mr. dorsey. >> senator whitehouse. >> mr. dorsey same question, i will give it back to you. >> missed that. >> junior acting chairman. mr. dorsey. >> thank you. i mean if we're considering -- [inaudible] i think realization that centralized global content moderation system does not scale and we need to rethink how we, how we operate these services and i would point to, we certainly need transparency around any process that we have and around the practice and the outcomes of those moderations but i think having more control so that individuals can moderate themselves you know, pushing the power moved race to the edges and to our customers and to the individuals using the service is something we'll see more of. and i also believe that having more choice around how algorithms are altering my experience and creating my experience is important to being able to turn off ranking algorithms. being able to choose ranking algorithms that are found written by third party developers and somewhat of an algorit

mr. dorsey? >> we'll make our reports and findings public as well so everyone can learn. >> i look forward to reading them. i'm actually one member of the senate who will actually read them, so thank you. you look at some of the things, i know senator blumenthal wanted me to raise the question of putting them on a video. think of what it did. it called for the murder, the beheading of dr. fauci and directly the fbi christopher wray. think what that does. the fbi director travels with security all the time. dr. fauci is has family or private citizens. they were calling for his beheading. it was seen by thousands of people on facebook. if you're going to have somebody threatening to murder somebody, what do you do about that? i was a prosecutor. i prosecuted murderers, and we didn't have to face this kind of threat at that time. but what do you do when hundreds of thousands of people see a rea threat, go murder somebody. >> in that case, the threat violated our pocies. we took it don. as has been t

mr. dorsey, you can go first, then mr. zuckerberg. when you heard senator blumenthal's opening statement and mine, what did you get from it? >> well, i think you pointed out that we are facing something that feels impossible. we are required to help increase the health of the public conversation while at the same time ensuring that as many people as possible can participate. and in order to do so we need to make policies so that people feel safe, and they feel free to express themselves, so minimize threats of abuse of harassment, of misleading information, of organized campaigns to artificially amplify or influence a particular conversation. and that policy creation, that enforcement, is challenging, but also it is more or less opaque to the public and that's where i think we have a gap. we have transparency around our policies. we do not have transparency around how we operate content moderation, the rationale behind it, the reasoning. and as we look forward we have more and more of our decisions, of our operations moving to algorit

mr. dorsey? >> we'll follow up with determining the be course of action. >> thank you. and then we'll be following up on a series of qestions that i'd like to ask. let me get my head around some of the analytics information that i think you almost certainly have and hopefully willing to share. but we'll do that in a collaborative way in my office. thank you for being here today. >> thank you, we're going to take a five-minute break. i think our witnesses have requested a break. and they certainly have earned it. if that's okay with you, senator coons, we'll come back in about five minutes. thank you. ahead of the general election. we have multiple fact-checkers who focus on the spanish, as a nguage. >>> in the last four years, we have seen some unprecedented taxi on our democratic institutions, our social norms, the ways in which we conduct ourselves in this democracy. many would say on truth itself. and in today's society, you can't talk about truth without also considering the impact of social

mr. dorsey, you can go first, then mr. zuckerberg. when you heard senator blumenthal's opening statement and mine, what did you get from it? >> well, i think you pointed out that we are facing something that feels impossible. we are required to help increase the health of the public conversation while at the same time ensuring that as many people as possible can participate. and in order to do so we need to make policies so that people feel safe, and they feel free to express themselves, so minimize threats of abuse of harassment, of misleading information, of organized campaigns to artificially amplify or influence a particular conversation. and that policy creation, that enforcement, is challenging, but also it is more or less opaque to the public and that's where i think we have a gap. we have transparency around our policies. we do not have transparency around how we operate content moderation, the rationale behind it, the reasoning. and as we look forward we have more and more of our decisions, of our operations moving to algorit

mr. dorsey and mr. pichai can any of you and in that order zuckerberg dorsey and then pichai can you name for me one high-profile person or entity from the liberal ideology who you have censored in what particular action you took? >> senator ican get you a list. there are certainly many examples that your democratic colleagues object to win a fact checker might label something as false. >> i get that. it is want to be clear and is asking if you can name for me one hype profile person that you have censored. understand you were saying their complaints on both sides but i want one name of one person or one entity. >> senator i need to think about it but there are certainly many on both sides the aisle and people think we are making content moderation decisions. >> i think everybody agreed they could identify that maybe 10 more conservative examples. what about you mr. dorsey? >> we can give a more exhaustive list. again we don't have an understanding. >> i'm not asking for an exhaustive list. i'm asking fo

mr. dorsey. do you think there should be more transparency were algorithms. i'm off the ads now. i'm on just generically. part of this is people don't know how this data is going across across the systems and across the platforms and people are basically buying access has been my impression so that even if you say is unlike what is the news in the last 24 hours, old stuff comes up. something has gone awry from the beginnings of this. would it be helpful, do you think, if there was more transparency with algorithms? >> i do think it would be helpful but it's technically very, very challenging to enforce that i think a better option is to provide more choice to turn off the algorithms or choose a different algorithms so people can see how it effects one's experience. >> thank you. i ask that both of you look at the bill that senator kennedy and i have that the journalism competition and preservation act. to help the content providers negotiate with digital platforms. thank you. >> thank you. senator

mr. dorsey? >> first and foremost, the most important thing is that we build systems and frameworks independent of any one ks particular employee or individual in our company.mpany. and inclusive -- included in iu that system, are checkpoints. checkpoints to make sure that we are removing any bias that we find. checkpoints to do q and a and monitoring and all of the ls decisions that we make. having an appeals process which is an external checkpoint, whether we make correct action or not. of th we want to do something hi independent of the people we r hire so that is our focus. second, like mark, i'm really excited that we are at a stage e where we can decentralize our ee company even more.countr that we do not need people to move to san francisco. we can hire people all over thew country. they can stay wherever they wan to be, wherever they feel most creative. that's not just in this country, that's around the world.rced and i think the tools are in a i state where we can do that moren easily. s

mr. dorsey since mr.uckerberg went first last time and you can defer to a written answer if you would likes a my time is running very short. >> we will add to this conversation with a written answer. but i do believe that sin anonymity is important. we have usefulness with activist and with whistleblowers and i think that is critical. but, certainly there are times and it's judged by the severity of potential outcomes where we need to dig into identity and take actions. >> we will follow up with that and let me just ask you since my time has expired, mr. zuckerberg, to respond or have your organization respond in writing. thank you. >> thank you. before we -- senator whitehouse brought up something very important and i want to ask this as directly as i can. to facebook and twitter, do you have any internal research or evidence to suggest that your platforms can be addictive? mr. zuckerberg in. >> senator, i think we can follow up with a summary of research that we have, but from what i have seen so far, i

mr. dorsey for being here, mr. dorsey i'm going to address these questions to you, do you believe the holocaust really happen, yes or no. >> yes. >> so you would agree someone who says the holocaust may not have happened spreading misinformation, yes or no. >> yes. >> i appreciate your answers on this, they surprised me and probably a lot of americans after all they have done exactly this, questioning the holocaust and yet his tweets remain unclogged on twitter's platform, you and i agree that moderating your platform makes sense in certain respects we don't want the next terrorist finding information on twitter or any platform for that matter but you also decided to moderate certain content from influential world leaders, like your decision to do so a little bit better. can you name any other instance twitter hiding or leading a tweet. >> we have many examples. >> would you be willing to provide a list of those. >> absolutely. >> i know we've established content moderation in combating terrorism but twitter has a c

mr. dorsey, how about you? >> i'm not exactly sure what you're asking but we -- >> do you have a list of users or content creators who had somk adverse actions taken from them, having their ad altered becauset of the content of their post?nt >> certainly whenever we take an action, it's recorded somewheree in a database, but i'm not sure if -- from >> that's helpful. what i'm hearing from both of you is while there may not be an actual list, and i would like ac you both to look to see if such a list exist, but even if theret isn't there is a de facto list. i would like to ask both of you, if such a list exists, please send it to me. i'd like to see it. if such a list does not exist, you certainly do have the data necessary in or

mr. dorsey, you can go first and mr. zuckerberg.s opening statement and mine, what did you get from it? >> well, i think you pointed out that we are facing something that feels impossible. we are required to help increase the health of the conversation and insure as many people as possible can participate. and in order to do so we need to make policies so that people feel safe and they feel free to express themselves. to minimize threats of abuse, of harassment, of misleading information, of organized campaigns to artificially amplify or influence a particular conversation. and that policy creation, that enforcement, is challenging but also it is more or less opaque to the public and that's where i think we have a gap. we have transparency around our policies, we do not have transparency around how we operate content moderation, the rationale behind it and the reasoning. and as we look forward, we have more and more of our decisions, of our operations moving to algorithms which are -- have a difficult time explaining why they make d

mr. dorsey and mr. zuckerberg and the applications of these components to your sites. we are talking about 2020 elections but looking ahead to clean up what transpired before the 2022 election. it's fair to say y'all are probably fully aware there is great frustration with americans and with this committee in the way you act invincible and your employees act like you are the gods of the silicone valley. facebook and twitter is beginning to conduct yourself as news publishers and distributesors. we have asked if you are great transparency and accept more responsibility. you have chosen to do neither so it's up to us to hold you to account on behalf of the american people. section 230 the reforms we will put in place will take away this liability shield that you turned into an opaque wall that you and your moderators are hiding behind. the online freedom and viewpoint diversity act. i thank the chairmans for working with me on this. this is set up for a markup in this committee on thursday. mr. zuckerberg, you stated earlier we need to put definition in place. we will do

mr. dorsey, you can go first. then mr. zuckerberg.hen you heard senator blumenthal's openingng statemen, what did you get from it? >> i think you pointed out that are facing something that feels possible. we are required to help increase the public conversation while at the same time ensuring as many people as possible can participate in order to do so, we need to make policies so people feel safe free to express themselves to minimize the of harassment misleading information, organized campaigns to amplify or influence a partular conversation in the policy creation, that enforcent is challenging but also more or less for the public and that is where i think we have a gap. have transparey around our policies. weo not have transparency around how we operate content moderation and a we look forward,e have more and more decisions, operations moving to algorithms which have a difficult time explaining why they make decisions, bring transparency aund those decisions an that is why we believe we should have more choice and how the algorithm

mr. dorsey. jack: know i have not. >> i would encourage bothr. of u to see it. here's what i think were goi to do in the committee over time. my hope is to ask the question more dectly, the social media sitess addictive. do they have a public health component that needs to be addressed. forears without tobacco was a great thi without tobacco was not such a great thing. medical science around these websites becoming very concerning to me. jiggly hung children. that you can manipulate how any times you watch. you can set these in the media sites upo the people will constantly interac so the both of you, appreciate having before the committee. got a long way to go. i don't think the government needs to regulate what we think or what we say. but we've got to upper came here a land with this line of questions. do both of you support change to the reform a stion 230. the one i do. jack: yes. >> thank you ritaenator blumenthal. >> thank y mr. chairman. the main bring this down to very practical terms. w

mr. dorsey, , thank you both for being here w with us today virtually. and for improving your platforms serving people across the t country. there has been a lot of talk b today, many of us have been listening from our offices or online about the censorship of ideas, and news on y

mr. dorsey? >> yes, we do. we -- and we intend to learn from all of our experience with this election and bring all of that learning going forward to make it more robust. >> during the past election there was rampant disinformation on social media in spanish-speaking sites, repeating qanon conspiracies and false claims of election rigging. in my view, you need to do better. will you committee to taking steps to improve content modification for spanish-speaking communities before the georgia run off? >> senator, this is something that we're already working on and working on ahead of the general election. we have multiple fact-checkers who focus on the spanish as a language and we made sure that we translated our voter information center into spanish which we showed at the top of facebook and instagram to everyone who uses those products in spanish in the u.s. those are a couple of the steps we've taken and we're committed to this. >> yes, we will, in partnership with latinx civil rights groups. >> i would like t

mr. dorsey, he continues to say that we are -- continues to say that world leaders ought to have access tolatform. he has never censored the ayatollah for shouting "death to america," nor has he censored xi jinping or putin, but he has censored donald trump repeatedly. now, he can dispute what he wants to and have an opinion about the elections and how the elections played out, or if there was fraud in the elections with the way some of the ballots were mailed out or harvested. he can have an opinion. but, you know what? people are going to express that opinion regularly. i may not agree with you, but i am going to protect your right to be able to express your opinion. this is called free speech. they kind of jumped the shark a few times, if you will, when they rushed to take down something. i mentioned this in the hearing today, emily. i put something on the trump account ability project, that people ought to not be trumpisted -- accountability project, that people want to not be blacklisted because they worked with the trump administration. that tweet was flagged, and it said nothing abo

the media sensor all of this but the dam broke twitter ceo jack dorsey admitted under oath new york post laptop story was legitimate. >> mrzuckerberg and dorsey who censored new york post stories or throttled them back even wanted any evidence that "the new york post" story is part of russian disinformation or that those e-mails aren't authentic mr. dorsey. >> we don't. >> finally, twitter unlocked new york post account on friday. this was probably because twitter stock price took a massive hit this week. money talks doesn't it? but the week got even better for the president. a cascade of endorsements from cultural icons. golf legend jack nicholas nfl hall of fame quarterback bret favre that should definitely help there in wisconsin. and five time grammy award-winning hip-hop artist lil wayne trust me, he's big. the polls are tighter than they've ever been in the battleground real clear politics average it is a dead heat in florida north carolina, and arizona. and trump is within margin of error in pennsylvania and within striking distance in michigan, wisconsin, and minnesota. now personally, i believe trump is looking e

mr. dorsey, he world leadersay have access to this platform.er censored ayatollah for shouting death to america or has he censored xi utin, but he has censored donald trump repeatedly. now, he can dispute what he wants to and have an opinion about the elections and how the elections played out, or if there was fraud in the elections, with some of the way the ballots were mailed out, harvested. he can have an opinion, but you know what? people are going to express that opinion. i say regularly. i may not agree with you, but i'm going to protect your right to be able to express your opinion. and this is called free speech. so, they kind of jump the shark a few times, if you will, when they rush to take down something. -- thisned this and in the hearing today. i put something about the trump account ability project, that to be ought not blacklisted because they worked with the trump administration. or during the trump administration. that tweet was flagged. and it said nothing about the election and nothing about election results, but it was to th

mr. dorsey have policies against deep fakes or manipulated media against covid-19 misinformation, againsthings that violate civic integrity but not a misinformation policy, why not, helping to disseminate climb gnat denial liz many. it extends one of the greatest existential threats to our world. chris coons points was simple. people who disagree with chris coons are a threat to our world. they must be silent. who are the people chris coons doesn't believe should be allowed to speak in public? legitimate scientists who might have questions. chris coons is a lawyer who spent the last 20 years in government. everything he knows about climate he learned from an issue of atlantic magazine he picked up in the airport. he is a non-expert. you should the standard he demanded today in congress the social media experts sensor anyone who questions his shallow silly views on one of the most complex views of known science. that is not a moderate stance that is censorship. it doesn't simply kill expression though it does. censorship kills thinking and innovation and wisdom. censorship leads to self ce

mr. dorsey sate is all about the algorithms and people should be able to choose which algorithms they are using. on the other hand, mr. zuckerberg was saying it is about transparency and he is in favor of some government regulation of transparency. to see ainteresting trend in the direction of social media companies supporting government regulations. that is because they have felt like they've been under intense criticism for a long period of time when they tried to moderate content and they would like rules of the road to help them understand exactly what government once out of them. you saw both companies calling today for regulation. a better appeals process, more transparency, they would like to see regulation that would make that possible. for instance, in order for companies to be able to share more information with researchers and others, companies will need to have protections once they share that information. facebook might share data with the researcher at cambridge ended up in a massive scandal that resulted in significant fines and changes to the company's business practices.

mr. dorsey, does voter fraud exist? >> i don't know for certain. >> are you an expert in voter fraud? >> no, i'm not. >> well, why then is twitter right now putting purported warnings on virtually any statement about voter fraud? >> we are simply linking to a broader conversation so that people have more information. >> no, you're not. you put up a page that said "voter fraud of any kind is exceedingly rare in thean united states," that is not linking to a broader conversation, that is taking a disputed policy position, and you are a publisher when you do that. >> sean: keep in mind, both facebook and twitter enjoyed legal protections known as section 230, and that section virtually protects social media giants from being held liable like regular media companies because content posts posted by users -- not if they're editing it. that status does not extend to media outlets who publish or editorialize material, and i senator cruz just described, that is exactly what's happening at twitter and elsewhere. now according to one whistle-blower complaint, twitter, they are not acting alone.

mr. dorsey, have policies against deep fakes or manipulated media against covid-19 misinformation, againsts that violate civic integrity but you don't have a stand alone climate change misinformation policy. why not? helping t to disseminate climate denialism in my view further facilitates and accelerates one of the greatest existential threats to our world. >> tucker: that was to jack dorsey who runs twitter. chris coons' point is simple people who disagree with chris coons are quote an existential threat to our world. they must be silenced. so who are these people that chris coons doesn't believe should be allowed to speak in public? well, plenty of them would be credentialed scientists who might have legitimate questions about chris coons' global warming theories? chris coons is a lawyer who spent the last 20 years in government. everything he noses about climate he learned from an issue of the atlantic magazine he picked up at the airport news stand. chris coons is a nonexpert if there ever was one. under the standard he is demanding and demanded today in congress the social media mono

mr dorsey told the committee the company had labelled 300,000 tweets as misinformation during the campaignaccuracy warnings. here he is answering a question put by democrats — they asked if that went far enough? 0ur our policy is focused on misleading information and around the election on the civic process to provide greater context and to provide information so that people can make decisions around what's happening with the election and its three phases, if the run—up to the election, it election day and also the phase we are in right now, past election. so our policy is in enforcement and we are focused on providing more information. facebook‘s chief executive mark zuckerberg told the committee the company had conducted the largest election integrity effort by any firm in recent times. he was also asked about this group — stop the steal — which supported president trump's unfounded claims of voterfraud. by the time facebook took it down, it had grown to 350,000 members. here's what he had to say. 0ne one of ourtop one of our top priorities is making sure that people do not give them a p

mr. dorsey, who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report and whathe american people are allowed to hear and why do persist in behaving as a democratic super pac silencing news to the contrary of your political beliefs? >> we're not doing that. this is why i opened this hearing with calls for more transparency. we realize we need to earn trust more. we realize that more accountability is needed to show our intentions. amy: that's republican senator ted cruz questioning twitter ceo jack dorsey. this is republican senator mike lee of utah questioning google ceo sundar pichai. sen. lee: can you name for me one high-profile person or entity from a liberal ideology who you have censored and what particular action you took? usa from the campaign, compliance issues with world socialist review, left-leaning publication. i can give you several exames. sen. l: there a disparity between censorship -- using that as defined a moment ago -- between thcensorship of conservative and liberal points of view. it is an enormous disparity. amy: that is republican senator

mr. dorsey >> i think zuckerberg and dorsey both said they had not seen that picture.m of senate judiciary on this discussion of content moderation of facebook and twitter. david, not a lot of actual news out of it although dorsey did say that the week of october 27th he labeled that -- twitter labeled 300,000 tweets, about 0.2% of all u.s. election-related tweets and he's been pretty consistent in saying it's not the policy that's the problem. it's how twitter is communicating that to investor and americans. >> and continues to say improvement also continue. yeah, carl, i mean i thought zuckerberg's -- this interchange we had between senator graham and zuckerberg was interesting on the addictive quality of facebook or for that matter twitter and could have been asked to jack dorsey saying he doesn't believe that is the case although he is aware others say otherwise. it's not as though we'll have these conversations for years to come given the power of the platfors to shape public opinion. >> the power of these platforms, david, the wide-ranging nature of these convers

mr. dorsey are competent c.e.o.'s who know their businesses inside and out and it's time for them to get down to the knity gritty, explain what happened, how is it that their content moderation practices are still so full of holes as to allow a content moderator, a singling individual to put their opinion in front of a post, to panic and blast list and admittedly essential but certainly -- sen but certainly newsworthy story, without any evidence that it contained misinformation or hacked information or false or defamatory information. they did it because they could. they just did not like the story. the ensuing scramble to walk back that decision is an indictment of their internal moderation processes. whether it is algorithms or individuals, it is subjective. the people who are responsible for this owe us answers and we hope that the hearing tomorrow will help lead to those answers. it bears repeating that these companies are not just entertainment or social media companies. they have an inordinate amount of control

mr. zuckerberg, jack dorsey, you have built terrifying tools of persuasion and manipulation. >> we will makeakes. >> those mistakes happen a lot more on one side of the political spectrum on the other. >> answer the yes or no or i don't know. >> senator, i don't know. >> it is time we took action against these modern-day robber barons. >> mark zuckerberg facebook and certainly jack dorsey up twitter. they are both getting grilled on both sides. the democrats saying they are not doing a laugh on hate speech and the like an republicans saying they are doing too much to stamp out conservative thought and they want to put an end to it. the business and technology law attorney much, much more. this was a fair and balanced a beating for these guys. how did they hold up? >> they are like piÑatas. they keep getting dragged up on video feed and keep taking right and left hooks by republicans and democrats alike. this is an ongoing war on d.c. and big tech. temporarily diverge in terms of what their basic complaints are imputed they are in rare units in together in of the bottom line that chairman lin

mr. jack dorsey said oh, it was a mistake. just is unlike with the "new york post." oh, we reverted it. then mike lee said there is one thing about these mistakes they always, ainsley, seem to go one particular direction. ainsley: well, what happened, the reason all of this came to light is senator josh hawley he got a tip from a former facebook employee. steve: a whistleblower. ainsley: as you were talking about tasks. he says yeah, there is this coordinated effort between all three of these social media companies and they all coordinate censorship. well, the heads of these social media companies were grilled yesterday and both of them for twitter and facebook said no, that doesn't happen. in fact, jack dorsey, the problem is do we trust that they're actually going to fix the problem? no, i don't. because jack dorsey said yesterday, he said i am sorry that we did. this we made a mistake but, hey, the election is over. steve: they have been saying it forever. ainsley: exactly. it was a hunter biden story. then he says we fixed it after 24 hours. brian: that's not true. ainsley: if you a

twitters jack dorsey said mr.er get a special exemption from twitter after he leaves office. jim anderson is our social media guy joining us. gm, does that mean the president could be banned from twitter after january 20? >> , stuart. it does. this sort of feels and now the ball. if a ban, but a conflict and read-- major reckoning is inevitable. a president that doesn't back down and twitter has a set of rules and you heard from jack dorsey they have not been enforcing those rules against president trump because he is it president. the minute joe biden is sworn in president trump will then be former president trump. stuart: does that mean there will be more to quit the censorship of conservatives? >> you saw that yesterday, facebook bigger than twitter. twitters more in the news relating to president trump. this issue is not going to go way. jack dorsey said some days this feels impossible and i thought that was remarkably honest. you have one side saying you are censoring too much and suppressing conservative voi