on the u.k. in 2014 we did 14 billion videos for youtube it that's across all types. >> are you able to be more specific in the future, would you be able to look at the number of websites and the number of have terrorism content? >> we can't do it right now but were certainly open and actively thinking about ways that we can be more transparent about what we remove and what really pilots. it is worth noting that one of the reason it's difficult is because if someone is offended by something on youtube they go chart flagging procedure. and those flag over laps, could be for terrace content or they might for speech so at present we are not able to count that

way but it is something so it was pretty critical a few days ago. >> about what was the content she said she felt it had become a place where heat was being disseminated. is that right? how many pages has facebook taken down relating specifically to counterterrorism? >> so what happened we are confident -- there's weeks ago in berlin the joint commission that the u.k. -based organization had dialogue and the institute -- and soap for

violence extremism so this is initiative which will combine support for each geo that we are trying to use the internet for -- researching what work and then training around best practices. >> it was not sudden. it was something as a company we take very seriously. for a number of years and events in the world has unfolded in recent years this has become the number one public policy issue that i talk about with governments. this is just written up the policy agenda. we want to ensure that we are

learning from organizations that work from the ground but have the best academic resources and have the best support. >> are you going to publish the outcomes of the initiatives? >> absolutely. this is a three-year initiative. there'll be more to follow. >> the second part of your question, we do not provide the same level of detail as google do. we provide similar information around the request but that moment we don't provide public data on the number of pieces of content that we take down. >> they just find twitter to refusing what it considered terrorist propaganda. isis has been looking at the pages and the tweets that they have sent out today, we asked

about -- this is pretty hot stuff in support. what are you doing about those who are using twitter and what they're doing with terrorism. i think they understand that there are recruiting using twitter. >> in terms of this pages we have taken down tens of thousands of accounts. when google are thinking about how. >> is that last year? >> so those figures would be in the last 12 months. >> and is a broken down between counterterrorism and other areas? >> so that specific figure is specifically relating to extremist accounts is. >> you taken a 10,000 twitter

pages. >> yes. they were they were trying to figure out how to be more transparent. we are having intel discussions about if there's more that we can do to provide extra data. and if we can were happy to do so. >> would you be able to publish this information on a more regular basis? we would like to have this information. >> were like a company that. >> so were sinking we have this kind of data? >> yes or no that it's the number one way that people are being groomed on the internet. >> the question is is it internet the number one way that people are being groomed. i'm afraid i don't know how people are groomed off-line to answer. it something we take very serious. >> i'm not sure i do agree. i think you'd be better off talking about other people like

the properly named international radicalization. they are the expert. we are not. we're the experts on how we can keep this content outside of off of facebook. >> i would agree. >> thank you gentlemen. also want to follow a point on that you made 14,000,000 videos videos which is next ordinary figure. to look at this manageable he, are you confident that you are removing the dangerous material quickly enough in terms of preventing people from being radicalized? >> so typically something we

think about on a regular basis. it's worth noting that 400 hours per video of video are uploaded every minute. the vast majority of that is people using the product in the way it is intended. not to abuse anyone, not radicalized. since it has started and grown we have had to think about what is the best way to do this. continuing to this day, the best ways we have a billion people on the platform every month. we found the best way to get things down quickly and to get it done reliably remains that people flagging it. and it still happens very quickly in a number of hours. >> thank you. >> the initiative on counterterrorism has recently come into the public domain, most would argue that it's been an issue for a long time and

your organizations are just now coming forward either just re- accepting some responsibility that people have been radicalized on your platforms and that you have an issue. your company seems to be hijacked by terrorists. what what would you think about that? >> i think it's not something we have only just artie thinking about. we have a policy on youtube since 2008 when we implemented the flag. we host our first summit on violent extremists in 2011. we have been working with others at the home office since 2012. we hosted a counter speech event with the home office and then with you fairly soon after that. this is a multiyear commitment. in 2013 -- it's been something

we've been doing for years. obviously obviously there's more work to be done. >> how can videos appear to enable them to support terrorism. >> so we have video uploaded every day and therefore we rely on the community to flake videos that violate our policy. people who violate that policy after multiple violation are one serious violation we will terminate the account and prevent those groups, the person from a creating the account for making another one. >> what is defined as a serious violation? >> i guidelines are clear on the different types of infraction. their different ways that people will abuse a service like youtube. to be clear we strictly prohibit glorification of violence. we ban videos at training camps or direct recruitment.

we ban incitement of hatred against people based on the gender, race, race, nationality. those are all serious violation. >> i can understand why the announcement was made, that's not the case. >> know i said the company was worried about its reputation for reese accepting responsibility. >> we absolutely know that we have responsibility to act in partnership with civil society and government. >> no responsibility that the platform is been used. >> we accept responsibility, we are not responsible for the behavior of the people who abuse our platform. we are responsible to make sure that we have a policy in place and well-trained people who connect quickly and take action is required. most of all we have a responsibility to help organizations like connect

justice who want to use our platform. so as well we assist others. we want to help and it could be a conglomerate or another religion, another belief, who want to use our platform, so that is something that we have taken to for long time. i have looked at it a few years ago to talk about this very issue. we continue to improve what we do and invest more money into it. >> are clearly prohibit terrorism. sometimes what is on our platform is a reflection of society? sometimes is very uncomfortable. lacy is a transparency and rethink our responsibility is is the role of the company is about making sure people can use our

platforms for ideas. we can remove all of the content but even if we remove the content the idea remains. a lot of this is about ideology and idea. if we don't carry the ideas then the issues will not prevail. >> i find it difficult to understand they take no responsibility whatsoever for people using that platform for other people if you have a shop and people were trying to recruit someone to be involved in a terraced sect, i hope you as an individual would try to remove them from the shop. not expect someone else to come in to do that. but you. but you are in your platform. to monitor and remove. without any responsibility. >> if you use that example we remove them from the shelf and prevent them from becoming bullets in our community.

also a little bit about how we see working with experts, one of the questions we put for this why didn't facebook sit down and say hey that's not right. actually the the work that we have done, looking at what kind of counter speech works, it's people who are more like those young people. it's people who use humor, people who use eye-catching content so you can be more effective at drowning out the negative forces. can you just tell us how many people are the places where this content is monitored and reported or taken down? >> more than a hundred.

how many accounts worldwide to have. >> there's 320 million people using it we have a variety of tools. one of the issues is we have people coming back on the platform. that another technical challenges. >> we had operations team we do not have a public number for that but it does number in the thousands of employees. the vast majority of whom do not focus on counterterrorism. we have an expert theme. >> how many on that. >> i'm afraid i cannot review a number that we provide. i be happy for you to come and meet them. you can come to our dublin office. you can come and meet the team and understand more about their expertise and where they work. >> thank you for the invitation.

>> much like facebook i'm not able to share number. it is a significant number. >> do you have such? >> we do. >> we have some people based in dublin but there staffed it 24 hours a a day so it is a global team. speemac's how many accounts worldwide. >> worldwide. >> so 1.59 billion accounts. we are not monitoring them. but we are handling reports every day. most are not not about the issue you're talking about. >> you believe in corporate, social -- and google. >> is still is actually an you must accept the largest company on the internet, you accept that

gladly. the internet plays a vital role in extremism. from the perspective of extremists and terrorists. >> certainly. this would not exist if the internet did not exist. the problem it carries -- >> when you would except terrorism historically, now that it's easier for extremists and terrorists to speak to each other than it was years ago. >> and just to keep an eye on it, as it also. >> our company is on the forefront of trying to combat the.

>> criminals use the internet just as everyone else does. so i did none of your company choose to attend the joint committee which is scrutinizing the draft invest a great powers that's in the house at the moment? >> there's a joint statement made that is the conference of statement of issues with the bill. secondly in the committee is working on an accelerated timescale. was in a refusal it was the fact that trying to get companies from people across the world in the same room at the same time with just a few weeks noticed. it was just difficult to get everyone in the room. i figure submission will evidence the fact that how seriously we have looked at the bill and indeed how the seriousness of which we take the bill was the fact that five

global companies came together to make a unified statement. it demonstrates how seriously we are taking it. >> i should declare that i'm on the committee, this meeting today was organized very shortly like last week or two weeks ago. we have managed to get the three of you in the room. the joint committee made significant effort to sit in with your company timetables and yet you still decline. why are you afraid to come to the committee to give about your views of one of the most important pieces of legislation. >> i think there's been a discussion with the committee for some time. i know i've made several comments about when i was free over plot. of time. secondly, we are very clear, our

joint statements and i gave evidence to the previous joint committee on communications. i think the substance of the submission you saw from industry and the spill more than surpasses the counter discussion that happened last time. i don't accept the premise of the question, i i think we've taken very seriously. >> i would say that i reject any suggestion that it implies our company doesn't care about the issue. we care about it and we care about the issues and we particular dress in our submission. nor does it mean that we don't take our responsibility seriously. >> there's logistical challenge outside my area of expertise, but i would simply repeat that we are committed to working with the british government to making

sure. >> i should add that we heard evidence from a judge in new zealand, 5:00 o'clock our time, but we'll leave it there. i want to hear your praise about when twitter chooses to support people in law-enforcement has made inquiries about with you. i think you said it may be you tell users where they may be subject. >> what is the interpretation according to twitter? >> is the same that the u.s. court reviews or any court. it's useful opportunity for me to clarify and i apologize if i wasn't clear. and we would not seek to provide

user notification on terrorists. >> you said you did tip them off and i said you didn't. >> i said for some specific cases but in the case of a counterterrorist using data, that is the case that would follow the exception. in a counterproductive circumstance. >> another example of where we would not seek is because of an ongoing investigation. >> so certain crimes? >> who makes the decision. >> we have a legal team working on these issues. let's worth pointing out in terms of the number of requests in a year, we see hundreds, 320,000,000 hundred and 20 million people globally, more than 15 million in the u.k. and that was in the first half of 2015 we had had 299 requests. so to put this in the context,

it we also work with the police. we help the police. >> i just want to get to the bottom of it. is it a balancing act that the joint commission, is the balance of civil liberty against national security and keeping our country safe. i just want to get a sense of who decides in your legal team if a request is on reasonable, request made by law enforcement. who or why of the appeals? >> tomorrow morning will have a conversation with u.k. law-enforcement to discuss these issues to help them understand her policies. also one of the

reasons why in our submission in the u.s. for an example there is a time. that police can can request data for investigate. that time. can either allow that information to happen or get an extension. one thing we have asked us to make the framework so that it's clear to everyone. >> i don't have anything to add. >> find it very interesting that a tech company should be telling parliament how fast to police law-enforcement and security service inquiries. i suspect that maybe one of the reasons your company would decide it was best not to come before the committee. >> the other question is the investigative powers, that is the mechanism by which the secretary you are to be

precaution is in them that was a true by a judiciary. my question to is why twitter thinks it's your legal team supersedes the whole secretary in the judicial commissioner in the definition? >> i'd if you look at the decisions made, one of the questions we have is what happens when a request has gone through that process. or maybe the request for information which would not be in compliance with u.s. law. so that is why all our companies are encouraged, the british government in the united states government to work closely on building a legal framework. actually we don't want to have to make those decisions. we would like the courts like a course to make those decisions. >> i asked you what gives your

legal team and twitter the right to override the secretary of state and the judicial commissioner? >> there doing it, but their different legal frameworks that play. >> i'm talking about the warrants been issued in the united kingdom to stop a terrorist attack. what gives twitter a right to override the judicial commissioner? >> in the case of an emergency we would provide information and have consistently done so. this is one of the very reasons why an international framework is so important. >> i think you made that for clear, thank you. >> before we move on i want to follow up on a question. >> mr. pickle has provided which was in relation to the number of people working removing content. mr. pickle has provided us with

a rough figure against a user group of 320 million people what i don't understand is why the other two will not provide those details to the committee. you do not just say you can't. you said your company won't provide those figures. why? >> in regard to it i will check again with my colleagues and my understanding is that we've been asked that question it is not information we make public. but i will ask again. >> were in a similar situation. >> okay. my point is one is twitter and one was with all of you, i would check one thing that is being reported in april of last year, this was in the daily mail which is why want to check.

is it true more than 10000 link to isis militants were suspended and 24 hour period in a crackdown, is that correct? >> today we have definitely vetted more than tens of thousands of accounts. as a specific content i'm not sure. we have suspended more than that figure of accounts. >> would you be able to write the committee and let us know if that was an accurate report or not. if it is, explain why if it is the case that this is done in a 24 hour period, 10,000 or thousand or more were done in a 24 hour period and they were not suspended before hand. >> my question is, question that the chair and others oppose have

been based around when you receive a request of information from a law-enforcement agency. i want to ask you a question about the threshold that is in each of your companies before you proactively notified law-enforcement of epping terrace material that was being identified by your company or by users. what is the threshold beyond which you decide in each of your companies that you must proactively notified the law-enforcement agency? >> we do not define an outfit it has been seen already. so law-enforcement have established criteria to request information. >> suggests i got got it right. twitter has no proactive approach to notify

law-enforcement of potential terrorist potential on twitter. one of the things that is important that was discussed in congress recently was discussions about legal requirement. the fbi director was asked what he support such a proposal and he did not. one of the reasons is because they're taking down tens of thousands of accounts. they have a huge amount of information. were not in the position to judge credibility of those threats. actually you may and up in that situation. >> notwithstanding whatever the fbi felt was appropriate to the knighted states. with three guards to the united kingdom,, do you think it was right that you are the one who to determine the threshold in those circumstances, or do you believe that actually the better approach would be for that to be a legal framework that others

can judicially defined when you should proactively provide information of potential terrorists on your platform. >> the problem we have in this area is from different countries around the world and they have a different definition sometimes of terrorists. a legal framework would be good. >> yes you have said that before. >> have come to the question of the secretary wants which is from my colleague. first of all, to accept the dissatisfaction, genuinely, not only in parliament but among the public as to where in which you wish to engage terrorist use of social media and continue to do

so. to accept those? >> absolutely, we would prefer no one used our platform for terrorists. >> i think the public describes about extremism, terrorism or radicalization and of course people are writing and concerned about including online. >> use if you take your example one of the two which took place, he puts he puts his face on facebook, i understand that facebook would be aware of

what's occurred however the intelligence community here when they discover that facebook had previously shut down this person's account, but so they remain so concerns for the security. would that be right? >> the committee and what you speak to that report cannot name a company. i am unable to talk about individual cases. i hope you would understand. i can reassure you that when our company comes across information in which there is an immediate threat to life we provide that to the authority. any requests associated with terrorists or would be terrorists we take extremely seriously. >> the female who had gone with a young child to syria and the

returned, during the course of the proceedings in court and also the judging coming up the person was found guilty by a jury. it appears she had use social media to advertise her intentions. the whole point, was what i start at the beginning of my question, the concern of what could possibly happen in any way in ordinary print material happens on social media because of the very nature of the company in which -- >> i would draw a strong between sin the pages of the daily mail online and facebook. facebook is a a community of almost 1.6 billion people. billions of things get posted every day.

just like the u.k. which is the preparation of 60,000,000, there are some bad people. there are people who want to's or service with ill intent. including with ill intent. including the most serious crime of terrorism. we absolutely want to root them out and do have thing we to stop them from doing that. believe me we are committing more resources by this month by month in learning as we go and working closely with our authorities. we would much prefer there were not people trying to radicalized young people and communities across the uk. we would love to be able to press a button to get rid of them. it's not as easy as that. it takes takes a lot of effort, resources, intelligence. we are applying our best endeavors to this and will continue to do so. we are very serious about the.

>> i think one of the points of follow-up is yes social media brings out things of discomfort of the highlight issues of theirs researcher northern ireland community relations council that said while the challenges there there is also an opportunity and the opportunity for using social media to engage across cultural boundaries, cross social social boundaries. what it didn't say previously is how people will meet people -- they talk very movingly into his becoming involved in a few weeks about how engaging social media was how she really humanized in her mind. this other person that she'd been told she should hate. that. that person led her leaving the baptist church. i think it's a golden opportunity. >> while there is different opinion in parliament every effort should be made to avoid

social media being used by those who want to carry out terrorism atrocities like was on paris, london and others. therefore. [inaudible] >> do you recognize however much dividing opinion about the public and truly parliament and what the secretary is changing to ask parliament to approve? >> absolutely we acknowledge that and it is not a federal decision in the u.k. one of the things to notice u.k. government is taking the lead in

modernizing surveillance laws for the 21st century. like most other countries, surveillance was here have not been updated since most people have had access to the internet as their were walking around. some modernization laws need to be looked at. >> i would say that the responsibility for facebook in the middle east, israel, turkey, i really hope the u.k. gets this right. i think if it does it could set an important benchmark for many other countries that they operate inches i'm always asked about what is happening in the u.k.? people are looking for these resources. it's actually ramifications across the world. >> i think the international press has been very grateful that we do look forward to hearing the committee's work.

[inaudible] [inaudible] some are very concerned about your tax position, however as i said i would like to see a report in the newspaper that you very much on the defenses about the tax affairs it is going to be said if you, some sweet deal, like the host secretary is saying many of us, in order to minimize, indeed the chair of this committee as i made do so said that you'd be very wise to

work very closely with the government on the power she wants. note he will speak on behalf of this committee when reaching a decision but because of the embarrassment with which your company and the tax issues you will make some sort of deals with government. [inaudible] >> i would simply save each of these policy matters is serious and at least in my mind and in the mind of the team i work with at google, we need to have all of these conversations. >> i think what is a matter policy and that is not yet set, what is a matter matter of application a policy of legislation. completely different teams deal with that in our company and there's no discussion between those. >> the joint committee is glad

that we have ambitions. >> i think we have the answer. just on the issue of instant messaging acts as one of the concerns microsoft? the legislation that is currently written could banned the use of these instant messaging services, because of their encryption, is that one of the concerns that is been raised? >> it's an issue around clarity or what the bill entails. but i would not suggest we are concerned certain things will be banned. as with all matters of legislation you know much better than we do, having certainty about what this actually means is instrumental. >> thank you, chairman. >> i want to ask you one question and your colic.

we've heard a lot in the press about the islamic state one social media. yet they pledged not to be a tech savvy organization, how much of that to attribute to the use of social media? >> i'm afraid the successor of the rise is in some state outside the use of our platform is beyond my level of expertise. i'd say we are extremely effective in removing those videos and accounts that are created by foreign terrorist groups. we are extremely effective at removing re- uploads of those videos says they were really taken down. >> to believe that some of the success that the service has had was based on their use of the platform and how much would you

say is your platform venues to poor? >> it's a constant cat and mouse game. it is one that we are well-equipped to meet. >> so are you working with the government or any you face organization to provide an online alternative? >> absolutely. that's something something we haven't talked about today. we talked several times about there's. [inaudible] >> people are able to find good information. when they are feeling isolated they go online and feel a of hope not a community of harm. so we have worked and that has been with our work that's around the world. >> i think one of the primary examples is abdul x which is a video series we lost with the

european union in 2013. that was a formally radicalized man who appeared in cartoon form using humor the types of language that the people being radicalized connect with. use that to draw them away from the other one. >> comedy people did that reach? >> ..

so want to say this is not just a medicalization -- radicalization of young muslims. we are concerned about extremist speech directed at youth and to be sure they make the best use our platform to let people know that they exist and also at the anti-semitic hate crimes so a lot of focus is on radicalization of the young muslim community read absolutely we are looking to see we can do there but our occ i is right across the spectrum and we want to have partnerships across the spectrum. >> just to follow-up on that i was in belfast a few weeks ago with the center for democracy and peacebuilding. one of the challenges not just focus on what type of extremism to look at router social issues and what we did there was actually try and help the community organizations police

services in northern ireland to themselves come up with the issues in important thing is while her companies can help with expertise we are not messengers and the people or the most credible messengers are these community people. >> what more do you think we could altogether be doing to create a more credible positive message with communities using the tools and indeed working with businesses to manage these plaid arms to actually provide alternatives to young people and make sure that they are perhaps misguided views are just as swiftly as possible? anyone? >> mr. pickles. >> can we use women who overturned from syria as messengers to talk about the narrative and i think that's a question also the role of government communicating its national aid work to communities. i think there are different

messages for different communities. our hope is that we can have more in every environment and that is the change foundation from belfast to scotland it's a full spec from issue. >> what it thinks are new to recognize perhaps you and your -- is not always being be why are they doing more but in terms of the voice of government the voice of government doesn't work. just doesn't work when it comes to speech so using up the issues but what does work and talk with isd and then use that. use that to interrogate things are better strategy rather than just assuming more money equals more effectiveness. >> dr. house. >> i don't have anything. >> i will just make one final request.

mr. pickles and mr. berry i would be grateful if you could just say with some of the examples you talk about raise. >> we can follow up in writing. >> thank you. poor poor ago to naz shah on the issue of -- one of the key issues of trying to deal with the da'ish narrative is to have arabic speakers. what kinds of numbers to have mr. pickles and a group of 100 how many would be their arab speakers or those who know and understand the community because obviously you and i may not do so. >> it's more than 100. it's not an absolute figure and expertise from across the country we have local language specialists. >> how many would-be arabic

speakers? >> like investigate but across the company we have forces operating in multiple timezones so they can address that as well. >> you would be welcome to come and meet them. some of our based in the dublin office, there are big speaking team from the middle east and africa. now published a number of how many there are but this is an area of strong investment. >> dr. house. we are actively recruiting arabic speakers to increase the effectiveness of this team and this is the same as when we see other new threats. we hire experts understand the types of harm but also understand what types of solutions are appropriate. >> he talked about videos. are you tracing it back to the ip addresses? >> i would rather not going to the technical specificity so people can't figure out how to outwit our systems but abuse of

our systems is something we have been familiar with since their inception as a company and getting people who are trying to get for example basic financial fraud and preventing them from creating new accounts are being able to engage with their systems so it's similar technical challenges of a piece of our systems. >> do ask very and if you have specifics in talking about terms so example -- the example for twitter -- for example twitter. the amount of time it took me to get accountability, took me days if not weeks to have them removed because the process you have to go through you are jumping through hoops and you are having to go back to screens. it's not just an order that you can buy something so have you improved that in last year and particularly twitter and how much -- how long on average

would it take you to refute account? >> this is an area where we try to strike a balance in terms of making things simple for users and not increasing number of reports in the system so that it slows down my response. i'm sorry to hear that experience. we don't have an an average takedown because what we say is that we try and focus on the most pressing cases. so we will focus on violent threats and threats of violence before we focus on offensive content for example. we try to get this as fast as we can. >> going back to terrace and you have something that specific about this is terrorism so you prioritize it because to me. >> for example and ngos we have a form to report that content and for users we don't and this is one of the areas to make sure we are striking a balance. one of the challenges we all have this whatever reuse provides users with controls.

often they are used by people trying to get contracts taken down that they disagree with. >> said. >> these kind of accounts you can't remove them? >> absolutely we will remove them and we aim to remove them as quickly as possible. >> have you looked at that organization? >> it's not one that i'm familiar with but i will. >> it's that kind of information expect the public to give you rather than 100 people, wherever they are. >> the benefits of being public and having large user bases. >> it takes too long for twitter to act. she's not saying we won't act what it takes too long for them to act. what are you doing about speeding that process up? >> the recent the public domain

we tripled the size of the team working on things that we have already invested in the people. we continue to do so. we continue to invest in technology and to follow dr. house one of our challenges was how do you stop people recreating accounts want to suspend them. to stop accounts at the same phone number coming back so we can use technology from other areas such as pay them to stop these accounts from coming back. it's an area we continue to invest in. >> very quickly. >> in terms of what you're talking about, what i feel is very much like a denial of responsibility which i really agree with and aside from working with people what are you doing as initiatives and your corporate social responsibility as my colleague earlier touched

on. what are you doing to invest in this area. i'm not comfortable with what i've heard today. >> i'm sorry you feel like that i'd be very happy to follow up with you. there are some things that we could perhaps talk to with your constituents but he clearly take this issue incredibly serious and what is happening on our platform. where making sure our reporting is effective in making sure we have the right kinds of relationships whether it's cti ou. in the home office you can flag cases but in terms of because we recognize from the research that we have done that people don't typically just get radicalized on line. it's a combination of in person and on line content that is you work in the kennedy-based organizations like imams on line you can understand the context of what's happening with young people in the communities so they can address the on line data or the facebook data. >> thank you. before you came in mr. shah has

brought up very important points and specifically the punches razor be helpful. we are running out of time. >> dr. house could you say very briefly what the trusted program as? >> absolutely. one of the challenges we have this despite having a billion users they might not understand how the flag effectively and example that always comes to my mind is that her most flag video ever is a justin b. bieber video simply because people dislike it we are confronted with how do we increase the number of high-quality flags that we have so we work with both government agencies including the cti argue in the home office but also ngos to help them understand what our community guidelines are and give them additional tools for flagging. what we found is whereas the general public has about a one

third accuracy rate for flagging these trusted flaggers tend to have a 90%% accuracy rate so it's much easier for us to prioritize their flags and to act quickly on them. >> is there a way in which it could add to that for example if their members the public the public who have made for five flags and. >> we will consider that. >> one of the things i picked up speaking to the young folks last week was the frustration that they flag and nothing happens. is there a similar scheme for facebook and twitter? >> we do have see tid one and similar organizations and other governments to flag things to his things to us and we also have relationships with safety organizations. they can let us know when they think our normal reporting processes have not worked and we have come to the wrong judgment about a particular piece of content. on the whole we want people to

user standard reporting features because when you report from facebook that the report will go to the right person with the right language expertise who is an expert in the issue that you are reporting so it is by far the most effective way of letting us know about a piece of content. every report is looked at by an individual and then we can be sure that we are, the vast majority of situations are getting those judgments right. we would love to be perfect but we are not. >> for we do have is similar to facebook a dedicated portal and we also have the safety experts organizations to bring things to her attention and they can report directly to us as well. then as i say we have invested and this challenge of people reporting things they don't like and they disagree with the is something that is required a significant investment to try to make some signal ratio to to bring out those good reports from the ones that people say

this is offensive and i don't like it. that's where the real value of counter speech comes in. the response to something that you don't like as not to take it down but to challenge it, to challenge the idea and that is why we will tackle the underlying social issues that do lead to some of the issues we have talked about today. >> one last question. jared was talking about forcing da'ish from the web. given the scale and the money and organization that goes into da'ish and extremism is that realistic and what success looks like and how do we monitor success or how do you know that you guys again he write? >> it's not something we would expect to -- but wheelan others and if you read reports they will tell you that facebook has become a hostile place for da'ish. it doesn't mean that they don't

try. absolutely they will try and so we want to share what we have learned with other platforms. there are many more platforms of course. social media are not just the three companies and they have been created all the time. it's understandable that those people who want to use this kind of technology for evil won't go to those places where they put their resources into it. they don't come to select committees anywhere. >> thank you. james berry. >> mounting the most successful publicity campaign for an needle regime since goebbels and the nazis and they use platforms to do it at. against that effort by da'ish your companies have some of the top tech -- in the world and you are some of the most profitable companies in the world.

so are you seriously telling us with all the expertise and all the power your companies have that you can do more in the fight against da'ish? >> i think there's -- as i is possible to do more. we have outlines of the things we are looking at this year but our discussions with the home office, discussions with this committee are always good ways for us to understand what more can be done. i think as i have outlined we are at the are doing a lot. this is something that is not new to us. we have been working on this topic for years. we and i will repeat what simon said earlier, we do want to be humble about what we are able to do. we can't solve all of the world's problems but if we can make a platforms for hostile place for extremism, then we are committed to doing so and committed to working with the other platforms who aren't here today to make sure they are on the same scale.

>> i reject that you're suggesting that da'ish has been a success because of our platform. absolutely that is not the case. we have worked very hard to disrupt what they do in partnership with other organizations also committed to disrupting them. we will continue to strive to do better. of course we can always do more. we are always trying to learn but i reject the suggestion that we don't care about the issue. that's far from the truth. >> that wasn't the suggestion. the question was because i'm sure you could do more but you may have reasons of principle or costs cost for not doing more but there's plenty. on facebook you banned -- and it causes offense to women with breast cancer or women who are that you have technology that bans -- and yet terrorist content provides this. sometimes he gets through the net. >> mr. berry with respect that is not true. we allow people to post pictures of their mustek to me scars.

we don't allow nudity but we don't be use technology and they rely on human review of reports. there's no technology that spots female. >> mr. berry numerous academics have looked at this question of all to make -- alternating the algorithm to find this content. we can begin the texture of language. that's something that's a distant hope for the future but it's incredibly difficult to do now. and speaking of doing more. i think as we have heard we all look to do more. jm merger who is with the george washington university on extremism these are the people to validate our efforts and i think he published a report last march that said supporting social network has been significantly constrained. we are not the people to be the

orders produced for academics to talk about this and finally social media is one part of the system. they're still face-to-face interaction and the question of territory. the da'ish territory it is recognized by academics. >> all three of your companies have spent a huge amount of money-making yourselves more profitable and generating more advertising and have been successful in the services you provide. can you get this committee and idea of how high up your list of priorities, adding isis. >> obviously you have covered this in the evidence he gave us just a word is fine. >> is of fundamental importance. we don't want a platform to be an unsafe place in our ongoing success is critical. >> keeping people safe for. it's not the only extremist organization or behavior we care

about. >> this is taken seriously across the top brass of the company. >> mr. winnick and finally mr. ghani. >> ultimately if you were to dedicate more resources to taking action and doing more as mr. berry has just described you would probably need to put, take twitterers example more than 100 people onto your team to keep a check on what is happening in relation to 320 million users. we do not accept that whilst i don't know the extent to say it's your parent and subsidiary boards coming your directors coming your strategic management at have a legal obligation to maximize profitability, but you also have obligations with

respect to public safety. will you except you don't always get that write? >> mr. milner a quick answer. >> we started the proceedings with comments about ms. sandberg and the speech in berlin recently that demonstrates the commitment from the absolute top of our presentation to doing everything we can to make, can to continue to make facebook a hostile place place for extremist and anybody wanted to organize terrorism. it's an absolute commitment to this. we want to do more. want to do more in an informed way based on the evidence of what works. >> and the appointment of burkart former prosecutor to set up your counterterrorism squad numbers of which you won't will add -- tell us some any work paid. >> monica has been part of her company for a few years now and she beats our content policy pitch he doesn't actually work in the community operations team were the experts in terrorism are achieved works very closely

with them. as i do and my policy colleagues from across the world, when required so there's an awful lot of cross functional working and monica is a part of it. >> but the announcement he made last thursday. >> an interview with yahoo! news in which he talked about the work we are doing in this space that i'm not aware there was a particular announcement. >> my final question to mr. pickles. i have raced the conflict that inevitably there's going to be between the bottom line and keeping people safe but i feel duty bound to ask mr. pickles how he can come at these issues objectively. this is the question, not necessarily a statement in my view but we have to ask you part of the civil liberties campaign brotherhood a brotherhood watch what companies can people have in light of your background that

you can approach these issues in an even-handed and objective manner? >> we employ people who used to work for the fbi. they have arranged back onto the companies provide great things about having a company that shares diverse opinions are the challenging issues but only seek campaigns like black lives matter on her platform they have campaigned to give us the greatest sense of pride because they are challenging the issues of the day. >> thank you. >> what mr. berry said about making a profit he talked of the people he rely on about the different campaigns you work with. surely the quickest way is reducing the threshold with what levels these people can post on their web sites to looking at here community guidelines but of course that means having more than 100 people monitoring or whatever numbers you have pretty means collecting data that's going to e into your profits. i'm word we you will come back

and talk about freedom of expression. surely we can talk about safety and community that trump that to some degree and i follow my colleagues concerned that this is more about make you money than making sure your pipe worms are a safe space. >> and can you give us a quick answer to that? >> art community guidelines go well beyond the u.k. in terms of what we do tomorrow. the speech which is allowed not only in this place but the streets in the u.k. that we don't allow in our community because we think it's not part of for dialogue paid. >> upper house. >> the long-term profitability of our platforms is based on fear being safe places. >> safety is something we see is a core part of our business and we constantly refine our policies to make sure we can keep people safe and get people greater clarity about the content of these. >> gentlemen thank you for coming in. do you feel haunted by the physician or do you understand why three years after we published published the report

of this committee we are so concerned about the fact that the internet companies are not doing enough as is then expressed by questions put by the members of this committee to deal with da'ish and those trying to propagate terrorism. you understand the real concern about this? >> dr. house. >> we are obviously doing a lot. there is more we could be doing and the types of threats we as a society face will continue to evolve. >> i'm incredibly proud of the things my colleagues do with in combating extremism and terrorism and the use of it on her platform. we all want to do more. i'm very much welcoming the opportunity to introduce you to some of my colleagues he can't come here and can't be public figures because of the work they do. believe me this is an incredibly solid community so as a result of this hearing do you still feel that our companies are committed to this cause the need to to work harder to convince you. >> mr. pickles. >> this dialogue is extremely important.

>> it's not a dialogue today to be frank. as the committee answering questions. we will be producing a report which we hope will help you do your work. i was saying to you feel hunted by a permanent? >> this is an issue of importance for everybody. and an opportunity to hear your concerns is invaluable. >> you mentioned several times the need for international cooperation. do you think this is lacking in very quick we who should be taking the lead? should the united states, should it be the united kingdom, should it be the e.u. because there seems to be something happening in our jurisdiction something completely different happening in other jurisdictions. >> some good examples of cooperation at the e.u. level in terms of the home secretary and her colleagues meeting might also spot came to the meeting. recently the u.k. government held a joint or am with minister

gary from the air of an art's -- arab emirates. so different forms. it's all about sharing best practices. its different forms and not one particular organization taking the lead and that's why people are able to make sure that these particular laws are working in the same direction. >> every form is a welcome for in predicting the u.k. government is shown a significant amount of leadership on this topic. but i think there is more that can be done. >> i spoke at the anti-da'ish coalition which is an excellent example of bringing everybody together to focus on the strategic communications and in the case of surveillance. >> it doesn't actually give us an international treaty, does that? >> i think the league has been taken on surveillance and another area since showing best

practice. i am colleagues around the world have been attending many meetings on this issue and we will continue to do so. >> thank you so much for coming in. we are very grateful and we will be writing to you with follow-up information that members of the committee of requested. order, could be called