discuss this bill. he would like to see work requirements implemented, new ones. pat roberts said he responded he needs to get to 60 votes. which is a different calculus than what chairman conaway has to do with. >> liz crampton follows the debate on agriculture and food for politico pro. tweet her at liz_crampton. thank you for joining us. >> thursday on the c-span networks, live coverage of the house on c-span at 10:00 a.m. for general speeches, and new for more work on the farm bill. on c-span2 at 8:00 a.m., congressional leaders speak at a legislative conference hosted by lobbying firm baker hostetler. then the senate returns to debate a budget bill sponsored by senator rand paul. come a senate hearing on medical research and the national institutes of health budget. at 1:00 eastern, linda mcmahon, administrator of the small best -- small business

administration, at the national press club. >> this weekend, book tv will have live coverage of the ninth annual gaithersburg looks festival in maryland. starting saturday at 10:00 a.m. eastern with talk radio host bill president and his book "from the left: a life in the crossfire." the national institute of mental health, and her book. psychiatrist -- a psychiatrist as well. former attorney and mary ackerman, author of "death of an assassin," the true story of the murder who died defending robert e. lee. watch live coverage of the ninth annual gaithersburg book festival in maryland, saturday at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span two's book tv.

wylie, theher whistleblower at cambridge analytical who exposed their collection of facebook user data, testified at a senate judiciary committee hearing about privacy regulations. this to our and 40 minute hearing begins with committee chair chuck grassley.

>> thank you to everyone for coming.

the facebook matter involving alexander kogan and cambridge lightical shed a bright on the data practices of some of our largest technology companies . although advertisers and political campaigns have collected and used data for years, the public seemed generally unaware. this story has forced both the public and lawmakers to confront serious issues that need to be what role including congress should play in promoting transparency for consumers regarding data collection and use, while ensuring a well functioning marketplace for our data dependent technology to drive further innovation. we started that conversation with mr. zuckerberg last month. i hope that today we can

continue a productive and meaningful debate about these serious policy issues. unfortunately, events like these more often than not seem to get muddled bipartisanship and efforts to score a quick soundbite. the facebook story first broke because "the, guardian" identified that dr. cogan had allegedly transferred facebook data to cambridge analytica in violation of facebook's data policies. according to cambridge press releases and a recent internal report in july 2016, facebook requested cambridge and its affiliates to remove any data received from dr. cogan. cambridge said they removed the data and filed legal certification to facebook saying

as much. i had requested that cambridge analytica appear at these hearings to explain these facts and tell their side of the story. cambridge, however, recently commenced insolvency proceedings and therefore determined it could not participate in this hearing. the underlying story has not changed much since 2015, except for two important events. first, cambridge began doing and for the trump campaign, secondly, the trump -- president trump won the 2016 election. these two fax sounded an alarm that revived the cambridge story. this does not diminish the importance of this discussion, but only highlights extreme partisanship at play, and more

importantly, that this conversation could have easily taken place in 2015. in fact, this conversation could have taken place much earlier. advertising agencies and political campaigns have utilized data analytical tools for many years. campaigns, including those of presidential candidates in every election year since at least the 1990's used data to micro target. during the past three presidential elections, these strategies have expanded to social media platforms, specifically, facebook. president obama's campaign developed and app utilizing the same facebook feature that cambridge used to capture the information of not just the app's users, but also millions of their friends. president obama's app

potentially pulled even more information than cambridge's app. a former obama campaign official, carol davidson, recently wrote "facebook was surprised we were able to suck ft,"the whole social gra in the 2012 election. we could also be talking about more recent events, like buzz feed partnering with multiple democratic and anti-trump super pac's in 2016. buzzfeed'snterview, vice president of politics and advocacy says that one of the problems was feed was working with other partners to solve was "how are we going to get women who do not like hillary clinton to vote for her?" that type of voter outreach has not -- is not surprising to many.

that's because it happens all the time. similarly, it shouldn't be surprising that president trump's campaign used consultants to help reach voters as well. andrdless of these events whether such tactics are actually effective, it is clear the use of data across the political spectrum is only , so instead of just treating this as a partisan issue to score political points, the important policy discussion should really have is whether tech, consumer, and congress, where we should go from here. our tech company should have access to some of our more sensitive data. are these companies doing enough to properly disclose their data policies and protect their user date?

many of the services offered provide huge benefits to consumers at little to no cost. our consumers blissfully making, or are they informed choices with respect to how their data is collected and used? in 2015, the sector generated 430 $5 billion in labor income and $192 billion in tax payments. how do we ensure the proper amount of regulation to protect consumers without damaging an industry that is vital to the economy? these are the questions we should be asking. i hope today's hearing will allow us to continue those. sen. feinstein: thank you very .uch for holding the hearing

in march of this year, a series of articles and videos were published online regarding and itse analytica, efforts to use personal facebook data of millions of americans to influence united states elections. today, you -- numerous governments, have launched formal investigations into the company including the united kingdom, australia, canada, nigeria, kenya, and india. there is much we do not know about cambridge analytica. there are significant for its already in the public record. cambridge analytica was established by robert and rebecca mercer at the urging of former white house steve strategist -- strategist steve bannon. it happened reportedly that the

intent of creating an american shall was to give the appearance of compliance with the united states election law that prohibits foreigners from working on united states elections. according to ceo alexander they worked for 44 united states elections in 2014. in the 2016 election cycle, mr. nick's stated that cambridge analytica, "did all the research, all the data, all the analytics, all the targeting." the digitalf campaign, the television campaign, and our data informed all the strategy for the trump campaign. in addition, cambridge analytica obtained detailed personal information on approximately 87

million people from facebook without their knowledge. the massive data set, which reportedly included pointsmately 4000 data on each individual was used by cambridge and a lot of the and fc out -- cambridge analytica and fcl two have voter targeting and an online behavioral influence tool. was aedly, project rib on software program that used sophisticated algorithms to allow campaigns to segment voters into groups based on psychological characteristics, such as neurotic or introverted. once individuals were identified d and grouped, the platform then provided preselected and focused group tested images and keywords that were most likely

to alter the behavior of those individuals. examples of the messages developed and used by cambridge analytic include keywords such as drain the swamp and deep state, as well as images of border walls. in an undercover video, cambridge analytica managing director mark turnbull explained that cambridge analytica also created the brand "defeat crooked hillary". the company then created hundreds of different online advertisements for that brand, including online videos that were viewed 30 million times. n, selectedject rippo images were sent to the relevant individuals through online advertising services like google and facebook.

these websites provided feedback on an individual's reactions to those advertisements, which were back intoutomatically the targeting program. this is what we have learned in the past several months. however, significant questions remain, and there is much we still do not know about cambridge analytica. we do not know the extent to which it worked with hackers to illegally obtain damaging information on candidates, including the united states. 2015 thatorted in cambridge analytica's parent company facilitated the hacking in theft of sensitive medical records from a nigerian presidential candidate and published them online. we do not know whether cambridge analytica used these tactics in the united states, but this pattern of activity was

certainly used by russian intelligence turning the 2016 election. we do not know the extent of cambridge analytica connections to wikileaks and other russian interests. it has been reported that alexander nick's contacted wikileaks in june of 2016. mr. nick's says this was his only contact with wikileaks, however, his former partner, nigel oates, suggested that cambridge analytica's first contact with julian assange was between 12 and 18 months prior. it has also been reported that other employees at cambridge analytica had direct connections to mr. assange, including through his former attorney. in 2016, alexander nix also

provided white papers and briefings to executives from luke oil, russia's second-largest oil firm, about cambridge analytica's political activities in the u.s. luke oil is currently under united states sanctions, related to the russian government's activities in the ukraine. and in march 2017, luke oil revealed its former information sharing partnership with the russian federal security service , the successor to the kgb. finally, we still do not know whether the data obtained by cambridge analytica was ever shared with or obtained by a third party. the data was originally obtained through a facebook application developed by a russian born .rofessor named aleksandr kogan

professor kogan maintains a teaching position at st. petersburg university in russia, a state-funded institution, and has traveled frequently back and forth to russia. questions,oncerning not only for the united states, but for all democracies around the world. based on what we have already learned, there is no question that the future of data privacy will have a significant impact on every aspect of our lives, including our basic constitutional rights. today, we will hear testimony from christopher wylie, who served as a research director at cambridge analytica from june of 2013 until november of 2014. i understand he will be able to share insight into some of these significant questions based on his first-hand experience, so i

very much look forward to hearing from mr. wiley, and i thank you again, mr. chairman, for holding these hearings. -- this hearing. sen. grassley: i will now introduce witnesses. that, i ask you to stand and be start -- sworn. it was also our intention to come down and shake hands with you and welcome you. i'm sorry that everything was caught up here so we did not mess everything up, but both of us want to thank you for participating, in particular, as, mr. wylie, coming as far you have to help us with proper testimony. dr. adan witness is hirsch, and associate professor at tufts university focusing on american politics. years as anen assistant professor at yell university -- yale university.

he's a nationally published author and earned a masters in , and a bachelors degree from tufts. next person. besides thanking you, we welcome you to this hearing and .opefully you feel comfortable i know you have testified elsewhere. christopher wylie is a former director of research at cambridge analytica. wylie worked with president obama's campaign for the canadian liberal party and the united kingdom's liberal democratic hearty for 2013 to at3 -- 2014, worked cambridge analytica while also studying for a phd in fashion trending for testing. he also has a degree of law from the london school of economics. lastly, mac -- dr. mark jamieson is a visiting scholar at

american enterprise institute and the director and professor of public utility research center at the university of florida's warrington college of business. dr. jamison earned a phd in from the college of business at the university of florida and a masters and bachelors from kansas state university. please?u three? stand, would you affirm the testimony you are about to give would be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god? all have affirmed. we will start with professor hirsch, and then mr. whaley, and then dr. jamison. >> distinguished members of the committee, thank you for -- ting me here sen. grassley: stopped just a minute, we might have to do

something with your microphone. talk again and see. >> can you hear me? >> is it ok? it makes it appear as though you have a frog in your throat. here we have another person coming with another microphone. we have had this happen before, so it's not you. try and pull it in as close as you can. go ahead. [indiscernible] [laughter] -- ok,assley: could you

we have to turn it on here is what i'm told. >> ok. good? thank you. the controversy surrounding cambridge analytica and facebook has raised a number of serious concerns. foreign interference in u.s. elections, the personal privacy of facebook users, and cambridge analytica's voter targeting strategies. my expertise is on civic engagement, personal data, and voter targeting, and i hope to be able to answer questions you have in these areas. that need briefly summarize a few points in my written testimony. every election brings exaggerated claims about the effects of related technologies. after an election, there's always a demand to figure out why the winning campaign won, and the latest technology used by the latest campaign is often

it'sd storyline, even if false. campaign consultants also have a business interest in appearing to offer special skills and products, and so they often embellish their roles in the media. cambridge analytica was relatively new to the scene in 2016, and promoted new saturdays -- strategies of targeted voters. from everything i learned about cameras analytical, i'm skeptical of the idea that the strategies were unusually effective or contributed meaningfully to the election outcome. to understand why, it is useful to divide a campaign strategy into mobilization and persuasion. . globalization and -- involves finding voters and persuading them to vote. --suasion entails finding persuading people to your candidate. facebook data or data from other sources doesn't help much. let me explain why. first, persuasion affects decay rapidly. this mayrs showed that

change a voters mind for a fleeting moment, but it goes away amidst all the other ads, news, posts, and stimuli season.ying a election it's hard come even with top-notch data to figure out which voters are persuadable. the reason for this is no person is persuadable all the time. persuade ability is not a stable disposition. you might be persuadable now, but not tomorrow, by one kind of message or messenger, but not another. third, persuasion is hard because when you try and figure out who is persuadable, your predictions of who is persuadable are often wrong. they are imperfect. you end up sending targeted messages to the wrong population. for example, campaigns often want to predict the racial identity of a voter. predictions of which voters are black and hispanic are wrong about 25% of the time. when a campaign sends a message targeting to these voters, a quarter of the people receiving the message are missed targeting.

-- missed targeting -- missed targeted. if the campaigns get race run, they will have much more errors in investigating something new nuanced like personality or how neurotic you are, which is what facebook and cambridge analytica claim to do. it strikes me as implausible given what we know about the challenges of persuasion and campaigns. no evidence has been produced to suggest its efforts were affected or that it overcame the difficulty of the persuasion i just articulated. despite of my skepticism, there's a lot about how -- what we don't know about how campaigns are using social media to target voters. we don't really know what a line is between ads attempting to persuade voters and ads attempting to manipulate or deceive voters. this anxiety is all the more

understandable because facebook has not really taken seriously it's role as a facilitator of news and political communications. testimony, i describe an initiative currently underway by which independent researchers can measure the effects of facebook ad targeting and sharing. the success of this depends on the commitment by facebook to share data, even and especially in cases that will bring negative press to the company. in raising skepticism about cambridge analytica, i do not mean to suggest there are not serious concerns related to privacy, foreign interference, and the troubling role of social media in transmitting news, information, and fake information. can focus one we the more important of these issues as i have discussed in my written testimony. thank you for your attention to the subject matter and i welcome your questions.

>> ok. how is that? mr. chairman, senators, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. cambridge analytica is the canary in the coal mine. we must address the digital echo chambers that are being exploited to algorithmically separate american society. online communities should unite us. data is the new electricity of our digital economy. just like electricity, we cannot escape data. present usersms with a false choice, because using the internet is no longer a choice. americans cannot opt out of the 21st century. throughout --s require new power structures. american revolution required that citizens are protected from the government. the industrial revolution required protections for workers against conditions in the

workplace and environment. too, with the digital revolution must be relies that there is a new game being played and that the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness we need to be defended from those who might undermine them using new technologies, whether they are corporations, whether they are nations, or nonstate actors. i have come here today voluntarily as a witness and as a whistleblower. these already reported matters to the 30's and it should be made clear i'm not a targeted part of the investigation. i was a director of research at cambridge analytica from mid-2013 to late 2014. cl group was a british military contractor specially -- cambridge analytica was created to allow fcl to work in the u.s. cambridge analytica does not have any employed staff and all clients were handled i fcl, although lawyers were weren't --

warned about using foreign citizens, they embed non-us citizens in american campaigns. cambridge analytica offered voter disengagement services in the u.s., and there are internal documents i have seen that make reference to this tactic. my understanding is that this was targeted at african-american voters. when i was at cambridge analytica, i was also made aware capacity.ck ops i have seen documents relating to instances where the firm sought to procure materials. some of these targets of these special intelligence services are currently heads of state in various countries. i've also seen internal documents that make reference to the use of specialized intelligence services from former members of israeli and russian state security services. concern is cambridge analytica's employment of people closely associated with wikileaks and julian assange. the firm hired two senior staff

both of homework -- whom were aides to the lawyer representing julian assange. to be clear, the work of cambridge analytica is not to traditional marketing. cambridge analytica specialized in disinformation, spreading rumors, and propaganda. for those who claim profiling , even facebook applied for a paint on "determining user personality characteristics from social networking systems." dr. aleksandr kogan was selected to lead the data harvesting operation, and over 80 million data subjects had their personal data misappropriated. given the scale, this could be one of the largest breaches of facebook data.

cambridge analytica contractors also worked on progression political operations in eastern europe, including the suspected russian intelligence agents. they focused on russian expansionism in eastern europe. dr. kogan was working on russian state-funded research programs. in st. petersburg, they were using facebook data for psychological profiling and research social media trolling. cambridge analytica pitched "the interesting work alex kogan has been doing for the russians" to other clients. cambridge analytica was also in close contact with senior executives at lukoil. they presented lukoil with documents outlining experience with former -- foreign disinformation and american data assets. facebook 2015.these schemes since before the story broke, facebook

threatened to sue "the guardian" and banned me for whistleblowing. responding on behalf of the british government, the u.k. secretary of culture called this outrageous because it revealed the unrestrained power technology companies can citizens,ver ordinary when a person's entire online presence can be so quickly eliminated from existence.there's no check on this power , and it raises a serious question for republicans and democrats alike. what happens to our democracy when these companies can delete people at will when they speak out? mark zuckerberg's continual refusal to cooperate with the british inquiry reveals the challenge other countries face to hold companies like facebook to account. the british parliament is considering this after facebook refused and failed to answer 40 questions. the scandal has exposed that social platforms are no longer safe for users. these platforms are a critical part of american cyberspace, and

are in desperate need of protection and oversight. and still optimistic about the future of technology, but we should not walk into the future blind, and it's the job of lawmakers to ensure technologies served citizens.and not the other way around thank you . >> members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. i can summarize my testimony in three sentences. first, using facebook and other social media data in ways that are not transparent to users is not unusual in modern political activity. second, facebook's problems appear to result from a rapidly changing company allowing itself --m drifting to forming serving developers. third, new regulations are more likely to protect the business from competition than benefit consumers. i will summarize my thoughts on

each. the best-known and probably most effective political use of facebook and data analytics are the national campaigns of president barack obama. these campaigns were uniquely capable at leveraging facebook. isebook cofounder chris he put together the media strategy for obama's u.s. senate and 2008 campaigns, and the 2012 campaign took things to a new level. they campaigned facebook supporters it and friends through apps. tech team wasign reputed to be a will to exploit facebook capabilities before it even knew those capabilities existed. one outreach program less supporters know that close friends had not voted during an election and encouraged supporters to contact those friends. knowledgered intimate of facebook friends and the nature of their relationships. regarding facebook's failings, the companies primary failer is

not being clear and candid with users. i distinguish between users, the subscribers, and the customers, who are buying ads and other services. for markets to perform well, users should have company and understandable information on the nature of the services they are using, even those that have zero monetary price, as in the case of facebook. happening. the company has changed howitzers and uses subscribers without ensuring they fully understand. facebook has morphed from a connector of communities to someone that investigates people's lives and filters there facebook communications. the pivotal moment appears to be in 2007 when their growth stalled.from facebook's beginning, adding users was a primary goal. the stall trigger the company to hire a team that, according to some 5 -- former members, attempted to use psychological manipulation to enqueue reese --

to increase user time. since then, they have gathered people into a contest where they reveal information about themselves so others can market product and idea. in a sense, facebook users are the products. one of facebook's methods for expanding the reach was a development of newsfeed. newsfeed changed facebook yet again, making it into a discussion monitor, determining who is allowed a voice, and who hears what voices on the platform. facebook shifts appear to be the case of a company allowing itself to drift. each step over the years probably made sense by itself, but taken as a whole, it was a change in who the company is. many businesses have gone down this road. when things go too far, competition steps in. i will turn my attention to my last point. new regulations are likely to harm facebook users. there are two reasons. one is that the problems are not business problems that commonly

occur so new regulations will not help. that newd reason is regulations would likely serve to protect facebook and other large internet companies from competition. generalpean union's new data protection regulation is a case in point. these regulations are driving tech companies, especially small ones, out of europe. such regulations impede freedom, stifle innovation, and reduce competition. i would be glad to answer any questions. thanks toley: everyone for your testimony. we will go to questions now. five-minute rounds for each individual. riley --art with mr. mr. wylie. i think these will be easy questions, but listen while i lead up to them. you joined cambridge analytica 2013,companies in june of

in may of 2014 the group received facebook data from aleksandr kogan. you stopped working for the 2014.in july in early 2016, facebook contacted the group and yourself and asked that facebook data received from mr. kogan be deleted. in march of 2017 following an internal audit, the group certified it had purged all of mr. kogan's facebook data from its servers. the group was retained by the in the summer of 2016, so i think these three questions will be easy. not been retained by the trump campaign during your employment? mr. wylie: when i worked at cambridge analytica, the trump campaign was not, no.

did notssley: and you work for the trump campaign while at cambridge? mr. wylie: i have never worked for the trump campaign. sen. grassley: and you were not there with the company made its certification to facebook? mr. wylie: i was not in the company or engaged at the company would they had that dealing with facebook, no. sen. grassley: thank you. dr. hirsch, there has been a lot of media attention around allegations that cambridge analytica helped president trump improperly influence the 2016 election by utilizing data received from facebook. claims the facebook data was ineffective, was deleted upon request, and was not used in the work for the trump campaign. had cambridge utilize the data, what impact do you think the organization impacted and

wyliegies with mr. described as military style information warfare can have on influencing the outcome of an election given the kind of data it receives from facebook? >> as i said in my testimony, it is hard to move people. mobilize or to potentially demobilized people and persuade people, but there has not been evidence presented from facebook or cambridge analytica, data that does exist, that could answer this question. when facebook or cambridge analytica runs ads, they have a control group and treatment group, and they could know the answer to this.if these things were effective, cambridge analytica would know and facebook with no. based on what we've seen from this history of targeting about why it's hard to move people, data andical of this adds moving people in a substantial way.

sen. grassley: dr. jamison, the media has pretreat the trump use firms like cambridge analytica as nefarious actions to manipulate the public. are these strategies and use of data something new in the political world, and how about advertising generally? >> thank you, mr. chairman. no, this is not new in the political world. it has been around for a long time. it feels new because it's never got into the public press before, at least not in this volume. it's understandable people feel this is violating a norm, but it's been a norm for a long time. grassley: i will reserve my time and go to senator feinstein. sen. feinstein: thank you. february 2018, special counsel mueller invited 13 -- indicted 13 russian

nationals and three companies for their part in a well-funded coordinated campaign of information warfare using social .edia this information warfare campaign spearheaded through the russian backed research agency, as early as 2040. 2014.an you tell us -- but can you tell us about possible connections between cambridge analytica and russia? mr. wylie: thank you for your question. concerns is the level of engagement the company has with the company being cambridge analytica, with lukoil, and executives from lukoil, russia's second-largest company. the firm cambridge analytica made presentations and send documents to lukoil that made reference to its experience in this information, that made reference in its experience to

informational campaigns, attitudin alex nextal. -- attitudinal. a whiter nix emailed me paper. that had assets that the company had in the u.s. and strategies it was him playing. the lead researcher that cambridge analytica used to dr.est the facebook data, kogan, was also working on projects in russia on psychological profiling at the university of st. petersburg. the company had also engaged contractors who had previously worked in eastern europe for , and indeed,arties the company decided to test american views on the leadership style of vladimir putin, and

on easternews european issues relating to russian expansionism in the region. to be clear, the only foreign leader that was tested when i was there was vladimir putin, and the bulk of the foreign issues being tested focused on russian expansionism in 2014. one of the concerns that i have that -- is that there were a lot of contacts with both russian companies and also via dr. kogan's research, presentations made in russia, that made it known these researches were being done. definitively this has connections to the research agency, but i can say a lot of noise is being made to companies and individuals who are connected to the russian government, and for me, that is of substantial concern. do you thinkn:

it's possible or even likely that the facebook data harvested by cambridge analytica ended up in russia? mr. wylie: what i can say is that the lead researcher, dr. kogan, who was managing the facebook harvesting project for at thege analytica, was, time, working on projects that related to psychological profiling in russia with a russian team as that was going on. i also know he was traveling to russia. i also know based on conversations i had at the time with him that he was making it known to his colleagues in russia about the project. i can't say definitively one way or the other if these data sets did end up in russia, but what i can say is it would have been very easy to facilitate that. you told then: u.k. house of commons that cambridge analytica pitched the russian oil company lukoil and its services. you have also said that

alexander nix gave lukoil a white paper that explained cambridge analytica as data collection and online targeting of americans. lukoil is on the united states sanctions list and is said to be tied to the russian federal security service. that is also known as the former kgb. when and where were these meetings taking place? mr. wylie: in london, in the united kingdom, and also on the phone. sen. feinstein: what did cambridge analytica tallied lukoil -- tell lukoil about it stayed on americans? did it share any of that data or is it possible russia acquired any of its data on americans? mr. wylie: in sending the white paper and discussions that i had with alexander nix about why he was speaking to the company, i datathat the scale of the

and the location of the data was made known. also, that dr. kogan was involved in that data collection project. , ifconcern that i have is you were intending on acquiring the data, even if you are not intending to acquire the data was willing for dissipation of cambridge analytica, but what is that this could be easily acquired by something as easy as a key logging on dr. kogan's computer while visiting russia. cassidy: thank you, mr. chairman. professor first, i don't really have a question. i will come back to you if i have time. if what you are saying is that people in america are not persuadable or persuaded by advertising, i think that's rubbish. i think really smart people

spent $200 billion last year on advertising. and i hear kids all the time walking around saying delete delete -- dilly dilly. [laughter] they didn't just dream that up, ok? i'm notwylie, interested in innuendo or speculation or rumor. other than facebook, list for me the sources of all of the data that you know cambridge analytica used while you worked for them. there were several different consumer data vendors that were used. sen. cassidy: -- kennedy: can you name them? mr. wylie: i believe experience data was balloon -- used. i'm not sure, but i can get back to you on whether they contacted directly --

senator kennedy: who else? mr. wylie: state voter firms and regulations. senator kennedy: who else? mr. wylie: smaller firms with specialized niche data. in terms of online data, there were experiments done on collecting other social media data like twitter that was also used. at the basis of the modeling the time i was there was primarily using facebook data. kennedy: put facebook aside for a second. the justice department, i will get to the bottom of that. obtainbridge analytica any of this information unlawfully while you were there? a lawyer in i'm not the u.s., so i could not comment on whether it was lawful or unlawful.

kennedy: did they do it improperly? you have been making normative statements. don't get religion now on me. mr. wylie: the facebook data -- sen. kennedy: other than facebook. mr. wylie: other than facebook, the consumer data lists were required the a contracts signed and paid for. >> did cambridge analytica hack anybody? that you know of? mr. wylie: i have seen documents that make reference to special intelligence services and information gathering networks. >> do you have copies of those? mr. wylie: not with me. >> did cambridge analytica get money from wikileaks? mr. wylie: not while i was there. >> do you know if they got it after? mr. wylie: about money?

>> know, about data. i'm sorry. i'm still worked up over dilly dilly. mr. wylie: i was not there when the request was made. sen. kennedy: when you are at cambridge analytica, give me the names of the clients, whether it was issue or candidate. mr. wylie: at risk of misspeaking, i am happy to give you a complete list of the that were being used at the time. sen. kennedy: who were they? mr. wylie: there were various candidates -- sen. kennedy: what issues and candidates? mr. wylie: there were a network primarily financed by robert mercer. sen. kennedy: who else?

mr. wylie: several senatorial and congressional candidates i believe. sen. kennedy: any issues? mr. wylie: john bolton's pac, if you consider that an issue -- >> we did not have a russian client at the time that i was there. ok. i yield back my nine seconds. thank you. >> sen. lee: -- senator lee. >> fascinating. back to early 2014. under the leadership of steve bannon, cambridge analytic a begin testing slogans like "drain thewall,"

swamp." then later run -- later on in the trunk campaign -- they were testing these things before there was a trunk campaign. is that correct? >> yes. slogansany was testing paranoiain the swamp," about the deep state before the trump campaign was in existence. >> what did they learn from this test? what did they do with it? >> they learn that there were segments of the population that "sponded to messages like swamp" that were not necessarily always reflected

a mainstream polling or political discourse. that steve bannon was interested in in using to build his movement. enbridge analytic cut did not have any employed capf -- cambridge analytic did not have any employed staff. am i correct with all of that? >> yes. >> our laws prohibit non-americans from working on protect ourns to elections from foreign interference. in 2014, a memo from cambridge made these restrictions very clear. followbridge analytica

these legal requirements? >> yes. i am the source that provided the media with that memo. i thought at my tail end of my engagement at cambridge analytica. my understanding that memo was disregarded because the ceo continue to be the ceo and they continued to send people to the united states were not american citizens. many of the people who were sent to the united states were not privy to that memo and were not made aware that there were potential files -- violations of u.s. law. used inook has been election advertising for some time. in amebody lives particular state they can target ads that reflect the interests of the estate. -- correctnalytica

me if i'm wrong on this. cambridge analytica obtain the unauthorized facebook data of 87 million people and then targeted them with manipulative misinformation. is that a correct statement? everything they did, but yes, that is something they did do. how does traditional online howicans compare with cambridge analytica used the information? >> when you are looking at traditional marketing, it does not misappropriate tens of millions of people's data. they are performing their duties legally. it is not or should not be targeted at people's mental vulnerabilities, such as paranoia.

>> you also said that they were a full-service propaganda machine that discouraged voters are voting for democratic or liberal candidates. some of their u.s. clients prevailed extremely close races. why did cambridge analytica's think theseients tactics might be helpful? >> steve bannon is a follower of something called the breitbart doctrine, which posits that politics is downstream from culture. if you want to have any enduring changes in politics, you have to focus on the culture.

when steve bannon uses the term culture war uses that term pointedly. they were seeking out companies that could build an arsenal of informational weapons to fight that war. that is why they went through a british military contractor that special item -- specialize in these. let me announced everybody that record stays open for a week. if you folks get written questions from people that are that don'teople come, we would appreciate if you would answer them and get them back to us as soon as you can. senator lee? >> thank you. while you fault cambridge analytica for using its data

that it obtained without authorization, at the same time you took that same data with you upon leaving the company. isn't that right? >> because there were no staff at cambridge analytica, most or hadwere contractors companies. i received a copy of the data. >> you have a data and you started your own company. >> my company was in six it -- in existence before i left cambridge analytica because i was a contractor. >> after leaving the company you had a meeting with a major campaign to discuss some micro-targeting techniques. >> that is not true. i did not meet another campaign to discuss that. in reference to that data. >> it appears that you try to use some of the same market as

your former company. you were going to use that data for something, right? data wasclear, the never used on any commercial. >> why did you take it with you? >> it is not that i took the data with me. it was still in existence at the time that i left. be clear, i didn't take any data from cambridge analytica. >> it in taken in the sense that it was already with you? >> yes. >> whatever of work did you anticipate your company would perform? >> i work mostly in data analytics looking at different kinds of social trends. after i left cambridge analytica i continued working on independent projects. data clear, i did use that

on any commercial contract. >> good in that data have proven useful in some of your work? >> it could have but i did not sell it. >> if you have been successful couldn't you have been at the receiving end of some of these same questions going to cambridge analytica? >> yes, but it didn't happen. >> i want to go over some statements that you have made. say, whenstimony, you aware ofre, i was made the first black ops capacity, which i understood involved having hackers. the firm referred to these operations as special intelligence operations. how did you learn about these capacities? >> alexander next told me. >> who was involved in these black ops?

that inderstanding was they had anprojects different parts of the world, misappropriated information was used as compromise in elections against opposition candidates. in paragraph 30, you say, the russian project undertaken by dr. corey had a particular focus on the dark triad traits of narcissism, murky belly is, and sociopathy. they also conducted behavioral research on online trolling. of thisyou learn all and can you describe those projects in more detail? time, the doctor told me about some of the research he was doing.

he also told the company about some of the research that was being done. by that team in russia. his email correspondence from thefirm that referenced work he was doing for the russians. it was initially through conversations i had with the doctor and later through the investigative reporting that has ,een done for the past year more details have emerged as well. >> professor hersh, the use of social media to micro-target is no neutral -- no new practice. the use of provocative information to either divide the electorate or to mobilize portions of the electorate has a long history in our country's political campaigns. the use of social media to micro-target different than it

has been done in the past? >> there is a lot we don't know. it often looks the same. just because the campaign spends a lot of money on a particular ad kind doesn't mean it works. for a long time campaigns were running money on robo calls. where there isnt a lot going on in the campaign, a lot of campaign ads don't work. this room changes their mind as a result of the campaign ads of the 2016 election. actualould know the effect and estimate of which campaign ads do what. part of my skepticism comes because there has been a presentation of any evidence in environments in which someone shows, here is the effect. this ad targeting neuroticism has no effect.

it is hard to sort this out as technology changes from 2004. lots of things are new. one point to come back to is that in a presidential election, the effect of one kind of ad is usually zero. >> thank you. you have said that cambridge analytica and the scl group are effectively the same thing and that cambridge analytica was a front facing company. is that correct? >> yes. >> what is scl elections? >> there is a company in the u.k. called scl group which had several different divisions. the largest division when i was defense. scl elections was one of the other divisions. they'll handle different markets for the company. -- they all handled different

markets for the company. >> what our scl canada and aggregate iq? >> those were subcontractors that were set up during the time i was there to build out software infrastructure. they paid -- played a significant role in building the infrastructure. >> are they the same entity? >> you could think of them like a franchise. >> the ribbon program was a program that developed the software to use the facebook data? >> yes. once you have algorithms and a target, you need something to connect those targets with an online display network. that is the >> role that play. what is global science research? >> the company that was set up by dr. cogan. >> you said it became a company

to serve as cambridge analytica. >> it became a company so that it can sign a contract with cambridge analytica. is it fair to describe the entities that i have just described as a coordinated network? >> yes. >> what was the role of robert mercer in funding the network? >> he was the primary funder who put in tens of millions of u.s. dollars in two cambridge analytica, which then distributed that money to that network. >> did that cambridge analytica network have a reoccurring contract with black cube? >> when i was there we did not have a contract with them. >> heavy since become aware of s yellnection between group and black cube and working together on projects? ofi have become aware

relationships that the company had with former members of israeli security. >> how about asi data science? subcontractors a to cambridge analytica and there was a revolving cast of data scientists there. >> yes. >> they are a frequent contractor? when i was there, their role was as a supplier as a company was crying. there was an increased demand for more data scientists and they -- the contract that they had was to provide these scientists. >> you consider them apart of the cambridge analytica network we described? >> if your definition of network is anybody who has an ongoing relationship, then sure. >> you said that the company

palantir had staff that was working with the data at cambridge analytica, that they were meetings with palantir at palantir offices and that palantir staff helped build the models for the program. is that correct? >> yes. all of theaid that work that was being done by pelletier staff was done in a personal capacity. atlet's take a quick look brexit. some of the forces behind brexit were belief and veterans from britain, correct? >> yes. >> all of them had contracts with aggregate iq? was anything strange about their contracts? >> it is highly suggestive of coordination and data sharing. is currently being investigated by the electoral commission in the u.k.. >> it would have been really hard to find at the time to get into the even have a website. do we know that they funneled money into veterans for britain

that i went to fund aggregate iq contracts? >> we do. we also have connections between insurance. and elton related to the brexit efforts? that side of the campaign engaged with cambridge analytica . >> my time is expired. if there is a second round i would love to have one. >> senator cornyn. i'm going to step out for a few minutes at the end of his five minutes you take over. >> let me start with you, please. what sort of data mining that you have been describing, the targeting of messages -- it has multiple applications, correct? it could be a commercial application? buy something on amazon or a movie on netflix, they can

send the information about something else i might like. the can be used to persuade people in a political campaign for or against the cap -- a candidate. it can also be used for covert information operations i governments, correct? >> all of that is correct. data is like any kind of tool. you can use it for various means. >> did scl or cambridge analytica serve all comers? were you open for business to whether wanted to purchase a service? >> that was the impression that i got. keennder nix was clean -- on selling contracts. after robert mercer what his investment into cambridge analytica, the only restriction that we had was not to work with democrats. gps, much in the news.

they provided opposition research to the dnc against the trump campaign. means --itself is the the means by which you analyze and use it is agnostic? you can use it for or against a political candidate, product, or for an information campaign? >> yes. zuckerberg kept saying, we don't sell data. i responded to him, you clearly rented. -- rent its. -- rent it. how would you characterize social media platforms like facebook use of personal data? they say they don't data. -- sell it. >> they have created a platform

that encourages the use of data. it is true that you cannot go to facebook and simply by facebook status. facebook's data. but they make it readily available to their customers. of people's profiles on facebook makes it very conducive to scraping data. facebook would say that they don't allow that, they still which catalyzes its misuse, in my view. >> mr. zuckerberg also said that the terms of service that consumers agree to when they sign on to facebook, he said people probably don't read it or don't really understand it. is your impression that most of the public has no idea about what they are sharing with these

companies? >> when you even talk to lawyers who read to the terms and conditions, some of it is even dense for a lawyer. i think it is unreasonable to expect a regular person to have the burden of understanding dense legal texts. is not a choice for most people. the internet is not a choice for most people. it is difficult to be a functioning member of the workforce and refused to use the internet. i don't know a job that will let you go in and refused to use google. most tiring requiring -- requires a linkedin profile. we use this narrative of choice because somebody is pushing a button, even if they had read the terms and conditions, they don't have a choice. in the modern workforce you have to use social media and the internet.

i don't know what job that would hire somebody who refused to use the internet. >> you think it is too much to expect that the social media platforms get consumers informed consent? there is this idea in the law -- if you are going to consent to a surgical procedure by her doctor, the doctor -- your must -- your consent must be informed. you need to understand what you are agreeing to. do think that is too much to ask for? >> people absolutely should have informed consent. the analogy is not equivalent. when you go and see a doctor and you need a surgery, you need something and you are consenting to that surgery and it is proportionate to the benefit that you are getting. ton somebody consents something online, even if they understand what they are if that is the only way you can get a job, it is not of their situation.

the point that i would make to step backould take a from this narrative of consent and start to look at the fact that people don't have a choice. they have to use a lot of these platforms to be functional in the workforce. >> i don't have use facebook. i use twitter. >> all of these platforms do the same thing. as soon as you sign up for anything, google, they will be collecting a hugely disproportionate amount of data compared to the utility that they provide to you. the other thing that i would say is when you are looking at technology, there is a question of not just informed consent in the present, but reasonable expectations in the future. when i first signed up to facebook it did not have facial recognition. they develop those algorithms that can search the internet and find other things i'm doing. it is not a question of informed consent.

is it proportionate to the benefit that the consumer is getting? is it reasonably expected in the future? more broadly, this narrative of consent is problematic in the sense that when people have to use these platforms, it doesn't matter whether or not they understand. haveey have these the -- to use it to get a job, they will still use it. we are coercing people to hand over a lot of information. you have to imagine in the future, what the developments of we will see moving forward and what kind of risks we will be exposing to people 10 years from now when the data still exists. >> i would conclude by saying, companies now can and do market their services and products based upon people's expectations of privacy. if consumers are fully informed doing, whathey are

the consequences are, they can make their choices. it may create markets for other alternative doing, what the consequences platforms are e data will be more protected. >> ok. for your very much system dancers. succinct answers. would cambridge analytic that have been able to harvest the data of facebook users and their friends if the users had opted

out of having their data tracked by facebook? the problem was that facebook had set up applications that physically allowed the collection of data. in addition to giving consumers rights, we should be putting obligations on companies themselves. a principle of privacy by design which treats privacy of his -- as an engineering problem would be incredibly useful. just a governance issue. it is a physical engineering injured -- issue. >> you think they would do that on around? >> no. that is the responsible one of my other friends on the other side of the aisle. , i understand act

you supported the idea that there should be more transparency of political ads. there is no requirements in place. a foreign actor drops propaganda by airplane over florida or michigan, that would universally be condemned as a hostile act. this is happening online. twitter, microsoft are now supporting my bill. toy are taking measures dispose these ads, especially facebook. you think this patchwork of voluntary measures will be the answer? >> no. that we require safety standards and everything else we care about, we should require the stand -- east edwards and -- standards in online applications. mr. zuckerberg said he would

follow up with a state-by-state breakdown of users. you have any knowledge of whether those facebook users were any particular states? >> i cannot say off at the top of my head what the density was in each state. i know there were particular states from the company's activities on swing states and states that were winnable by republicans. >> states like wisconsin, michigan? >> yes. we await that information from facebook. i also asked mr. zuckerberg is any of the people who may have been shown content from a facebook page associated with the russian troll farm were the same users whose data was shared with cambridge analytica. he replied that it was entirely possible that there could be a connection there. what can you say about the

potential for any overlap between the facebook users whose data cambridge analytica obtained and the users who were shown content from the internet research agency? firstly, i did not ever deal with the internet research agency so i can't comment specifically on that entity. to your point, my concern is may have beenon shared or misappropriated by russian entities from cambridge analytica. not just whether or not these individual records within targeted. if they were used to build and operate, whether that algorithm was at cambridge analytica or another entity, other users that share similar patterns in the data could have also been exposed in a way that, if he simply looked at, where these records targeted specifically,

even if the answer is no, that doesn't mean that those records were not used to build a targeting algorithm. question, these ads that were clearly made to suppress the votes of african-americans. do you have any knowledge about the scope of this activity and how often it occurred out of the company? relates to the tail end of my engagement with cambridge analytica. one of the things that did provoke me to leave was the beginnings of discussions about voter disengagement. i have seen documents that russ reference voter disengagement and i recall conversations that it was intended to focus on african-american voters. >> can we get those documents? >> i will discuss with my

lawyers the best way to get you that information. >> is that it would be an airplanect cap an coming with those pamphlets, this under american lot where you are specifically suppressing votes is also an illegal act. >> to be clear, i did not partake myself. >> i understand and that is why you are here. i appreciate you coming to testify. thank you. to chairairs asked me the committee and happened to be in the next order -- i'm not taking chairs prerogative. thank you all for being here. very helpfulis a hearing, i intend to be here for the second round as well. to the ranking member and said, she was complementing you on your technical expertise. i love having a witness before the stand that i can actually understand. i cannot necessarily understand

lawyers but i can understand data analytics people because i was one. i help the result of this hearing is trying to figure out what congress should do from a regulatory framework with respect to the new avenue for data use. all of us in these committees have already used data from aggregators. we know what voting propensities are. use that as a basis for targeting voters. next way, was the data aggregators, so they can overlay peoples affiliations with associations, magazine descriptions. that has become passe, it has been happening for 10 or 20 years. every single member here who has run for election has had that. that is where they buy data and aggregated. aggregate it.

with the advent of social media, we have entities let come into play that do not want to sell their data. they want to sell the analytic result of that data so that they can target people in certain social media platforms. would you agree with that analysis? >> yes. it is the age of access rather than the age of transfer. thatu believe that baseline data is a part of their intellectual capital, their institutional value? >> yes. data is an incredibly powerful -- it is like the new oil. >> i would be happy for either of the other witnesses to chime in. when mr. zuckerberg was before us, some weeks back, i tried to focus on what we should all be looking at as policymakers, as other practices beyond cambridge analytica. my firm engaged cambridge

analytica, i met them the day that they were posted and i saw them again on election day. theve some questions about focus on trying to get psychographic data from people through in person interviews. and may or may not have been captured your some of the techniques we are discussing today. i want to talk about, if we're going to do with zero impartial, a thorough and impartial analysis, we should go back the last 10 years. review,o through that and two articles associated with it, there are quotes from campaign workers who said we literally took the whole social graph from facebook and were

able to download it through the use of an application. there is a term and here -- i don't know the specific page -- they talk about game of buying meifying the asset supporters would use. they actually asked whether or not you are a facebook user, if you would mind to share information about all of your friends. in my case, i have 4900 friends. by clicking the button i was getting access to thousands of people's information without their knowledge. this is a documented practice that i think also has to be looked at in the context of creating good policy that is based on various you shifts -- uses of data on social media platforms. in theemaining time

first round, i would ask you, do you believe that some of the technology players today simply have grown so large so quickly that some of what you thought would have been captured through good corporate governance and ,ode of contact -- conduct having someone from a social media platform who leans conservative or liberal putting their thumb on the scale and giving people information that they should not if they were good stewards of the data in the social media platform that they were on. i will leave that as an open question and reserve my remainder for the next round. i don't hold of you that facebook is necessary for our lives. my students never to share information about politics or ads or news online. they are not professional editors. they should direct their

attention to news sources that have editors. the idea that you must upload pictures and that there is no alternative is something that does not strike me as something that is true. in answering your question, facebook has a lot of data. i think it has acted very inappropriately in how it has conveyed news and sold at to adds to anyone last. i think it is a terrible way that they have conducted business. i want to encourage people to i am surprisedut by people's continuing interest in the company. concur a lot and what he was saying. i think it is difficult to argue that facebook, per se, is necessary for people's lives when half of internet users are not on it. there are lots of other types of social media.

to your point about, would someone with a particular political view tip the scales one way or another, i don't know of people would deliberately do it. by the nature, they will. what i view is true is influenced by how i think ideologically. screen out i might and say, this is bad or disruptive, would be influenced by how i think. >> thank you. thank you to the panel for the chance to be with you today. i think the reason this matters is that we are talking about the intersection of several important developments that are difficult for the average american to understand. a data and social media -- big data and social media. we are trying to tease out what exactly happened or didn't happen. michael kaczynski got into the use of facebook data and found you could predict sexual

orientation, political party affiliation, race, with 85% accuracy. factors could be deduced. is that your understanding of that analysis? do you think cambridge analytica and the work use that predictive power to develop algorithms that then weaponize differences between americans for electoral gain? >> the basis of the research we were doing at cambridge analytica was from the papers that you are citing from dr. kaczynski. approachreplicated his and sought to improve it. >> did i correctly summarize the

incredibly high correlations they could show in terms of knowing the individual facebook user if you had access to their likes and friends and social media activity? >> the paper that you are onceg, the number of likes you surpass 200, you can get to the later -- level of accuracy predicting personality traits as your spouse would if they were answering questions about you. all of us who have stood for election have struggled with the difficulty of targeting our voters effectively. the data sets we have had access to our very thin and narrow. there is very little that we have. the data sets that facebook has access to, that is why it is a multibillion dollar company. it is unlike anything we have had to confront before, correct?

>> yeah. i don't contest with the professor said in the sense that there are -- persuading somebody compared to motivating them is much more difficult. the data sets that traditionally were used are often very sparse and unreliable. the data available now via facebook -- that is why cambridge analytica ended up pursuing that path. in comparison to traditional sets, the data that you could procure from social networking sites was much more dense and reliable to create a precise algorithm. >> a billionaire american mega-donor and supporter of the trunk campaign funded a shell corporation, cambridge analytica , to take advantage of this

research and gained access to 86 million americans facebook information and developed some of the algorithms that came out of that. about yoursk you experience working with steve bannon, one of president trump senior campaign advisers, and the goal he used cambridge analytica to achieve. was one of his goals to suppress voting? >> that was my understanding. >> was motor suppression a super -- service that clients could request? >> yes. >> steve bannon is running an organization where you could request in contracts photo suppression using this remarkable data set? >> i don't know if it was referenced in contracts. i have seen documents that make reference to it in relation to client requests. >> testified that in 2014

cambridge analytica set of focus groups on americans views on the leadership of vladimir putin and rushes and -- russia's expansionism. you have testified that it was possible for russian intelligence to put a keylogger on professor cogan's computer and get access to this full data set. why do you think cambridge analytica was testing clinton's tactics?s aggressive i don't have a clear answer as to why the company wanted in testing russian expansionism. that is a question better put to steve bannon. forerms of the dangers

democracies around the world, this data is powerful and if it is put into the wrong hands and becomes a weapon. thatve to understand companies like facebook and platforms like facebook or twitter are not just social networking sites. they are opportunities for information warfare. we really do have to look at aotecting cyberspace as national security issue, in the same way that we have agencies to protect our borders. >> accuray much. -- thank you very much. >> welcome to each of the witnesses. think americans are rightly concerned about privacy and the security of our data. we are also concerned about the power that is being collected in silicon valley by a marvelous --

having an honest's tropes of data that they are able to use with very few rules governing what they do is it. much of the media attention in recent weeks has been focused on the data operation of the trump campaign manager they were hardly the first -- trump campaign. they were hardly the first. you talked about the obama campaign in 2008 in 2012 and their data operations. can you share with this committee what the oh obama campaign did regarding data? >> sure. theyg the 2008 campaign, had as an advisor of cofounder of facebook who help them understand how they could use facebook and obtain data from facebook. a lot of that work was done by was thents but that center of it. in 2012 the campaign changed its strategy. it pulled it all in house.

they were able to combine facebook data more carefully with other sources of data and do a much better job of understanding what individual voters were like, who was connecting with who, and how they can understand those conversations. >> has facebook approached has facebook approached access to data on a fair and even panted matter, allowing candidates from whatever party the same access? or have they been more partisan? >> i have no knowledge of that. davison, the director of data integration for the obama for america 2012, she said, facebook was survived -- surprise that we were able to suck out the whole social graph of the did not stop us once they realized that was what we were doing. facebook camethat

to office in the days following election recruiting and were very candid that they allowed us to do things that they would not have allowed someone else to do because they were on our side. that is the head of data analytics for the obama campaign saying that facebook was giving preferential treatment to the obama campaign because that is the political side they were on. did they give the romney campaign the same access in the election? >> not to my knowledge. >> how about an 2016? there has been a lot of discussion about what the trump campaign did with data. did the hillary clinton campaign have a state operation? >> i'm not familiar. >> there was not very much written about her campaign on any of this.

does anyone on the panel know what the hillary clinton campaign did on the data side? panel thinkon the that there is a chance and a million years that hillary clinton campaign did not have a substantial investment in data analytics? so, campaigns across the spectrum in the united states use data. atyour point, when we look -- a lot of people are concerned about the ability of big government to inhibit our liberty and choice. ag data can engineer situation that limits our choice and our freedom. it is not a partisan issue. to your point about other parties using types of access on facebook, i actually agree with you in the sense that there is a substantial risk of distorting

the electoral process is a company like facebook decides to pick a site, whether that is democrat or republican. the thing that i would hope that this committee and others internalize is that we are talking about cambridge analytica but it is not a partisan issue. we are talking about the future of how these technology companies operate in the risks to ordinary american citizens in the risks to the integrity of our democratic process. that is not a partisan issue. >> i agree with that. there is an overlay on top of that that facebook and other social media companies are now the vehicle through which 70% of americans get their political news. censorship is a profound threat to liberty and so i appreciate this panel being here. thank you for your testimony.

senator blumenthal? >> thank you mr. chairman. welcome to you all and thank you for being here. are you aware of conversations between cambridge analytica executive's and any representatives of the russian government or people associated with the russian government? >> i'm aware of meetings that the company had with luke oil which has those connections with the russian government. >> for those conversations documented anywhere in any letters -- were those conversations documented anywhere? >> there are documents pertaining to the conversations and presentations made to luke oil. i have passed on some of those documents to the authorities. >> to this committee?

>> not yet this committee. >> would you be willing to provide them to this committee? asi will consult my lawyers to the best way to get you that information. >> during her time at cambridge analytica -- your time at , you wereanalytica aware of the founders or funders , including robert mercer. money so that they necessarily consider campaign contributions. you'll wear of conversations to that effect by mr. mercer or anyone else? >> what i am referencing is what was explained to me after i to the relatively convoluted setup that was happening in the united states with respect to the setup of cambridge analytica.

me, whenexplained to you invest money as an investor into a company that you welcome , it does notwn count as an electoral contribution. cut tome count to the -- the intent of my question. was there a specific explanation to you that the purpose of sex structuring it this way was to avoid the reporting requirements of the united states election loss? >> it was explained to me as a benefit of the setup. firewallsere any during the time that you worked at cambridge analytica that separated work on different campaigns or where the funds coming gold -- co-mingled in the

campaigns? firewalls being of barriersny sort between people or conversations. >> there was no recognition of the legal responsibility to separate campaigns? from theare of memos company's lawyers to some of the executive of the company to outline the responsibilities in the united states to separate contact between staff and activities that relate to different campaigns. ? those -- >> those memos were instructions. >> they were advised from lawyers. i did not see -- >> impact is those instructions were not followed -- in practice, those instructions were not followed?

>> no. >> can you provide examples of your direct knowledge of efforts to suppress voting? in terms of specifics, i am happy to work with the committee to give a more full explanation. i understand there are limits on time. i am aware of research that was being looked at about what motivates and d motivates different types of people. if you focus on messaging the people,ting a certain you decrease the amount of turnout. , you served as part of the agency landing team in the transitions for the federal communications president-elect tron, correct? >> yes. >> did you have any contact with

michael cohen about fcc policy? >> no. >> did you ever meet him? >> not to my knowledge. >> senator harris? >> thank you. we are here today to talk about how cambridge analytica obtain sensitive data from millions -- of millions of america and use that data to influence our elections. issues ofbroader privacy that are highlighted by this incident. it is worth stepping back to pull all of this into context for the american public. most americans have entered into a bargain with facebook and providers invice which users unknowingly give those companies huge amounts of personal data in exchange for the free service of social networking. providersfacebook uses this daw with users carefully targeted ads which are the source of 98%

of facebook's revenue. this business model makes the facebook user the product and makes the advertisers the customer. arrangement is not always working in the best interest of the american people. users have little to no idea just how facebook collects their data, including tracking the user's location, the device they are using, and activities on other websites. this occurs whether or not they are logged into facebook and whether or not the even use facebook. let me put this in perspective. in the real world is would be like someone following you every single day as you walk down the street, watching what you do, where you go, and to -- who you are with.

for most people, this is an invasion of privacy. technicallyrk sites lay all this out in their terms of service. few americans can decipher or understand what this contract means. illustrates,ng americans do not have real control over the data collected on them. there is a must nothing that users can do once data is shared with third parties. governmentsore responsibility to create rules they yield a more fair bargain for the american people. one that respect their rights as consumers in our privacy. i have a few questions for the witnesses today. you mentioned there has been a lot of discussion about how cambridge analytica targeted african-american voters and discourage them from participating in elections.

did stevefically bannon or anyone else decide motivates or the motivates african-americans to vote? onit is not just focusing racial characteristics of people. when you pull a random sample of african-americans, there are not all the same people. they have very different lives and motivators. any you are looking at program, whether it is motivating or demotivating their internal characteristics are very important thing. you don't just treat them as a black person. you treat them as who they are. that can be used to encourage people to vote. >> has specifically been did descartes -- how specifically did they target african-american voters given that the african-american population is not a monolith?

racial characteristics can be modeled -- i'm not sure about the studies that my colleagues here was referencing. a were able to get nac score, way of measuring accuracy for race. area under the receiving operations characteristic. it is a way of measuring position. it is very high. to be clear, i didn't voteripate on any suppression program. i can't comment on the specifics of those programs. i can comment on their existence and generally on my understanding of what they were doing. those questions are better placed for steve bannon. >> i join in the request for any documents you can share with us

that are evidence of the conduct you describe. what should facebook have done to verify that you are cambridge analytica had deleted the unauthorized data? >> i can't speak for cambridge analytica i can speak for myself. letter thatnt me a said, we are aware that you may still have data from this harvesting program. >> met was actually new information to me. i did not know that at the time. if i still had the data, i was told to delete it & a certification that i no longer have the data. require you to sign it

under supervision of a notary? >> it did not require any sort of legal procedure, so i signed the certification and send it back, and they accepted it. >> as housekeeping, we will have a vote called around noon. set a time. that means we have to be there within 25 minutes. i think we will be able to get the first round. i am happy to stick around until the end of the vote if we can agree to three minute rounds. senator durbin. me say durbin: let initially, senator harris, i thought your presentation on the issue of embassy was spot on. it really described what we are about, at least one of the things we should be about. i asked a question of mr. zuckerberg, whether he felt comfortable telling me the name of the hotel he stayed in last night, and after a couple minutes or seconds of hesitation

he said no. senator durbin: i have asked a lot of questions in the senate. that didn't get a lot of attention. i think because it really got to the heart of the issue in terms of mr. zuckerberg and his own feeling about personal privacy and where he would draw the line. we know, of course, from what senator harris has said and what we know from life experience is, the last hotel i stayed in is probably a matter of some record with my name attached to it somewhere, who knows. but privacy is a critical issue here. and the right of facebook or any entity to use my information without my express permission is over the line. i said to senator coburn, senator cornyn, my friend, when he said he thought consumers were aware when information was being gathered on him, but i'm sure he's wrong. we have now put a little piece of electric tape over the camera

on my laptop. >> good. senator durbin: most people do now because they are being watched and they may not even know it. but there are two other issues here that i would like to spend a moment addressing. one of them relates to mr. knicks, a british national? is that correct? mr. wylie: yes. senator durbin: he was clearly involved in some of the campaign activities of cambridge analytica. mr. wylie: he was the c.e.o. of the company. so, he was the point person for all of the clients. and he often made the presentations and recommendations to those clients. senator durbin: federal election commission says expressly that regulations prohibit foreign nationals from directing, dictating, controlling, and directly or indirectly participating in the decisionmaking process of any person with regard to any election-related activities in the united states. so there is a red flag or red

union jack, whatever you want to call it, that should make it clear that we're in a territory here that may be, may be a violation of law. you have said that the involvement of cambridge and successor organizations and russia came after you left, is that correct? mr. wylie: sorry, can you clarify what you mean by -- my experience is direct as it relates to luke oil, as relates to understanding the research that was being done in terms of the focus groups and all that. senator durbin: the use of information by the russians in the election campaign -- mr. wylie: oh, i'm sorry. i misunderstood. yes. senator durbin: that happened some other place or after you left cambridge analytica? mr. wylie: yes. i was not aware at the time that there was activities in russia

to influence the united states elections. senator durbin: so i would add that to the second category. first question, privacy. the second question is the involvement of foreign nationals in the united states campaign. whether mr. knicks personally or russia as a country tried to influence the impact. the third has been brought up by my colleagues and i think gets to the heart of another very important issue, the issue of the secrecy of this activity. the fact that we know mr. mercer was engaged in this is because secretshing called open and other sources not disclosed in the ordinary course of business interests. did you have any guidance from cambridge when you were there in terms of the secrecy of the clients that you were working for? mr. wylie: so, to your first point about non-u.s. nationals working in u.s. elections, cambridge analytica received formal legal advice, which i disclosed to the media. and that legal advice did make clear that the company should

not be sending non-u.s. nationals to -- on american -- to work on american elections. with respect to the secrecy, everybody had to sign a nondisclosure agreement, a thorough one, and after i left, you know, when the company engaged in a protracted legal correspondence with me, it insured that myself and other finde who decided to leave an undertaking of confidentiality, which is a higher threshold of nda. the legal opinion about the involvement of cambridge employees -- >> i made it public. mind sending aot

copy, that would be helpful, too. >> senator hirono. senator hirono: thank you. turn on votern turnout. you would agree efforts to bepress voter turnout should a matter of serious concern to us. guest: certainly. senator hirono: you testified that it is easier to demobilize people of and it is to mobilize them. you about requirements on voter turnout. if congress -- if we were to consider regulating anything, and i realize it's all very complicated. someu want to focus on sort of regulatory scheme, should we focus on regulating ads or messages that the regulate people? a witness i worked as for the obama justice department on government voter suppression, voter id laws.

this is really different, and it's different because campaigns do things that are not nice all the time. if the democratic campaign would remind trump voters of all the moral buildings of trump's past, is that demobilization or not? outtor hirono: you figure whether it a message d is anybody, but let's assume we can with some way to define that. that's a matter of serious concern. you said that easier to affect. that may be an area for us to pursue in terms of any kind of regulation in this very complex space we are in right now. right.sh: that might be i'm not a regulatory expert. in terms of first amendment issues and so forth, if i were they aremeone who voting for, and they said president trump, and i said don't vote for him, i would rather you not vote, it does not seem to me that that is a form of voter suppression. senator hirono: we are talking

about basically people paying to suppress votes. as mr. wiley testified, steve bannon was running an operation where clients could request motor suppression messages which they would then pay for. we're talking about a different circumstance than somebody saying don't vote for so and so. i think you understand the differences. you obviously have an awareness of the use and misuse of massive amounts of data. the immigration and customs enforcement has proposed a new extreme vetting initiative and the plan is to hire a contractor to exploit publicly available information such as media, blogs, public hearings, conferences, academic websites, social media websites, such as twitter, facebook, linkedin, to extract pertinent permission regarding targets to determine who will be a productive member of society and who will commit acts. and terrorist we are talking about people wanting because to come to our

country. according to the center for justice, isis's plan -- denial based on the exact criteria from the original muslim ban. it was the original muslim ban of the president that set up this extreme vetting program. so, do you think that that kind of prediction of human behavior, whether somebody will become an upstanding community member, become a terrorist -- is that even possible? mr. hersh: two points. there is no universal definition of the bad person, and therefore, it's a social construct, and it's late in with with people'sn moral judgments. there is no mathematical way to determine if someone is a bad

person in the abstract in the sense that there is no universal definition of a bad person. so the second point that i would make fairly set just because you are using the data science and mathematics, you could have the most advanced neural network if the underlying training set for that algorithm uses systemically biased information, so for example, if you are looking at criminal you havetatistics and a model that predicts this particular african-american is more likely to commit a crime because more african-americans an up in prison, you create algorithm which is simply reflecting social and moral biases of the data sets. senator hirono: i think the value of what the government is pursuing is very questionable and problematic in terms of all kinds of issues. privacy, you name it, and the

accuracy and ability of that kind of initiative, yet they are pursuing it, by the way. i think it's very problematic. would you agree? the government getting their hands on all this information so they can determine whether somebody would commit crimes or somebody is going to be an upstanding citizen, does that even make sense to you? mr. wylie: no. senator hirono: thank you. >> senator booker. wiley, iooker: mr. have a lot of concerns about how these platforms can be used to pick people against each other. one of the greatest ideas we have is that the lines that tie stronger thane the lines that divide us as a country. i listened to the new york times podcast this morning which was all about sri lanka. when facebook rumors inside real violence. it was about how facebook was being used by sinister forces to

incite hatred between groups, fear between groups, and ultimately, violence in this circumstance. i was just so deeply disappointed and angered when the founder of the sco group -- recorded would wee conversation and attack the other group and you know you're going to lose to them and it will resonate to your group, which is why hibbler attacked -- hitler attacked the jews. sople didn't like the jews, he leveraged an artificial enemy. that's exactly what trump did. he leveraged muslims. from had the balls -- trump had the balls to say what people wanted to hear. this is to me a threat to the very ideal of a nation that was not founded because we all pray alike and look-alike but we have

democratic principles that you might this country. not religious alliances, not racial alliances, but our sacred honor, and i am wondering, first and foremost, your experience with this organization that you ultimately left. do you feel that this was a manipulation of the data to prey upon divisions, prejudices, biases, inflaming them in order oftenduce, as demagogues do, a certain electoral outcome? mr. wylie: the united states went through a civil rights movement a couple decades ago in an attempt to desegregate society, and one of the things we are seeing now is a resegregation of society that is catalyzed. some people call that echo chambers. is where youer

receive information from one site and stop seeing information from the other side which interferes with the common fabric because what we are doing is caring that fabric apart. with respect to what cambridge analytical was doing, it was looking to find ways of certainng vulnerabilities in certain subsets of the population to send them information that will then start to remove them from the public forum, if you will, where they start to see more and more conspiracy theories or more and more each reality messaging, and they start to internalize that messaging and discount mainstream media. and if there is enough money being spent on targeting these individuals, they will stop seeing any mainstream media online, and from that point, they have now been removed from the public forum, and for me,

that is deeply problematic, because when you look at what democracy is supposed to be about, there is an element of common experience that voters need to have to collectively make a decision. if you are segregating people in terms of the information space so that one set of voters only see one thing and another set of voters only see one thing, we have destroyed the public forum. senator booker: that was an excellent observation. from your public statements, you as they are leaving creating videos to try and inflict hatred towards muslims, fear of muslims. that's correct, right? senator booker: yes, -- mr. wylie: yes, there were videos created by the firm. there is no other way to describe it other than sadistic and islamophobic. senator booker: i have 30 seconds left, but just to shift, my colleague, chairman to list, talked about obama using big to rally voters, which i think -- i

am somebody that is also very data and the the potential it has, predictive analytics and how it can help from empowering police officers to you name it. use was stunning to me, to the data not to rally voters but to suppress voters based on their ethnicity. am i correcty -- in you saying this was a determined effort to suppress not just black roads but the votes of asians and other ethnic block the voteslac -- to suppress not just black votes, but the votes of asians and other ethnic minorities. do you understand where that was coming from? do you have any insight into motivations there? mr. wylie: you would have to ask

mr. bannon about his own views. senator booker: thank you very much. >> we have a few more minutes. senator kennedy, would you be open to a three minute round with a hard gavel with a three-minute mark? senator kennedy. senator kennedy: [indiscernible] jamison, i want to be sure i understand your testimony. answering his question. in the presidential campaign between governor romney and senator obama, now president cofounder facebook shared facebook information with the obama campaign that it did not share with the romney campaign because the facebook cofounder wanted mr. obama to win. is that accurate? >> i did not mean to say that. it was that he was working for

the obama campaign -- a cofounder of facebook. he was working for the obama campaign. i do not have any information i says he took information from facebook, but he explained to the campaign, here is how you use facebook. senator kennedy: did he share that information with mr. romney? dr. jamison: to my knowledge, no. senator kennedy: or the romney campaign? do you know why he shared this information with the obama campaign? dr. jamison: he actually volunteered to work for obama when he was running for u.s. senate, so they had had a long relationship. senator kennedy: so he wanted president obama to become president. dr. jamison: yes. senator kennedy: ok. here is one of the things -- to me, there are two issues. at least two issues regarding the social media platforms. first is the privacy issue.

i happen to believe that social media platforms have the ability to influence what we believe, how we vote, what we buy, how we feel about ourselves, and they have a responsibility to disclose that to people and how they do it, and if people still want to use facebook, fine. i do not believe in that, for example. i think it is a tax on poor people. but people understand that the odds of winning the lotto are not great. i am pretty libertarian. people want to pay the -- play the lottery, power to them. wylie, the problem, mr. and we can spend several days talking about it. we can all agree that poison is being spread on social media. here is the tough part. define poison.

i don't want facebook censoring what i see. it does not -- it does violate the first amendment if somebody wants to run an ad on facebook that says don't believe the mainstream media. they are biased. if you tell them they cannot do that, than you do not believe in the first amendment. now, it's a lot different if somebody wants to run an ad that go --go kill every review every muslim you can find in burma." the way you draw that line is tough. i will let you finish. but if you got a great memory, we will take a brief recess. i will let you respond very quickly. we are going to take a brief recess. there are at least three members who have asked. we will keep it a three minute round. >> 30 seconds. i think his comments get to my

view at the heart of the matter which is that we have a basic human response that we are attracted to provocation and extremism. what platforms are doing online at the basic level is encouraging that behavior, letting us click and share. we are not drawn to things that are cynically responsible or truthful. we are drawn to extremism. to me, that is the hardest part about this. it's not about ads. it's what we want to share and whose job it is, whether it is a cultural, leadership, governmental response to that very human response to share things that are not necessarily nice for the world were good. senator kennedy: professor, at some point, you have got to trust people. >> we are going to go into a recess that will probably be less than 10 minutes or as fast as i can get to and from the capital. we will stand in recess for about 10 minutes. [gavel bangs]

>> if i can have the committee come back to order? senators are interested in the second round. i have mainly now, because i have to preside, in 20 minutes, if we can keep the rounds to about three minutes, i would appreciate it. turn for about three minutes. we will start with senator whitehouse. senator whitehouse: thank you. i would like to go to the brexit campaign and the role that aggregate iq played in it. in the aftermath of that campaign, a person named dominic cummings, a campaign strategist for vote leave, tweeted out that came which -- cambridge analytica had a small role.

is that true? so i do not agree with that, because a iq was set up to service and build technology for sdl and cambridge analytica. senator whitehouse: so cambridge analytica was the forward facing front for this network for its american operations. and the other was the front for the brexit operations. aiq was only set up to help those who have intellectual property agreements that transferred their ip to cambridge analytical. at the time of the brexit referendum, they were concurrently working with cambridge analytica on different projects, so to say that

cambridge analytica did have no older influence on the campaign is looking at it too narrowly. senator whitehouse: you said it played a pivotal role. howwylie: when you look at vote leaves transferred money into a bunch of different entities, some of which it had intop, to funnel money those schemes, and then those campaigns all coincidentally used the same service provider such that 40% of spending went to aiq, 40% of vote leave spending. senator whitehouse: they did not even have a website. they would have been virtually impossible to find. mr. wylie: he must be an incredible sleuth if you found them on the internet. senator whitehouse: there is an individual you describe as

playing pivotal role in the relationship between camera data letter, and black cube commit -- cambridge analytica and lacked abe, and you say they played pivotal role in the collection of the vdu and nigeria project in which a iq was involved. i don't know if i should bring her name into this hearing. mr. wylie: i know the person you are referring to, yes. senator whitehouse: what you mean by pivotal role connecting cambridge analytica, black cube, and leave e.u.? mr. wylie: the person played a in setting uple the companies projects in nigeria. senator whitehouse: which involved black cube? mr. wylie: which involved the

procurement of hacked material. in addition, this person was also at the press launch, sitting on a panel with other directors of leave e.u. senator whitehouse: he said she was a pivotal role between the two? mr. wylie: as she testified at parliament, she made introductions to a group of israelis to you cambridge analytica. senator whitehouse: and they are the ones who work through the black cube corporation or entity? mr. wylie: you will have to ask cambridge analytica and black cube that. >> i will defer to sen. blumenthal: then go after him. thanks toumenthal: senator klobuchar. mr. wylie, are you aware of services performed by a

cambridge analytical for american clients for free or as in-kind contributions at the expense of another entity? specifically, no, but what i would say to that is that the money invested by robert mercer in the tens of millions allowed the company at least when i was there to work on projects and charge clients substantially less money for the work that was being done. than it would have actually caused if the customer had been paying for it entirely themselves. sen. blumenthal: your response goes back to my earlier question about the commingling of funds as an investment, in other words, characterizing money put into cambridge analytica as an

investment rather than a contribution, and thereby used by a variety of different campaigns, but reported as a contribution for none of them, correct? mr. wylie: because as i understand it, and i am not an expert in this, and as i understand it, one of the ancillary benefits of the set up whenever mr. mercer would invest money, it would be an investment in a company for research and development, which ultimately was for the benefit of its clients, various campaigns. but that benefit was not necessarily reported in whichever reporting mechanisms you have in the united states beyond the direct payments that the campaigns were using in their contracts. and the dangers to privacy of collecting data and regarding consumer's as the

product, not the customer, their data is sold. they are, in effect, the product, and advertisers are the clients. it's a very serious issue. but just to be clear here, data was in effect harvested were collected from facebook according to facebook without its knowledge as well. to ask youwould like is whether there were conversations at cambridge analytica about, in effect, the taking or harvesting or collecting of this data without facebook snowing -- facebook's knowing. mr. wylie: so whenever you have an application, you have to submit to facebook terms and conditions for the application, thet the time, i was aware

terms and conditions the app was sending, i was told the terms and conditions, did include clauses about transfers to third parties and commercialization of still in effect, facebook was being notified of at least sort of generally that this happens collecting data for those purposes. , i never directly communicated with facebook about that project until after i left the company, but my understanding is that dr. kogan did have conversations with facebook. facebook has consistently told me that they were under the impression that he was doing solely academic research, but i was not a party to those conversations, so you would have to ask facebook. sen. blumenthal: in my questioning of of mark zuckerberg, i showed him the terms of service indicating

facebook was put on notice about the possible sale or use of this information. he denied knowledge of it. you are confirming that you have heard about conversations. mr. wylie: i recall dr. cobain informing me of conversations he had with facebook that was not party to the conversations, however what i do know is if you set up an application on facebook, you have to submit the terms and conditions of your app for review before facebook lets you activate that application, which was, as i understand it, the case for this application, which meant facebook was notified at least of the review process that there was some intent of transferring or commercializing the information. whether or not they bothered to read the terms and conditions, sort of like how many users don't read facebook's own terms and conditions, is another matter. sen. blumenthal: thank you. we wereklobuchar:

talking on the brakes -- break there about this disengagement issue, and i pointed out that while you can that's nottive ad, exactly what mr. wylie is referring to about this engagement. you have blatant examples about ads that were bought with russian money or through other parties from this last election that actually are blatant criminal violations, because they tell people to vote -- to save time or a vote the lines 23, and you can vote. do you consider that disengagement? mr. wylie: that seems terrible. senator klobuchar: i wanted to clear up that there are gray areas. there are areas that you probably would think are just

persuasion. and there are areas that are pure ev all, but of course, using foreign money to influence an election is illegal on its face to begin with. mr. wylie: i agree. senator klobuchar: thank you. to theie, in addition improper access by cambridge analytica, we heard about the misuse of user data by other analytics firms which sold data it gained from quizzes that had for misleadingly labeled nonprofit academic research. facebook has acknowledged he will hear more about incidents like these. what do we know about the scope of the problem here? how many more cambridge there?ca s are out mr. wylie: that a question only facebook can answer. it's interesting that the behavior before the story broke was to threaten to sue the guardian. they then banned me as a was a

blower from their platform, i think in part because, you know, this may be highlighting a that not onlyem facebook experiences, but i suspect other social media platforms do as well. that's why we need rules for transparency. senator klobuchar: we were just talking about that. as much as facebook has been the focus and mark zuckerberg testified, in some ways, with the online political ads, they have agreed to go further than some of the other companies leading us in terms of disclaimers. so, do you think that if you just have -- and i know i asked this before, but can you elaborate on having a few companies out there doing different things? how that will not lend itself in the future to rules of the road? in my mind, you will have companies emerged that are more blatantly violating the rules. political ads go over here. must have not

only privacy rules in place, but some rules of the road when it comes to political ads. can you elaborate on that answer? allow our we do not companies to make unsafe cars and just put terms and conditions on the outside of that car. we require seatbelts in all cars because it's important for safety. and when you look at industries that are important, cars, food, medicine, nuclear power, airlines, we have rules that require safety and to put consumers first, because it's very difficult for americans to get around if they do not have a car, therefore the car should be safe. it's very difficult for people to survive without food, therefore that food should be safe. in a 21st-century, it's nearly impossible for people to become general in the workplace and society at large without the use of the internet. senator klobuchar: ok. mr. wylie: absolutely.

if this is something that affects everybody everyday, then there should be some degree of accountability and public oversight. senator klobuchar: speaking of which, and then i will end here, i wereu and discussing algorithms. facebook made changes a few months ago. i always found it a useful platform to do some things that are not as caustic actually as we see in our politics. aboutr it is engagement veterans issues were something about a photo contest with all the people in our state. you get people to display the photos were things like that. you name it. i have seen a dramatic change in those kinds of more moderate posts about doing things with republicans, for instance, senator.

a dramatic change in those kinds this change in algorithm. to me, it seems like we should have a hearing on this alone, i think, that i am not certain that those companies should be deciding what political speech gets exposed. it seems like the most volatile i get on twitter when i do a post and you get more base retweets if it is really volatile. facebook has been a dramatic arege on the way the posts being shared, and who is commenting. i have the numbers. i have done my own sting isration, as pathetic as it to check different posts on different days before this change in algorithm. i know it is happening to me and i heard other members say it is happening to them. this is free speech in our own democracy as opposed to the russians. i will talk to facebook about it. i want it to work for everyone. can you comment about this

change in algorithms recently and what kind of speech it has reinforced? mr. wylie: the first thing i will say is the concern you have has nothing to do with distortion. when you look at what other sectors we regulate in financial , ifets or in competition there is potential disrupted distortions in the market, we regulate that. access to information people have an engagement with five commission which arguably is even more important. the information we consume to know what is happening around the world. of the specifics with respect to the changes in algorithm, facebook is still a company, and therefore it creates algorithms which prioritize engagement and penalize organic engagement, and whatwhen it is looking at pieces of information to show or

not show, your friend network or followers, things the algorithm suspects are going to induce more clicks or prioritize. senator klobuchar: they made a change in that somehow so it became more exacerbated. mr. wylie: yes, because the other thing you have to understand about the rhythms is they have no awareness. they continue to optimize. getting back to oversight, somebody at some point has to tell a companyd managing those on the rhythms and not appropriate to prioritize and not prioritize. senator klobuchar: if you are going to do a more moderate policy oriented post, you better pay for that to get that out there because -- for if you want -- or if you want to do a really polarizing posts, they will prioritize that. i get things go viral. i understand all that. i write my own tweets. somethingng you that

has dramatically changed and i am hoping they will look at that. >> if i may, because my final comments will relate to this -- part of what we have to talk about -- thank you, senator klobuchar -- part of what we have to talk about is these models came up with a purely at revenue ad-based stream. i am surprised that we had a member who was offended by the idea that the next generation model is having someone who engages on any social media platform to say i pay a certain none of theno ads, engagement that would be the target of these algorithms. as we go through these social media platforms, we have to be sure that suddenly -- i am somewhere between professor hirsch and mr. wylie on just how much we need social media to be a functioning society. >> i was not talking about paid ads.

a companyg about talking about how they will amplify unpaid. >> if that creates an interaction -- so, it would never become relevant if the industry moves to that model. we have to have a thoughtful conversation around this if we want to continue to have growing social media because we can talk about all the bad they have done, but also talk about life lives may have---- saved and crowd sourcing that prevented suicides. they will have to move to a different model in order to sustain themselves and provide people who want to engage a safer path of interaction. i would like, if i may, i would like to offer for the record without objection, a couple of the article as i mentioned from the m.i.t. technology review.

they were written in 2012 and mostly, they are talking about some of the uses of these tools and things we should be mindful of as we are crafting legislation, and i also wanted to offer for the record -- it's an editorial. i don't know if i agree with all the conclusions, but they have quotes that have been referenced that are important for people who want to come with a thoughtful outcome to the extent that government has to address the issues that have been legitimately -- without objection, they will be submitted for the record -- legitimately brought up. thank you for the extended hearing. we welcome your feedback. certainly, you should be tracking what we are doing here to form your own opinions about whether or not they are helpful or harmful to addressing some of the issues. this meeting is adjourned. [gavel bangs]

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