And I think we've got a
    lot more work to do.
        Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, for this hearing.
        Chairman Burr. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Warner.
        We've come to the close of this and let me just make a
    couple of statements, if I can. If, for some reason, you need
    antitrust waivers to collaborate with each other, please let us
    know. More importantly, seek for the waiver yourself. This is
    going to take an overall effort to minimize--I'm not going to
    use the term ``eliminate''--to minimize the damage and, more
    importantly, the impact of what Russia is doing, did do, and
    what others will do next year.
        I firmly believe that all three of your companies have a
    new perspective on security and that you've got your varying
    degrees of changes that are good. The challenge is if it fails
    the impact of that failure is significantly different than it
    was in the 2016 elections. I need you to know that up front.
        You all acknowledge that FEC law applies to you, but it
    hasn't been lost on me that all of you asked for an exemption
    from the applicable FEC law. So I sort of am reminded that a
    portion of the content posted on Facebook by foreign actors
    appeared to support one candidate or another. Clearly, it falls
    within the lines of what the FEC law was there for. And, as you
    know, Federal campaign law requires disclosures of sources for
    ads. I have to put that little thing, ``Paid for by.''
        Mr. Edgett, you said your guys are adopting something
    similar. I applaud you on that. And I'm sure, if I asked why
    you didn't apply it, you might have told me before that the FEC
    law didn't apply to you because they had a hung jury at the
    FEC. They didn't decide it did, and they didn't decide it
    didn't. Or maybe it's the excuse that it was small, impractical
    items, therefore they had an exception to the disclosure.
        Let me make it perfectly clear: There is no exception to
    the disclosure as it relates to foreign money used to influence
    U.S. elections. That is a national security issue. It is a
    direct attempt to infiltrate the democracy that we have here.
    And if it's not stated in the law, it should be your company's
    responsibility to take it on head-on.
        So in the future I hope that, if there's a takeaway from
    this, it's that everybody's going to adhere to FEC law. If
    you're a media outlet and you've known that it applied to you;
    if for some reason you ever questioned whether it was foreign
    money, then you probably didn't run the ad. I hope that none of
    your platform is conditional upon you not verifying where that
    money's coming from.
        So the one thing that I didn't hear today, and I hope you
    will take it back, is the effort to certify who's paying for
    these things. I, like others, do not want the government to
    stipulate to any of you what content, especially political
    content, should look like. By the same token, you're the front
    line before anything else has to kick in to certify that
    foreign money is not finding its way into influencing U.S.
    elections.
        I wish I could leave today and believe the only thing we
    have to worry about are elections. The truth is we've spent a
    tremendous amount of time as two old guys trying to figure out
    what bots were and things that I don't use. But I have to
    understand them in a way that as a policymaker makes decisions
    that are best for the future of my kids and my grandchildren,
    to make sure they've got access to your platforms, to make sure
    that they can experience things I never dreamed about
    experiencing and am too old to understand.
        But I recognize the fact that I can't be influenced just
    because I don't understand it, because I've got to match my
    capital with the intellect of all of you at the table and the
    people that work at all your companies. That is our future.
        Don't let nation-states disrupt our future. And you're the
    front line of defense for it. Please take that back to your
    companies.
        This hearing is adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

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